The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Josh MacAlister)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Tom Collins) for securing a debate on this important matter. Like him, I recognise the enormous contribution that kinship carers make to children’s lives. This Government are committed to helping more children grow up in safe, stable and loving homes within their family networks, wherever it is in the child’s best interests.
I want to begin by acknowledging the incredible commitment and generosity of kinship carers. By opening their hearts and homes to some of the country’s most vulnerable children, they are transforming the future generation. We should not underestimate the life-changing difference that kinship carers make every single day to children across this country. Kinship children and families need support to navigate the very challenging circumstances they find themselves in.
Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)
The Minister is giving a comprehensive answer to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Tom Collins). My constituent Natalie had seven nephews and nieces brought to her door and was told by the police and social services that it would be really good if she could take them in. She was then told that she was not entitled to any support whatsoever because it was a family arrangement, but she had not made the arrangement herself. She is a hero for taking those children in. I accept that multiple campaigns state what kinship carers should be entitled to, but would the Minister agree that in this circumstance with these unambiguous details that she absolutely should get the support that she is entitled to?
Josh MacAlister
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. It is because of stories exactly like that one—from aunts, uncles, grandparents and other relatives across the country who often step into these children’s lives at sometimes no notice, waking up one morning to find that they are now responsible for very young children, sometimes babies and newborns—that I recommended a whole series of changes when I undertook the independent review of children’s social care in 2022. In that review, I described kinship carers as the “silent and unheard majority” of the care system.
Under this Government, they are now being heard.
I will set out a few of the things the Government are taking forward now and in the coming weeks to change the situation for kinship carers across this country. To ensure that family networks and kinship care are always fully explored—there are good examples in Northern Ireland, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned, and elsewhere in the UK—we are legislating right now to require all local authorities to offer a family group decision-making process such as a family group conference to all parents, or those with parental responsibility, whose child’s case has reached the pre-proceedings stage. That will bake in the need for services to engage proactively with the whole family network, not just parents, to establish whether the family themselves have a better answer for looking after that child than the care system. That, more than anything else, will probably be the factor that shifts the culture within children’s social care to put the initial focus on kinship networks.
That will be backed by the roll-out of family network support packages so that councils can fund some of the more informal arrangements that are a way of avoiding the need for children to enter the care system.
Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)
My hon. Friend was a big advocate for kinship carers before becoming a Minister, and he still is. Kinship care is incredibly hard for everyone involved. It often arises from really difficult circumstances, and the family members who make that commitment often give up a lot to do so. Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to Sue Nash, a local volunteer in my constituency who runs the Peterborough Kinship Care Group, which provides support to kinship carers all across Peterborough and North West Cambridgeshire and assists them in sharing best practice and learning among one another?
Josh MacAlister
I would be absolutely delighted to recognise Sue Nash and the amazing work that she and so many others are doing across the country through kinship support groups.
The Government have supported the charity Kinship to run 140 peer support groups and training packages across England so that kinship carers have a platform to support one another and navigate the complex systems that sit around the kinship family system. We widened therapeutic help for children through the adoption and special guardianship support fund, for which I recently announced an extension of two years and a 10% increase so that we can continue to meet the needs of adoptive and special guardianship families. We have introduced the first national definition of kinship care, published statutory guidance and appointed a national kinship care ambassador.
We will continue to go further. I know that many kinship carers face financial hardship. That is why the Government will very soon launch a large trial, which will represent the largest single financial investment in kinship carers this country has ever seen, to test the impact of providing a weekly financial allowance equal to the national minimum allowance for foster carers in a number of local authorities across the country. The allowance will not be means-tested and will not impact benefits such as universal credit.
Melanie Onn
I thank the Minister for the serious consideration that has been given to this pilot. It is exceptional. We heard from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) what a difference financial support makes. I congratulate the Minister on making sure that this happens for these families, who are not asking for the earth—they’re really not. They just need a little bit of help, and they want that money to go towards the children they are looking after.
