Support for Kinship Carers

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Thursday 14th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Munira Wilson]

Absolutely, and I am grateful for that intervention, because the right hon. Member makes a case that I have made throughout, whenever I have talked about kinship carers: the Government cannot afford not to provide this support. The analysis shows that if we paid kinship carers a similar allowance to foster carers, for every child that we prevent from going into care, the Government would save £35,000 a year. It is a no-brainer because of both the short-term savings to the Treasury and the long-term savings, in terms of the more positive outcomes that we achieve for those children.

So what opportunity stands before us with the national kinship care strategy? It provides a key opportunity for the Government to deliver financial and educational support to children in kinship care that will be truly transformative. Kinship carers cannot wait for another spending review or a different colour of Government.

My Kinship Care Bill, introduced last year, had four main asks, and I hope that the strategy will make significant progress towards implementing each one. First, all kinship carers should have a weekly allowance at the same level as the national minimum fostering allowance. Many experience severe financial hardship. Kinship’s survey last year found that two in five kinship carers had avoided putting the heating on, one in five skipped meals and more than one in eight used food banks. A national, non-means-tested allowance would end the system of patchy, means-tested allowances that reflect a postcode lottery in the support that councils can afford to provide.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I apologise for missing the beginning of the hon. Lady’s speech, but I know that she has campaigned very effectively on this issue. Does she not agree, though, that the particular challenge with means testing in this space is that so many kinship carers are grandparents? They are retired and they have savings, but they need those savings for themselves and their retirement. It is vital that we have a system of support that recognises that particular challenge.

[Munira Wilson]

Absolutely, and that is why we need a consistent system applied across the board that is not dependent on the political persuasion of a local authority or what means it has to support kinship carers. I have come across many grandparents who are using up their life savings and people who might be about to retire and are having to quit the workforce sooner than they wanted. Kinship carers come in so many different shapes and sizes. That is why a proper means-tested allowance and national rules governing that is so important. The critical thing is that money should not be a barrier to a family or a friend taking in a child who is part of the wider family, because such barriers can lead to a child being forced into local authority care.

Secondly, kinship carers should be entitled to paid employment leave on a par with adoptive parents. Kinship’s “Forced Out” survey found that four in 10 kinship carers had to leave work permanently and a further 45% reduced their hours after becoming a kinship carer. Those carers are disproportionately women and are over-represented in healthcare, education and social care, which simply exacerbates our workforce crisis in public services.

Thirdly, the Bill proposes extending greater educational support to children in kinship care such as pupil premium plus, virtual school heads and a higher priority in school admissions.

Fourthly, there should be a definition of kinship care in statute that will help carers and councils to better understand who a kinship carer is and what support they are entitled to.

The Government’s response so far on the first of the three core asks has been disappointing, and “Stable Homes, Built on Love” has provided little hope. The Government have simply said they will “explore the case” for a mandatory financial allowance for kinship carers who possess a legal order. I am intrigued to understand more from the Minister about what “explore the case” means. Perhaps he will shed some light on it today. Will we see a cost-benefit analysis and an impact assessment? Are civil servants working actively on the issue, or are we talking about a couple of emails and phone calls?

I am pleased that the Government have adopted wholesale the definition of kinship care that was proposed by the Family Rights Group and have put it out for consultation—it was the same definition that I used in my Bill. However, the definition will have clout only if it is put into legislation and has statutory rights or entitlements attached to it. Simply putting it into guidance will likely not resolve the poor recognition and understanding of the term.

We cannot have another strategy that ducks the big decisions and kicks them into the long grass. Even if the plan has no spending commitments, which would be an absolute disaster, there are some steps that the Government could take to significantly improve the lives of kinship carers.

On data, our ability to make the case for greater investment in kinship care is greatly hampered by confusion over how many children live in kinship care and where kinship carers work. The latest estimate that 152,000 children in England live in kinship care comes from a University of Bristol analysis of the 2011 census.

