My Lords, I have added my name in support of this amendment. I pay tribute to the work done by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and by the Children’s Society, to which he referred. Many noble Lords have benefited from the briefing provided by that organisation and it is a matter that it cares very deeply about. We in your Lordships’ House should also care deeply about it.
In July, the Government launched Keep on Caring, a strategy for cross-government provision. That was certainly welcome, not least because it contained the proposal to introduce a care-leaver covenant. The Government have characterised this as complementing the local offer that local authorities will be required to provide. However, it did not meet what we, and several organisations involved day-to-day in the delivery of social services to children, see as the need for a national offer delivered locally. I referred to this on the previous group of amendments. We believe that the national offer is necessary because of the patchwork provision that will be made by local authorities, so I would like to reinforce the arguments that I made on the earlier group.
I will not repeat the details of the national offer that the noble Earl outlined, but I want to refer to one or two aspects of it. There are four points, and the Minister, perhaps slightly unusually, replied to all four in a letter to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, before the debate. The noble Earl has kindly circulated that letter, and it is helpful for us to know what the Government’s position is. It is not exactly positive. None the less, it is helpful to have it outlined.
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The most important provision that the noble Earl mentioned is the council tax exemption for care leavers until the age of 25. Some local authorities have already begun to offer that, as the Minister mentioned in his letter, where he states:
“We believe this will encourage other local authorities to follow suit”.
That is all very well, but I am clear that the reason that the Government are unwilling to have a national offer which would oblige all local authorities to follow suit in this and other aspects of the offer is cost. If the Government were to do that, they would have to tell local authorities that they understand that there are additional costs—the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, mentioned £50 million a year, which is not a great deal in the grander scheme of things—but I suspect that they are not willing to make that commitment because they do not want to find the money. They are saying to local authorities: “We have given you money. We do not tend to ring-fence much these days. If you want to
make council tax exemptions, that is up to you: go ahead and do it”, so it is encouraged, but without any additional resources. Of course, if it is paid for out of local authority resources, something else has to fall by the wayside, so it could be one step forward and one step back for people in that local authority area.
I would like some detail about what North Somerset, Birmingham and Cheshire East have done and how they have accommodated that within their existing spend. That is an important point, because, as the Children’s Society said:
“Almost half of local authorities in England fail to offer care leavers financial education support and debt advice”,
leaving vulnerable young people at risk of falling into debt as they enter adult life. Everyone wants to avoid young people being hampered in that start. I had not heard of the noble Earl’s example before, but we certainly do not want the corporate parents sanctioning the young people for whom they have legal responsibility.
I also highlight the importance of allowing care leavers to claim the higher rate of local housing allowance, because of the punitive financial effect that occurs when people reach the age of 22, when they switch from the local housing allowance single occupancy rate to the shared accommodation rate. That is effectively about £33 a week in subsidy for rent, which is a large amount for many people living on the borderline and cannot be pushed aside lightly.
Those two aspects, and the other two to which the noble Earl referred, which I shall not repeat, make the point eloquently. We need a national offer because we cannot rely on local authorities to have either the willpower or the spending power to do what they should for young people leaving care. With that in mind, I am happy to support the amendment and look forward to the contributions of other noble Lords and the Minister’s response.