Childcare for Fostered Children

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Tuesday 19th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered childcare for fostered children.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this important debate, Mr Hollobone. In September, the Government extended free childcare for three and four-year-olds. The policy, which was widely welcomed, applies to all children whose parents work more than 16 hours a week and earn less than £100,000 a year—all, that is, except foster children, who are the only group of children excluded in this way.

When we ask any child what matters most to them, they tell us that it is their family and friends. A decade of working with children in care before I was elected to Parliament taught me that protecting and nurturing relationships is everything for them. The Fostering Network has already learned of children who have lost their nursery places as a result of the policy, because when they went into care they were no longer entitled to the additional funding. For so many children, their wider relationships with trusted adults and friends in a familiar setting are what sustains them most at the most difficult time in their lives. It is unthinkable that we should allow a policy that destroys those relationships to continue.

[The Minister for Children and Families (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

At the risk of being a spoiler, may I let the hon. Lady know that she will hear what she wants to hear when I make my speech?

[Lisa Nandy]

It is not very often that I am speechless, but I am extremely pleased to hear that. My hon. Friends and I will await the Minister’s speech with great interest.

The Government’s policy has created a terrible disparity. Under the scheme, foster carers have been able to claim for their birth children but not for the foster children in their care, meaning that of two children growing up in the same household, one can attend nursery and one cannot. A common thread running through the stories that children tell about the pain of growing up in care is the feeling of being marked out as different from other children. The exclusion of foster children from the scheme enshrines that difference and discrimination in Government policy. As the Chair of the Select Committee on Education, the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), has rightly said, that is indefensible.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Children and Families (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

Thank you, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) on securing this debate on the vital issue of ensuring that foster carers and families with small children have access to high-quality, affordable care. I expect there will be time for her to make some closing remarks when I conclude.

First, let me be clear that children in foster care should have access to the same support and opportunities that all children have. Our ambitions for children and young people during and after being looked after are the same as for any other child: that they have access to good health and wellbeing, fulfil their educational potential, build and maintain lasting relationships and participate positively in society. The role of the foster carer is central to achieving those high ambitions for the children in their care.

Around three quarters of looked-after children are in foster care. Fostering provides stability, a home and an alternative family. I have heard at first hand how children and young people in foster care want to feel part of a family and have a normal family life. We need to support foster carers and local authorities in a way that achieves that.

To meet the diverse needs of all looked-after children, we need to ensure that there is a wide pool of high-quality foster placements. Foster carers play a vital role in supporting some of our most vulnerable children, as we have heard, and this Conservative Government are committed to ensuring that foster carers get the appropriate recognition and support to ensure every looked-after child receives the high-quality care that they need. That includes foster carers being able to work outside their caring responsibilities if it has no impact on the child.

We have introduced the foster family-friendly employer policy, with the Department for Education leading by example in ensuring support and flexibility for its employees who foster. We have also commissioned the national fostering stocktake, a comprehensive review of the fostering system, which is now nearing completion. The stocktake is looking at a wide range of issues, including the recruitment and retention of foster carers and the support they receive, and the reviewers will report to me with recommendations this week.

Since the current exclusion from the 30-hours policy for children in foster care was brought to my attention, I have been looking at it carefully. I have instructed my officials to work up plans to allow children in foster care to take up the additional hours when it is right for the child to do so. We will work with local authorities, fostering service providers and others in the sector to ensure we implement this change in a way that promotes the best interests of the child. I will set out more detail about how we will deliver that shortly.

Many hon. Members referred to the 30 hours of free childcare, so it might be useful to give the House a short update about where we are on that. We are looking at January for the next intake.

[Lisa Nandy]

Before the Minister moves on to that very important issue, may I ask him about the timescales for this work? One of the great concerns that foster carers have is that if this is not begun immediately and implemented quickly, foster children may face another year of being excluded.

[Mr Goodwill]

We have already begun to engage with councils and The Fostering Network, and we will continue to do further work on the detail in January. We will involve fostering organisations and foster carers.

[Tracy Brabin]

Does the Minister have a date in mind for when all excluded fostered children will be able to use the 30 hours?

[Mr Goodwill]

I was just coming to that. We were planning to announce this in January, which would have given us a bit more time to do some of the preliminary work. The Secretary of State and I made the decision a couple of weeks ago that we should do this. We need to look at whether we need secondary legislation—I hope not. We also need to look very carefully at the role of social workers, because in some instances it may not be appropriate for the child to go to a nursery or a child minder. As we have heard, some children are deeply damaged, so it is important that we look at how we involve the social workers working with those children when we make that decision. There may be a small number of children for whom it is not the best possible way forward. September is a realistic opportunity. If there are no glitches along the way, I would like to think that we will have this in place by September.

[Lisa Nandy]

I am grateful to the Minister for being forthcoming with that information and for giving way so generously. May I urge some caution in relation to the role of social workers? Foster carers are under great pressure at the moment because of the financial constraints on local authorities, and I am extremely worried that the Government will inadvertently create a system in which there is financial pressure on social workers and an incentive to ration access to a scheme to help foster children. I worked with social workers in my career before coming to Parliament, and I say that in the knowledge that the vast majority of social workers have the best interests of the child in mind. Obviously, when they have a limited pot of funding, they have to be mindful of all the children they are trying to help. It is really important that the funding for this scheme is allocated according to the best interests of the child, not on the basis of rationing at a time when resources are scarce.

