Children and Families Bill

My Lords, I have put my name to the amendment. I think that I could sum it up by saying that it would turn accommodation into care, and it is care that is needed. It is not surprising that children in this situation go missing, because the only people whom they know are those who have trafficked them. If they are given the means of staying in touch, as so often they seem to be, they will respond to a contact or make contact themselves. It seems that very often the first thing that happens is that they are given a mobile phone and instructed: “You keep in touch with us”. Whether this is the right way of going about it I do not know, but I have heard those around me who have much more recent or, indeed, current local authority experience muttering, “But the local authority has to do this”. Well, let us find a way of making sure that the local authority does more than what fulfils cold letters on paper and actually produces the service.