My Lords, what I would like to say follows on very well from the noble Lord’s very pertinent question. I am happy to support this amendment, which was moved so ably by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel.
A recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation document called We Can Solve Poverty in the UK, which was the product of a long and wide consultation, states:
“The prospects for young people leaving local authority care should be an overarching priority for government. Despite positive policy and legal developments, they continue to face unacceptably high risks of destitution and poverty”.
Destitution in 21st-century Britain for an extremely vulnerable group of young people really is unacceptable. As the noble Lord said, they are not getting by. In many circumstances, it is simply not possible for them to get by.
This amendment addresses some of the key policy drivers behind these very serious risks. The Government are rightly requiring local authorities to promote the best interests of care leavers up to the age of 25, yet their own policies fail to do so. I can see no justification for what surely must constitute double standards. There is a degree of acknowledgement of the arguments put earlier during the process of the Bill and of this case in Keep on Caring, which is very welcome, but I urge the Minister to go further today.
As already noted, no doubt cost will be cited. However, the costs are not prohibitive. Also, this needs to be considered in the context of another Joseph Rowntree Foundation report regarding the costs of poverty. It calculated that around two-thirds of total local authority expenditure on children’s services is attributable to poverty-related problems.
At earlier stages of this Bill, I quoted yet another Joseph Rowntree Foundation report, which looked at the links between poverty and the abuse and neglect of children. I quoted that report, which said:
“Poverty often slides out of focus in policy and practice”.
This amendment puts poverty back into focus and it addresses the severe poverty experienced by many extremely vulnerable care leaders.
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