In April, I wrote to the UK Statistics Authority to ask whether the Office for National Statistics intended to publish figures from the 2021 census. It replied that the Department for Education formally requested data on kinship carers earlier that month and that it would provide an update on that later in the year. I understand that that data might be published later this month. Will the Minister confirm that? Will it include information on the demographic make-up of kinship carers and their labour market patterns?

Meanwhile, parliamentary questions that I tabled reveal that, although the Ministry of Justice publishes how many special guardianship orders and child arrangement orders are granted each year, it does not know how many children are currently subject to one. What more will the Minister do to ensure that his Department, the Ministry of Justice, and local authorities have accurate information on the number of children in kinship care?

On therapeutic care, I know how important the adoption support fund was to my constituent, Kim, who used it for her granddaughter’s attachment therapy. However, Kim was in the uncommon position that her granddaughter was previously looked after before she went into kinship care. That meant she was entitled to ASF and also to pupil premium plus. As I told the House during my debate in October, that creates a totally perverse incentive for families to allow children to go into care so that they can receive additional support. Will the Minister review the eligibility criteria for the schemes so that more children in kinship care can qualify? Could the name of the adoption support fund be changed to acknowledge that kinship carers can also apply?

On legal aid, the Department has committed to

“work across government to explore…options for an extension of legal aid with kinship carers with SGOs and CAOs.”

Again, I would be grateful if the Minister explained what “explore” means as we seek to plug the gaps in legal aid provisions, particularly when children’s services first reach out to prospective kinship carers.

The Government must remember that one in three kinship carer households is non-white. Ethnic minority children in kinship care are less likely to have a legal order. I recognise that a legal order may signify that the caring arrangement will be stable and permanent. However, if the Government restrict all their support to children in formal kinship arrangements, they risk widening ethnic disparities. Will the Minister confirm that the strategy will be accompanied by an equalities impact assessment, so that the risk can be mitigated?

This debate comes in the context of increasing anxiety about the financial stability of many local authorities across England. As we have seen in the press lately, some are in a catastrophic position with their finances. The strategy must not impose on local authorities various well-intentioned duties, pilots and instructions to change their culture without giving them the resources to implement them effectively.

I will end with a reminder of why we are all here and of the families whose lives we are trying to improve. Kim was one of the first kinship carers in my constituency to contact me. She is the special guardian of her granddaughter. She says of her experience:

“We are fortunate to have an understanding of the system now and can advocate for our granddaughter. However, the emotional, financial and physical price has taken its toll! Even 5 years into our Special Guardianship Order and with the help that we have been able to access, my granddaughter really struggles with any change…On a personal level, we have had to give up our roles as grandparents and become her parents. We have done so gladly but there are moments when we do grieve for those lost roles that we will never get back.”

April, which is not her real name, spoke to me about caring for her nephew after his mother passed away. She says:

“Little did I know that [by] giving my sister peace of mind as she faced leaving her small children, and [by] giving my nephew the security and care he desperately needed, I was unwittingly stepping into a ‘private arrangement’ with zero support.

We want to focus on the positives. It is a positive [that] we’ve got a new family member. But if we have to worry about financial things or [other] support…We don’t want to have to do that. I want to give him the very best childhood.”

Many of the kinship carers who are watching the debate from the Gallery will have similar testimonies. Indeed, last year I hosted an event in Parliament for kinship carers and heard many moving stories. I also met kinship carers in Sutton a few months ago. Although every story and every family is unique, the themes I have set out today, including the barriers and challenges kinship carers face in the system, are often a common thread. People are so exhausted from fighting against them.