Josh MacAlister
I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning that. The tireless campaigning of so many kinship families over the years has led the Government to the point of setting in train these changes, which will be announced in full very soon. The fantastic work done by the all-party parliamentary group on kinship care, which my hon. Friend chairs, means that we are now in a position to take these steps in the next few weeks.
Through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, we are legislating to require every local authority to publish a clear and accessible kinship local offer setting out the support available to kinship carers and children. The national kinship care ambassador will provide support and expertise to help local authorities to implement that new national duty, and will shortly release a national report summarising learning generated through engagement with the sector. That is the first step in creating a national kinship standard for a consistent kinship care framework across the country, tackling directly the current postcode lottery in support.
My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester raised the importance of kinship carers having employment leave rights equal to those of parents who are adopting. I reassure my hon. Friend and the House that the Government are considering that. We have launched a review of the parental leave system, and it is clear that kinship carers, and the parental leave to which they are entitled, are within the scope of the review. I thank all the carers who have taken the time to respond to the review. We will also improve data by adding a kinship indicator to the schools census in autumn 2026, and launch the first national study focused on children’s experiences in kinship care.
It is vital to ensure that children have someone advocating for them in education. We will ensure that the virtual school head role has statutory footing for children in kinship care in 2027. Of course, the generational reforms to special educational needs and disabilities announced today will support many children in kinship families. We know that the legal routes through which kinship care arrangements are made can be confusing, and carry different assessments and entitlements to different forms of support, which is why we have asked the Law Commission to review the kinship legal frameworks. Together, those actions show how serious the Government are about ensuring that kinship carers, children and families are recognised, supported and valued.
On the specific issue of identification for kinship carers, I am aware that there is an existing campaign promoting the need for kinship carer ID, led by Kinship Carers UK. I thank that organisation for the work that it has undertaken to shine such an important spotlight on the issue. It is of the utmost importance that our national health service and other public services have robust systems in place to ensure that parental responsibility is recognised quickly and efficiently in all situations in which a child is no longer being cared for by their parents, whether temporarily or permanently. It is concerning to hear of instances in which vulnerable children have been denied access to appropriate and timely medical treatment because of a combination of existing processes failing and a lack of understanding by professionals about kinship care.
The issue of professionals not understanding kinship care is not unique to health services. Just last week, I was in Newcastle speaking to kinship carers who told me about their experience working with their children’s schools, and the continued need to re-explain the status of their special guardianship order. I have also heard of cases in which kinship carers have copies of their SGOs, but professionals still seek further verification of the validity of those documents. The challenge is not simply to have a document that sets out parental responsibility or the role that a carer has in a child’s life, but to ensure that services understand the nature of the orders. I agree that we need a clear way for kinship families to demonstrate where they have parental rights, and that it is a recognised and accepted process wherever it is needed. However, the more pressing concern is ensuring that professionals across all our services recognise and understand kinship care.
I am committed to having conversations with Kinship Carers UK, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Ministry of Justice, and local authority colleagues to explore the best way to ensure that the situation of kinship children and their carers is recognised and understood, and that they get the support they need in a timely manner, ensuring that public services do not add more stress during what can already be extremely stressful times. Across the House, we agree that kinship carers are remarkable people who step in during extraordinary circumstances and times to give their kin a safe, stable and loving home within their family network. We all agree that it is not acceptable that there are situations in which children are experiencing unnecessary delays in receiving important medical treatment or other public services, due to challenges in providing the legal status of the guardian.
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s contribution to this debate. He is a strong advocate for kinship care, and I thank others for their interventions. I look forward to speaking to my hon. Friend in future about the progress we are making for kinship children and families, and to working with him on the specific issue of ensuring that kinship carers and family members are able to prove parental responsibility as easily as possible, so that they can step up and step into the lives of those children readily and easily.
Question put and agreed to.