My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Bakewell and Lady Howarth, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, for their amendments in this group, which focus on improving the life chances of children in care and care leavers and helping them to avoid poverty and debt. I share the concerns raised by noble Lords and can confirm that reducing poverty and debt will be one of the key themes in our forthcoming Care Leavers Strategy, which we plan to publish shortly.
Amendment 26, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, seeks to add a new corporate parenting principle to Clause 1 requiring local authorities to promote early intervention. I agree with the noble Lords that we should support measures that enable professionals to identify and intervene in cases where children are at risk of poor outcomes. We have launched a number of initiatives to encourage early intervention and have backed this up with increased funding, with government spending on early years and child care rising from £5 billion in 2015-16 to over £6 billion by 2019-20. Early intervention and support should benefit all children, not only looked-after children or those on the edge of care. Our plans for the early years demonstrate our clear commitment to universal services such as free childcare, alongside targeted support for the most vulnerable.
Amendment 27, tabled by the noble Baroness, also seeks to add an additional corporate parenting principle to Clause 1 which would require local authorities to have regard to the need to protect children in care and care leavers from poverty and destitution. We know that care leavers often face challenges with debt. We have heard from them that they worry about how they will be able to pay their rent and that they often feel they lack the relevant budgeting skills to be able to manage their money effectively. We have heard several examples of that today.
I recognise the importance of the issues raised by the noble Baroness. Care leavers already receive support to help them to manage their finances but all young people should receive financial education. I am pleased to confirm that we will include further information in the guidance that we plan to publish under Clause 1 on how, by working within the spirit of the corporate parenting principles, local authorities can help care leavers to avoid poverty and debt. We should cover in the local offers the importance of financial education and we will cover this in our guidance.
During the last Parliament we introduced junior ISAs and encouraged all local authorities to increase the leaving care grant, which care leavers can use to
furnish their first home, to £2,000 or more, but we need to back that up with educating them on how to manage those monies. We also provide financial support to enable care leavers to access and participate in education, to which I referred earlier.
Turning to the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, I understand that its effect would be to extend the category of persons eligible for income support to all care leavers up to the age of 25 and to extend the exemption to the local housing allowance shared accommodation rate from 22 to 25, when their entitlement to housing benefit is assessed. I have consulted with honourable and noble Members elsewhere in government about the noble Earl’s amendment to relax entitlement conditions for receipt of working tax credit for care leavers working at least 30 hours per week. It has been a condition of entitlement to the working tax credit since its introduction in April 2003 but, other than for individuals, including care leavers, who are responsible for a child or who are disabled, a person claiming working tax credit must be aged 25 or over and work at least 30 hours per week. There are already a number of existing provisions within the benefits system aimed at helping care leavers, and I would be happy to write to the noble Earl setting these out in more detail.
On the noble Earl’s suggested change to housing benefit, it is right to say that the rate of housing benefit to which care leavers are entitled changes when they reach the age of 22 and they move to the shared accommodation rate. However, as he will be aware, discretionary housing payments continue to be available via local authorities if additional financial help with housing costs is needed. The Government have already committed £870 million in discretionary housing payment funding over the next five years. Noble Lords will appreciate that this is a significant sum of money to help those who are vulnerable and require additional help with their housing costs.
The amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, would amend the Local Government Finance Act 1992 so as to disregard care leavers from liability for council tax up to the age of 25, ensuring that dwellings occupied solely by care leavers are exempt from council tax. This amendment would provide a blanket exemption for all care leavers under the age of 25 irrespective of their personal circumstances or their ability to pay. If we did so without taking their ability to pay into account, we could find that a lower income tax payer could be supporting a care leaver with a higher income. I am sure that is not the intention behind the amendment.
The Government have been clear that such decisions are much better taken at local level instead of mandating exemptions or discounts from the centre. We have given local councils wide powers to design council tax support schemes, including scope for discounts for particular groups of people. It is therefore a matter for local authorities, which must consult with local communities on their proposals. Concerning the corporate parenting principles, they would impact on all local authority functions, including those relating to council tax or housing, and the guidance will set out
how local authorities must ensure that they take holistic decisions in relation to looked-after children and care leavers.
I turn now to Amendment 50, tabled by my noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, which would place a new duty on local authorities to provide suitable accommodation for all care leavers in their local authority area until the age of 21. There are already a range of measures in place that help young people secure suitable accommodation when they leave care. The government’s statutory guidance states that when a young person leaves their care placement the local authority must ensure that their new home is suitable for their needs and linked to their wider plans and aspirations.
I would expect a local authority’s leaving care team to work closely with housing services to help care leavers access supported lodgings or semi-independent accommodation—or, if they are ready, secure and maintain an independent tenancy. Where care leavers struggle to find and maintain accommodation, they have a priority need within the homelessness legislation until age 22, and they are also a priority group within statutory guidance on the allocation of social housing.
We have also introduced, as the noble Earl will be aware, Staying Put to enable young people to remain living with their foster carers where that is what they both want. This provides both suitable accommodation and the sort of gradual transition to adulthood that is enjoyed by the majority of young people. We want to maximise the number of young people who can stay put with their former foster carers and I am delighted—and I am sure that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, will be pleased to hear—that for the year ending March 2015, almost half of those who were eligible to stay put did so.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, raised the issue of Staying Put for those care leavers who have been placed in residential care. We are committed to helping all young people successfully move to adulthood but we would need strong evidence before introducing Staying Put on any alternative residential care. Sir Martin Narey’s independent review into children’s homes will set a direction for how we improve children’s experience of residential care, including transition to adulthood. We will publish this report shortly. We have also been trialling innovative approaches to providing care leavers with suitable accommodation. We are also keen to test new ways of supporting those who leave residential care and will set out our plans on this in the forthcoming Care Leaver Strategy.
Finally in this group I will respond to Amendment 80 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth. The amendment would place a new duty on local authorities to appoint a person to make advice and information available to previously looked-after children with a view to improving their life chances. This Government share the noble Baroness’s belief that society should do all it can to ensure that a difficult start to a child’s life does not set them on an inevitable path to poor educational outcomes, homelessness or imprisonment. However, we do not consider that it is necessary or desirable to place a new burden on local authorities to appoint officers to support these children and young people.
There is a clear difference between this group of children and looked-after children or care leavers for whom the local authority is their corporate parent. These previously looked-after children will have parents or persons with parental responsibility who can provide a stable and loving family, support them to do well at school and provide extra help through the transition into adulthood and living independently. Most local authorities also already provide specific ongoing support for those who leave care under an adoption, special guardianship or child arrangement order. To help them in this role, we have already extended the adoption support fund to children who leave care under a special guardianship order. This is helping to ensure that their parents and local authorities are able to provide them with the therapeutic services they need to overcome their early disadvantage.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, asked me to take back these points and discuss them with my colleagues across government, which I will do, and, in view of the points that I have made, I hope that the noble Lords will feel sufficiently reassured to enable them to withdraw their amendment.