I invite right hon. and hon. Members to come to tea in the café after the debate with me and the kinship carers here today to hear at first hand about their experiences. They and I now look to the Minister to make sure that the upcoming kinship care strategy will be truly transformational. By stepping up for kinship carers, we support every child to get the very best start in life, no matter what their background.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) on securing the debate and bringing to the attention of the House all the costs of being a kinship carer, as well as illuminating the tremendous value they represent and the real difference they make to the children they bring into their immediate family and circle. I also congratulate her on her speech. I join her in paying tribute to the new Minister, who has a strong background that touches on all the issues we may consider today, most notably performance in school, outcomes and achievement. He will also be looking to ensure that the children in our care have every opportunity to thrive.

I pay tribute to the Government for bringing forward the kinship care strategy, with the tremendous potential therein to bring the sector into a much more sustainable and fair place. They have acknowledged that historically the sector has not had the focus and recognition it deserves, merits and needs, so I really welcome the sea change that we all hope to see. I praise East Sussex County Council for the work it does in this space—indeed, its support was recognised by the kinship carers I met most recently—and I pay tribute to the council’s team as they endeavour to meet the challenges and support kinship carers across East Sussex, and Eastbourne in particular.

The hon. Lady is right to recognise that across the House there is not just increasing recognition of this kinship care but an earnest desire to see change and reform. Ultimately, this place is all about creating the environment in which this youngish generation can rise up and take their place. We are all about the business of making the world a better place, and enabling children who, for all sorts of reasons, cannot and should not stay with their parents to move to the security, love and continuity offered often by their grandparents, but also by their wider family, is surely a really important policy objective for us to try to achieve. As she said, we must ensure that finances are never the barrier, because in my estimation, if a child can remain within the love of their family, it is the very best place for them, in many instances, to recover, and then thrive.

We know that, over and above almost every other circumstance or opportunity, the support of family is defining. We know that applies to every child from every background and every socio-economic setting. It is a defining factor in physical health, mental health, educational outcomes and life chances, so every effort should be made to try to secure the wider family stepping up to welcome in children who, for all sorts of reasons, cannot and should not stay with their parents.

In that light, the urgency that the hon. Lady described is the question of the day. We are agreed that family represents the best opportunity for children, and that kinship carers have been overlooked for too long. That urgency and pace is before us, so we await the strategy and for a number of recommendations to find form. The scale of the challenge is deep and wide, with 162,000 children cared for by their kin across England and Wales. To give a measure of the scale and scope of this sector in the shadows, that is more than double the number in foster care.

As we have heard, grandparents are of course the most common kinship carers, but grandparents increasingly have to work until later in life. The tension and the pressure of working is one very real barrier and obstacle to their being able to reach out and provide a full-time home to a child. There are perhaps more children in private arrangements that are not included in the official figures, and in such cases finance and support do not find their way to them. The census has really important information, which I hope will soon come to light, to help us to understand the scale and scope of the challenge before us.

On the financial issue, one of my constituents who attended the meeting that I arranged with kinship carers told me that she fears losing her job; she cannot get the parental leave she needs to care for her granddaughter, but without her job she cannot provide for the granddaughter she wants to offer a full-time home to. That is an excruciating tension. And another constituent described the mental anguish caused by years of court battles.

In my constituency, there is a really strong support group led by Wendy Turner, who is here with us in the Public Gallery today, so in addition to recognising the hon. Member for Twickenham, the Minister, the Government and MPs from across the House, I most particularly recognise kinship carers themselves in this really important debate, because it is their stories, their testimonies, that will really and truly land the change that we all desire. I commend them for that.

[Mr Robin Walker]

I could not resist the opportunity to pay tribute to the local kinship care group in my Worcester constituency. Kinship Carers UK, which is led by Enza Smith, has campaigned hard on this issue and first drew my attention to some of the concerns. One of the issues that the group has raised is the status of kinship carers and recognition of that status, which I think is addressed in the Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Twickenham. There is a concern that when kinship carers take a child they look after for NHS care, they may not be able to take decisions in the way that a parent could. They can find it very difficult to work with the health service and other public services because of the distinction between parents and kinship carers. Is it not very important that we come up with a very clear definition of kinship carers and a clear way for them to identify themselves and their relationship to their charge, so that they can access all public services effectively?

