My Lords, as I came into the Chamber today I was approached by campaigners who wanted to highlight the concerns of mothers, kinship carers and academics about the devastation caused to children and their families by unwarranted forced separations—children forcibly taken into care or adopted unnecessarily. I hope that the Government will listen—the Minister is known to do so—and give careful consideration to all that is being said by campaigners and other noble Lords as we forge ahead with this Bill, and that they do everything possible to limit the lifelong traumatic impact that it might have on children.
I will focus my speech on children in care and care leavers. I welcome many provisions in the Bill, which seeks to safeguard and improve the lives of some of the most vulnerable children and young people in our society, including those in or leaving care. Like other noble Lords, I passionately believe that we have a moral duty to support, protect and nurture children in care. All too often, children enter the care system with the terrible legacy of abuse and neglect casting a shadow over their lives.
I commend the Government for taking the important step of defining the principles of corporate parenting, but this needs to be clarified. It is vital that we get the support right for care leavers, but also that we ensure that children who are currently in care are offered the right support at the right time and in a manner of the child or young person’s choosing. Therefore, as has been said by other noble Lords, we must make every effort to address the mental health and emotional well-being of looked-after children. I urge the Government to include specific measures in the Bill that will improve the well-being of children in care.
As I have said in previous debates, with the support of the NSPCC, children entering care should be adequately identified and receive an assessment of their mental health and emotional well-being by a professional with specialist training in the mental health of looked-after children. That is so important. Also, the corporate parenting principles should include the responsibility to ensure that the children are offered the support they need to recover from the psychological harms caused prior to entering the care system. Provisions must be made to guarantee that children in care will never be denied access to, or disadvantaged when trying to access, mental health services, never be told
that they cannot get professional help because they are not in a stable placement, or disadvantaged if they move to an out-of-authority placement. Shocking statistics show that 40% of those in prison, under the age of 21, were in care as children—so, too, were 25% to 30% of the homeless population.
Children who have been abused or neglected could face long-term mental health problems throughout childhood because of the lack of support, so it is essential that we can deal with difficulties early—as early as possible—and offer the right support. However, NSPCC’s It’s Time campaign found that there are not enough therapeutic services for children who have been abused or neglected. This is cause for major concern, as there are more and more reports of child sexual abuse occurring every hour. We have almost 70,000 children living in care. We need to take action now to protect these children, as well as support them with holistic, joined-up policies, and not allow them to slip through the net.
I will now focus on care leavers. I have long backed calls from Barnardo’s and other charities—I declare an interest as vice-president of Barnardo’s—that care leavers up to the age of 25 should have access to a personal adviser. The Bill makes real progress on this, which is very welcome. But, despite some important legislation in recent years, much more needs to be done to support care leavers, because the outcomes of the 10,000 young people who leave care every year are still much worse than those of their peers. They leave school with fewer qualifications, are less likely to get a good job, are more likely to be homeless, and are more likely to have mental problems, or even commit suicide. These young people deserve better life chances. So it is great that the Bill introduces a duty on local authorities to publish their “local offer” for care leavers. I welcome any steps that the Government take to make this clearer, because many young people do not know which services they can access. But, more seriously, in many places, services are simply not available to meet care leavers’ diverse and often complex needs. I plead with the Government to consider strengthening the Bill so that we can make the most of this unique opportunity to transform support for young people who have been in care.
Will the Minister include in the Bill a clear principle that all young people who have been in care are entitled to support up to the age of 25? This has to be made clear. It would place the onus on the local authority to reach out and offer support, rather than waiting for vulnerable young people to seek it out for themselves. Secondly, will the Minister consider extending the “local offer” so that it is not just a duty to publish a list of existing services, but to make an assessment of local care leavers’ needs and to provide services which are adequate to meet those needs? Thirdly, will the Minister include an outcomes framework in the Bill so that local authorities and the Government have to report annually on areas such as education, work, apprenticeships and mental health for children in care and care leavers?
I know the aim of this Bill is to improve children’s life chances, and it is on the right track, but the devil is in the detail. We therefore need to make sure there is
clear accountability in place so that we can drive forward improvement and give young people a proper chance to contribute to society in a dignified and meaningful way, not only for the sake of society but for their own children and generations to come—because, as I always say, childhood lasts a lifetime.
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