[Mr Goodwill]

I hope what I said was not ambiguous. I was certainly not talking about rationing access to the 30 hours in any way. The way we fund it is to do a headcount of children in January, so social workers will not see it impact on their budgets. There may be—or there may not, depending on how the consultation and conversation turn out—some specific situations where it is not appropriate because of the child’s experiences. It is important that we involve everybody, including the foster carers and the social workers, to check that it is in the best interest of the child in every case. In a small number of cases it may not be appropriate, particularly if the children have disabilities, unless the fosterers have been upskilled.

I talked to staff at a children’s services department in south London last week, and they are talking about upskilling some of their foster carers to look after children with particular difficulties or disabilities. In those cases, it may be appropriate, given that those foster carers are paid over and above the allowance they are normally paid. It is a limited number of situations. This is not about excluding children from access to the 30 hours; it is about including as many children as possible and ensuring the best interests of the child are always respected.

As expected, 30 hours has been popular with parents across the country since being rolled out nationally in September. I am pleased to be able to update the House that we have published new statistics for 30 hours, which show that about 202,800 children are in a 30-hours place. That is great news, and means that tens of thousands of families are benefiting from the additional hours of childcare we have made available to them. Demand remains high as we approach the next school term. I can also update the House that, as of last week, more than 305,000 codes have been generated for the spring term, and that 74% of them have already been checked by a provider. As with the autumn term, I expect those figures to continue to rise over the next few weeks. I ask hon. Members to encourage their constituents to take their code to their provider as soon as possible to secure a 30-hours place in the spring term.

[Tracy Brabin]

I appreciate the Minister’s generosity in giving way. I, too, have just seen the data that was released today. What has been put in place to encourage parents to register and get their code by 31 December in readiness for the spring term? One of the problems we encountered was that parents were missing the deadline. With Christmas and new year coming up, it is not always going to be the priority for parents, given that it is so far in advance. Will the Minister elucidate that situation?

[Mr Goodwill]

I am happy to. There are two situations here. There are the parents whose child is already in a nursery and who need to update and renew their code. We have engaged in communication, including by sending text messages to parents, to encourage them to do that. The nurseries themselves have been on the frontline of getting this to happen. Many of the children starting in January are already in paid-for places at the moment. It is very important that we continue to stress to parents that this is available to them. I am pleased that the uptake is in line with—and, indeed, exceeds—our expectations.

Hon. Members raised the issue of whether foster carers will fall foul of the spare room subsidy, as we like to call it on this side of the House. Foster carers are permitted to have a spare bedroom for the year following their approval or where they have a foster child within a year. That is not something that foster carers should worry about. I hope that allays the fears of anyone who has heard that.

[Carol Monaghan]

It is useful to hear that from the Minister, but I talked about when there are siblings involved. There are sometimes two, three or four children. How will that impact foster carers if they are allowed to have one spare room?

[Mr Goodwill]

Some foster carers specifically specialise in taking sibling groups. That is taken account of, in terms of the bedrooms that are available, to allow that person to take up their fostering places.

The hon. Member for Wigan, who instigated the debate, made a point about the cost of delivery and how many would benefit. I agree that the number of children who may be eligible is likely to be relatively small, given that we are talking about three-year-olds only. It would not be appropriate in every case and we want to ensure that our discussions with local authorities, The Fostering Network and others help us understand that further. We want to move as quickly as possible to delivery, which is why we will be continuing engagement in the new year.

A very important point was made about foster carer recruitment. It is right that foster carers get the support they need to meet the needs of the children they look after, including flexibility to work when that is right for the child. As I mentioned earlier, we have introduced a foster family-friendly employer policy, and the national fostering stocktake will look at recruitment and retention and will report at the end of the year. The message I get from social workers up and down the country is that when we look at the numbers of foster carers, we appear to be in a reasonably good position, but for certain specialisms—large sibling groups, children with particular needs or disabilities—we need to ensure that we have the foster carers in the right place with the right skills.

I will talk a little about the kinship care children, who were mentioned by one contributor to the debate. We want children in foster care to be able to take up the additional hours when it is in their best interests to do so. That may well be appropriate in kinship care arrangements with approved foster carers. However, it would not be appropriate in every case, which is why we have said that we need to do further work on how we deliver this, as in the other cases.

[Tracy Brabin]

Just to be clear, is the Minister saying that some children with kinship carers will not be eligible for the expansion from 15 to 30 hours?

[Mr Goodwill]

The point I am trying to make is that in some cases with kinship carers, as with children in foster care, it may not be appropriate for the place to be taken up. That might be as a result of particular needs or a trauma that the child has gone through, so it is important that we ensure that if the best interests of the child are served by not taking up the place, we can deal with that in different ways. Indeed, tremendous support is given to foster carers in cases where they have to deal with such specific problems—I pay tribute to the dedication of foster carers dealing with some of those very damaged and difficult-to-help children.

I am pleased to see the real impact that 30 hours is having on families’ lives. For example, a parent from Bolton who is starting 30 hours from January told us:

“I applied through the online system to get my code, it was really easy to apply…I got my code straightaway. If I wasn’t getting 30 hours, it wouldn’t be worth me going back to work—most of my wage would’ve been spent on childcare.”

Building on the positive findings from the early delivery area evaluations, published in July and August, I am looking forward to next summer, when the evaluation of the first year of delivery will be published to understand further the impact of 30 hours across the country.

In conclusion, as can be seen, the Government are investing in the early years to ensure that our country’s children are given every opportunity to fulfil their whole potential. I am proud of how the 30 hours is transforming families’ lives. Parents up and down the country are enjoying more time with their children, more money in their pockets and less stress because the 30-hours programme is cutting the cost of their childcare. I am also delighted with our ongoing work to improve the support available to foster carers. As I have said, my officials are actively working with local authorities, fostering service providers and others to ensure that children in foster care are able to take up the additional hours where it is in their best interests to do so.