[Caroline Ansell]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention; he makes an excellent point. Some means of recognition is needed, not only in healthcare but in all the different arms and institutions of public services, not least in schools, because recognition enables far swifter decision making, which is surely in the best interests of the child and those caring for them. There must be a way to achieve that recognition of status, and I look forward to the Minister telling us how such an innovation could help to rationalise the whole experience of kinship care, so that we can better address the challenges.

Interestingly, one of the members of the group of kinship carers that I met talked about guidance on how to navigate the quite complex bureaucratic situation in which they found themselves: they are responsible for a child, yet are not in a decision-making role. As an example, we spoke about a guide that had been established for the Homes for Ukraine scheme, interestingly enough, in which there was a step-by-step and issue-by-issue walkthrough to help people who were bringing Ukrainians into their home, showing them how they could navigate some of the complex systems that exist and where they could find support. The point was made to me that there is no handbook for kinship carers. There was simply a call, sometimes in the middle of the night, and then sometimes there was a social worker on the doorstep at any hour of the day, saying, “Over to you.”

Regarding some of the issues around passports and access to medical records, we can surely bring some sanity to bear on the bureaucracy, which just provides another layer of challenge and adds nothing to safeguarding or child protection. When we have put a child in the care of a family member, we should most certainly empower that family member to make decisions on behalf of the child. The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester made in his intervention is very well made.

While their costs are no different and their challenges certainly of similar order, unlike foster carers the vast majority of kinship carers find themselves without a minimum financial allowance to assist with the covering of expenses. The current state of financial support for kinship carers is both insufficient and marked by significant variations, not always hinging on the specific needs of the kinship families, but rather being subject to legal and geographical disparities. If we bring a new understanding to bear, surely we can create something much fairer. The current system unintentionally—perversely even—encourages kinship carers to transition into foster carers, as this is often the sole path by which they can access reliable financial and other forms of support. That does not align with the best interests of the child. The repercussions, beyond the emotional and psychological, of this lack of financial support are profound and affect both families and the state. According to the 2022 annual survey report “The Cost of Loving”, six out of 10 kinship carers reported resorting to borrowing money, taking out short-term loans, or relying on credit cards for everyday expenses in the past year.

For every 1,000 children raised in kinship families rather than placed in local authority care, the state saves £40 million and enhances the lifetime earnings of the children by £20 million, so the statistics say. I know that there are very serious pressures on children’s social care, even in my own county. A mark of this is that, just this last financial year, for the first time the cost of children’s social services outweighed the cost of adult social care. This is a very significant development: not only has that cost now overtaken that of adult social care, but its trajectory is set to escalate exponentially. We know through our work on the Education Committee that the care sector is under massive pressure, to the point where providers in the marketplace are able to charge what they will, leaving county councils competing for places. Kinship care is, in part, an answer to that very real, sustained pressure on services. Surely it merits significant investment.

Before I came to this place, my career was in education, so I know the impact that family support can have on children and young people. It was too often the very parents I needed to speak to who did not come to parents evenings. Children who have been taken from mum or dad and out of the family setting for very good reasons have experienced trauma. The fact that that is not more recognised in school is, to my mind, a burning injustice. They experience challenges with their focus and stamina, and their ability to concentrate is affected because they come from a place of trauma. It is really that clear. They need additional support as urgently as possible, because with every year of lost learning, it is exponentially harder to recover and recapture that learning.

The effects of those early years can last a lifetime if we do not rush in with more support. Schools are the strongest partners for kinship carers when it comes to rescuing these children. I am hoping the Minister, perhaps today, but ultimately as we approach the strategy, will have some encouraging words around what new provision and recognition we might see in schools, because they are important partners too.

