My Lords, first, I thank the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, for her tribute to the Government in relation to adults who have been trafficked. We appreciate her comments. But we share her concerns, and those expressed by
other noble Lords, on the welfare of children who have been trafficked into this country. These are often extremely vulnerable children, who may have suffered tremendously at the hands of their traffickers. As recent work by the Refugee Council and the Children’s Society shows, these children can fail to gain the support that local authorities should provide. They should get the same support as other looked-after children; the legal duties to support them are the same. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, pointed towards that. Local authorities already have statutory duties to safeguard and promote the welfare of trafficked children. They should be treated and supported in the same way as a local authority should support any child whom it is looking after.
Parental responsibility in law is not required to fulfil the duties of a parent in practice. Where local authorities are failing in this duty, they should be held to account. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, pointed towards that, too. But requiring that they gain shared parental responsibility would not in itself bring the improvement provided. There was an interesting mini-debate about cost; the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, reassured the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, on that, and we are grateful for that.
Assigning parental responsibility could have unintended consequences. A trafficked child may well have a parent somewhere who already has parental responsibility for them. Although the local authority should act as a parent until the family is reunited, it should not automatically acquire parental responsibility towards that child. While it is clear that some local authorities are not performing adequately their statutory role to promote the interests of trafficked children, adding a requirement on them to seek parental responsibility for these children could create legal complexity without addressing the reasons for these failures. Instead, we believe that we must continue to pursue the programme of reforms to the care system that are already under way. As we implement these programmes to provide more stable placements, improved education and health outcomes and support towards independence and adulthood, I assure noble Lords that we shall take account of the particular needs of trafficked children. Already, for example, we have published revisions to statutory guidance on missing children which strengthen advice on identifying and meeting the needs of child victims of trafficking. The consultation on that has just finished, and we will take the comments from tonight into account in the final version of that guidance.
I mention to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, that the number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children has in fact dropped over the past two years, which is of course very welcome.
This is a very vulnerable group of children, and we fully recognise that. We understand what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and others are arguing. We will be very pleased to arrange a meeting with noble Lords to discuss this issue and consider whether more could be done. In the mean time, I hope that the noble and learned Baroness is willing to withdraw her amendment.