In addition to the financial support I have spoken of—the pupil premium plus—I long to see employment leave to facilitate kinship care, particularly at the start of the placement, legal aid to take the sting out of court battles, and recognition of the work of local authorities and a just settlement, so that they can more ably meet the needs of families in their areas. I look forward to seeing progress, recognition and investment for all of those things.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (David Johnston)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I thank all the Members who have played a part in this well-informed debate today. I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) on securing this debate and those she has secured previously. She says it is traditional for those in my role to resign a few days after she has had her debate; I will try my best not to do so, but it probably partly depends on how this debate goes. I also commend her staff member Andrew, who is soon to depart, for all the work he has done in supporting her on this. It is such an important issue, and I too am pleased to have kinship carers in the Gallery—Wendy and others—with whom I hope I can have a little chat at the end of the debate.

I wholeheartedly share the hon. Member for Twickenham’s commitment to championing the important role of kinship carers. They play a vital role in the children’s social care system and in the lives of children up and down the country. Too often, they play that role without people knowing or appreciating it. I think we all agree that too little attention has been paid to this area of kinship carers for far too long. We are determined to change that.

About 17 years ago, I did some mentoring through an organisation that helped primary school children who were showing behavioural problems in the classroom as a result of what was going on at home. I was matched with a nine-year-old boy who had been removed from his parents due to what was going on at home and placed on the child protection register. He had been placed with his gran. In this mentoring capacity, the mentor would take the mentee out each week to do fun activities—football, ice skating, swimming and things like that—while trying to work with them on the behaviour they were exhibiting in school.

When I picked the boy up at the beginning of the day and when I took him back at the end of the day, I got a glimpse of the incredible role that his gran was playing. She was in her 60s, she had raised her children and this was not what she had expected to be doing—a number of Members have said this—and yet, through boundaries, discipline, nutritious food and stable bedtimes, she was transforming the little boy’s behaviour far more than was the weekly session I was having with him. That was my first experience of the incredible role that kinship carers play, so I am determined that we should do as much for them as we can.

I will now set out the steps that the Government are taking to improve the position of kinship carers. Towards the end, I will try to answer as many of the questions as possible; for any I do not cover, Members should feel free to intervene, or I will write to them afterwards.

When a child cannot remain with their parents, wider family and friends can offer a safe and loving alternative to being looked after and having to move in with strangers. We have discussed how many people are in kinship care, and at this moment in time about 110,000 children in England are being brought up in kinship care, many of whom would otherwise be in local authority care if members of their extended family network had not stepped in. The census data was mentioned, and our 110,000 figure comes from the 2021 census information, which was published in July. I am happy to show Members the source of that after the debate.

Living in kinship arrangements can offer a stable and permanent option for children. Maintaining connections with family and the people they love can contribute to a healthy sense of identity and belonging. Hon. Members will know that I am passionate about social mobility and closing the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers, and, as has been touched on in part, children living in kinship care, on average, achieve better GCSE results, have a greater chance of being in employment and experience better long-term health outcomes than children who grow up in foster care or residential care. For example—this has been quoted already—in 2021, it was found that 69% of adults who experienced kinship care were in employment, compared with 59% or 48%, respectively, for those with a history of fostering or of residential care. The average attainment 8 score for those with a special guardianship order was 33.5, compared with 22.2 for looked-after children. The data therefore backs up the experience that Members have been sharing.

Not only does kinship care offer better outcomes for children—which is the primary concern of everyone present—but it makes better economic sense. Investing in kinship care is considerably more cost-effective for local authorities than paying for residential care homes, for example. I therefore want to create a system that not only helps kinship arrangements to take place, but actively supports kinship families to thrive. What I do not want to hear any more of is the gruelling system that the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) is having to go through with Lyle.

The independent review of children’s social care highlighted the lack of focus on kinship care from successive Governments. It has been a problem for some time. The review made a number of ambitious recommendations, which we hope will increase the number of children who can remain within their family networks. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell) touched exactly on the Government’s focus, which is that children should remain with their families if they can, although that will not always be possible. Where possible, that is our primary focus: we want children to be with their immediate or extended family, before they have to go into care homes or other less desirable situations.

The strategy sets out six pillars of action, including unlocking the potential of family networks. In July, we announced that we will start implementing family network support packages through the £45 million Families First for Children pathfinder and family network pilot. Family network support packages will look at how to use financial and other practical means to unlock barriers to family networks being able to provide support for children to stay safely at home. As has been touched on—this is perhaps more relevant to the debate—we have also made a commitment to implement or explore the recommendations on kinship care. I stress to Members that, as I said to my team as soon as I was appointed, we will have no slackening of the timetable. We will publish the strategy before the end of the year, whatever it takes. It will set out a long-term vision for kinship care and how we can better support carers and children. I will not be able to set out all the details of the strategy today, but I will set out some of the progress we hope to make.

I wholeheartedly agree with right hon. and hon. Members who have highlighted that kinship carers need more support than is currently available to them. We have developed a twin-track system, whereby there is much more support for foster carers than there is for kinship carers. There is no great logic to that; it is just where successive Governments have focused their attention. We are trying to bring the two together. Part of that is about helping people to connect with other kinship carers, which is why the Department has supported kinship families through our £2 million partnership with the charity Kinship, whose good work has already been commended, to deliver high-quality peer support groups for kinship carers. Those groups are already supporting kinship carers, and we hope that 100 peer support groups will be established by January 2024. Also to come will be a whole host of face-to-face and online training, and useful resources—some of the things that Members have talked about—to provide access to the type of independent guidance and support that people can get in other areas already.

The independent review of children’s social care recommended a financial allowance for special guardians and carers looking after children under a child arrangement order. I think we all recognise the strain that many kinship families are under, and we are exploring the feasibility of mandating a financial allowance for kinship carers in every local authority. I chaired the national implementation board this week, and some of the local authority representatives said that a number of local authorities are already providing such an allowance. Part of our limitation here, which I will come to, is about data, as some Members have touched on. Part of exploring the feasibility is to get a picture on exactly who is doing what already, but I agree with the hon. Member for Twickenham and my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne that finance should not be a barrier, particularly when we want children and young people to remain with their families.

We recognise that there has been a lack of a consistent, recognised definition of kinship care, which can make it difficult to know whether people are in a kinship arrangement and what help they are entitled to. In “Stable Homes, Built on Love”, we published a draft definition of kinship care and sought the views of people with lived experience, as well as those of professionals and charities, on whether the definition helps to create an accurate understanding of kinship. I am grateful to those who have responded to the consultation, and the definition has been pretty well received. I cannot commit to introducing legislation at this time, but the feedback we have had so far has been positive.

Legal support has been mentioned. Again, kinship carers sometimes have to pay extraordinary amounts of money to get the legal advice they need, even though they are doing something that society should want them to do and should enable. From May this year, the Ministry of Justice extended legal aid entitlements to prospective guardians making applications for special guardianship orders in private family law proceedings. We predict that that will benefit thousands of potential kinship carers.

On workplace entitlements, it is important to recognise the employers who are already providing paid leave and so on, and have been doing so without the Government mandating them to do so. Wherever that is possible, we welcome it. The kinship strategy will provide an update on our commitment to explore workplace entitlements for kinship carers.

On pupil premium, which my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne touched on, at the moment, children who live with special guardians and were previously looked after by the state are eligible for pupil premium plus, a non-means-tested, non-income-tested benefit. Kinship children who were not previously looked after but have been entitled to free school meals can get pupil premium in the usual way that other children can if they have been eligible within the last six years. We constantly review and assess the effectiveness of pupil premium to ensure that it is supporting the children most in need of it.

Briefly on admissions, in 2021 we introduced changes to the school admissions code to improve in-year admissions. That enables kinship carers to secure a school place for their child in year if they cannot do so by other means.

Finally in this area, children who are living with special guardians and have previously been in state care can access therapeutic support via the adoption support fund. Last year, we made that support available to children who live with relatives under child arrangements orders. We are looking to improve local authority engagement with the adoption support fund, to increase the proportion of eligible kinship carers—

[Andrew Gwynne]

I am grateful to the Minister for covering this point. It is not quite as simple as he is making out, because a number of local authorities—my own included—make it very difficult for people to access those services through that fund, unless they have gone through all kinds of hoops and loops with other statutory services prior to making an application. Will the Minister ensure that all local authorities understand that the message coming from him is that those services should be available to kinship carers?

[David Johnston]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for that point and I will certainly do that. He made a point about assessments, which I will come to. Again, they should be simpler than they have been in his experience.

My Department is also working with Ofsted to improve the visibility of kinship care in inspection reports. Through updated guidance and inspector training, Ofsted will make it clearer that reports should refer to the quality of support being provided to kinship carers and children in kinship care arrangements.

Let me try to rattle through as many of the questions as I can. We have touched on data. I have given the 2021 census figures, but data collection is something that my officials are really working on, because there just has not been enough. Not having that data is inhibiting our ability and some of the things that we want to do in the strategy.

I was asked whether there will be an equalities impact assessment. Yes, there will be a thorough equalities impact assessment as part of the forthcoming strategy.

On the bureaucracy that my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne referred to, part of the setting of the definition is to ensure that agencies are better able to provide the right support and remove some of the hurdles that kinship carers experience. We hope that the peer support groups will support that work as well.

I just touched on the point made by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish about assessments. LAs have the statutory responsibility for assessing kinship carers, because they have the legal duty to safeguard vulnerable children, but those assessments should be proportionate and prioritise the best interests of the child. I encourage local authorities to think about how their assessments could be adapted to be more supportive, and we will reiterate that in our strategy.

I need to leave a little time for the hon. Member for Twickenham to wind up. I thank her again for securing the debate, as well as previous ones, and I thank all hon. Members for their contributions. The debate has rightly focused on the issues that all too many kinship carers face. I put on the record my thanks and admiration for every one of those kinship carers—including Members of this House—for their selfless contribution to the lives of the children they care for. It is a huge commitment, but such an important one. I am proud of the progress that we are already making to support kinship carers, but I know there is much more to do, and that is what the strategy will contain.

I am fully committed to reducing the barriers to kinship care where it is in the best interests of the child and can offer a safe, stable and loving alternative to their becoming looked after. I look forward to publishing our kinship strategy before the end of the year. As I set out, that will be an opportunity to begin to make meaningful and lasting change in the lives of kinship carers and their children.

2.55 pm

[Munira Wilson]

I thank the hon. Members who co-sponsored my application for the debate and all those who have participated in it. The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) said that he gets nervous when this issue comes up because it is so close to home, but I urge him: please do not stop talking about it. His passion, love, devotion and dedication to Lyle makes what he says so much more powerful than anything that I or anybody else says, because it comes from the heart and personal experience, and it is always so moving.

I was heartened by the level of cross-party consensus, not least from the new Minister. I was delighted to hear his commitment to the issue and his recognition of some of the key issues we raised. I feel encouraged. I know, however, that the stumbling block for the strategy will be the Treasury; my sense is that children tend to be a much lower priority for it. I make the Minister this offer: if he needs any help lobbying the Treasury, I, and I suspect Members from all parts of the House, stand ready to work alongside him to make the case and ensure that kinship carers and children in kinship care get support.

I do not think that I heard much about employment leave. Again, if the Minister needs to work with the Department for Business and Trade on that, I will be happy to support him in any way. We can follow up the detail of some issues in correspondence, but he started to address many of the questions that I and other hon. Members raised. We look forward to seeing the strategy, and hon. Members from all parts of the House will continue to work alongside him and to champion this issue.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved.

That this House has considered the matter of support for kinship carers.