Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Baroness Barran Excerpts(1 day, 8 hours ago)
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Lord Nash (Con)
The care sector is slightly different, for the reasons people have mentioned. But what are we going to do—nationalise it for nothing? Are we going to become a communist country? Are we going to pay for it, and if so, where will that money come from? Anyway, even if you deal with the ownership issue—obviously, I do not agree with the idea of nationalisation—threatening people who operate them with fines just does not seem reasonable. That is why I support the amendments on limiting fines and not applying them to natural persons, as opposed to corporations.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 140A, in my name, and propose that Clause 14 do not stand part of the Bill.
Before I turn to my own amendments, I add my support to my noble friend Lady Sanderson’s Amendment 134A. As we have heard, it would bring much needed transparency to the children’s homes market and help to level the playing field for smaller and larger providers. Of course, this transparency would help the negotiating position of local authorities and regional care co-operatives in future. I thank my noble friend Lady O’Neill of Bexley for making it real and giving us very practical examples.
Equally, the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, made important points about the level of profit in the area of supported accommodation. As I understand it from the CMA report, it has some of the highest margins in the sector and today provides about two-thirds or three-quarters as many places as children’s homes do, at just over 6,000, or 7% of the market for looked-after children.
Amendment 141, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, seeks, as we heard, to extend the profit cap to independent special schools. As the noble Lord understands extremely well, this is a very complex area, and one has to be careful, given the range of provision. Some of these homes offer short-term respite to foster carers, for example, so any changes would need to be thought through carefully to avoid unintended consequences.
Along with others, and not just on my Benches, including the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, I cannot support Amendment 174, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. Our starting point is that there needs to be greater capacity to limit price increases and ensure a choice of suitable care. We were very clear when we were in government that we do not condone profiteering in this market, but we have concerns about how the transition in Wales will work to a market where there are no for-profit providers. Obviously, the problem of very high pricing will only be exacerbated, as my noble friend Lord Nash just explained, if sufficient new capacity is not created quickly or even if capacity is withdrawn. Such an approach cannot be considered in England until the Government have invested in new, not-for-profit or social enterprise capacity, whether that be in the local authority or in the voluntary sector, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, very ably outlined.
I confess that it is slightly curious to be in a position of challenging the Government’s attempts to regulate and limit the profits of some actors in this industry, which have rightly drawn criticism from the CMA, local authority leaders and indeed many in your Lordships’ House. My amendments to this clause and the others in this area are definitely not about defending a group of companies that can well defend themselves; I am simply trying to test the viability and impact of the Government’s proposals. It is important, because there is such a level of frustration with the behaviour of some of the actors in this sector that we risk having a confirmation bias that anything we change it to will be better. We need to test these proposals and be confident that the solution the Government propose will work.
As we have discussed at numerous points in Committee, there is a fundamental problem with the lack of residential care capacity, whether that be in relation to fostering, children’s homes or supported accommodation. The Competition and Markets Authority described the current shortfall as a “fundamental failure” in market functioning, imposing, in its words,
“severe limitations on the ability of the 206 local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales, who purchase placements, to engage effectively with the market”.
We need a clear plan to address this shortage. My fundamental concern is that the measures in Clauses 12 to 18 will not have the desired impact that the Government seek—and that, across your Lordships’ House, we all seek. Amendment 140A is simply an example of why I do not think the plan for a financial oversight regime as presented in the Bill has been properly road-tested and that we can have confidence in its impact.
New Section 30ZI, to be inserted by the Bill, gives the Secretary of State the power to arrange for an independent business review by an external qualified person. You would assume that, in such cases, almost the first thing that they would look at, if it existed, would be the recovery and resolution plan set out at new Section 30ZG, but it is not even mentioned. There is a list of things that they should look at, but the recovery and resolution plan is not mentioned. It would be fundamental for them to look at that plan, given that it covers, according to the Government, the
“nature and extent of any risk to the financial sustainability of the person … the action the person proposes to take”
to address this, as well as
“impacts on local authorities, and children”.
That makes me lose confidence that this has been properly thought through. I hope that the Minister can either add it to the list of things that independent business reviewers will look at, or, more importantly, reassure me and the Committee that this area has been properly considered.
My opposition to Clause 14 standing part of the Bill is probing. The proposed financial oversight scheme for children’s social care represents part of the regulatory response to the market failures identified by the CMA. As with many parts of the Bill, much of this scheme will be set out in regulation. The scheme requires information from parent undertakings, but, as the Minister knows, private equity structures are notoriously complex and opaque. I wonder whether she is concerned whether providers might restructure to minimise oversight burden—how will the Government mitigate this? I am not clear how the scheme will address jurisdictional limitations on enforcement for offshore-based organisations. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain that, or write to me if the answer is particularly technical or it is not at her fingertips. It is reasonable to question whether the DfE has or will acquire the specialised financial and private equity expertise needed to analyse complex corporate structures and financing arrangements effectively—I think this fly in the Chamber has been sent in by a private equity firm.
Similarly, is the Minister confident that local authorities have the capability to respond to advance warning notices? Is she concerned that the act of alerting local authorities about the financial fragility of a provider could lead to them withdrawing placements, leading to the financial collapse that the scheme seeks to avoid? I would be grateful if she could set out how the Government think that the contingency planning will work. I wonder whether the Government have had conversations with providers about how they expect to create realistic plans, given the prevailing market conditions. Surely existing supply shortages will make rapid replacement extremely difficult, and emergency placement costs are already unsustainable.
There are a lot of questions about the impact that this will have on the shape of the market. Will it actually result in more concentration in the market, because the 40 largest providers will have gained the confidence of local authorities? Could it result in financial pressures on smaller providers where there is less transparency?
Baroness Barran
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 135 to 138C in my name. Clause 12 introduces the provider oversight scheme, which, according to the department’s policy summary, creates the ability for Ofsted to act at scale and pace when there is poor quality in multiple settings and agencies owned by a single provider group. It will require providers of two or more homes or agencies to implement an improvement plan where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the registration of two or more of their establishments or agencies should be cancelled.
We support in principle the approach of giving Ofsted the power to intervene at a group rather than an individual home level. However, I have three main concerns about the clause. My overarching concern is that this approach may not be effective in getting providers to meet the required standards. Rather, I fear that it risks turning into a letter-writing competition between Ofsted and the providers. I am thinking of a similar approach to independent schools that do not meet the independent school standards, frequently in relation to the teaching of RSHE. These schools face sanctions, and they are required to improve and present a plan for meeting the standards. But during my time in the department, despite the best efforts of officials, the names on the fairly long list barely changed. I appreciate that the context and the reasons for non-compliance are different, but I hope the Minister can convince me that this regime will be more effective.
Secondly, the policy note talks about required standards not being met. Surely there is a spectrum of standards breaches: some that will require the cancellation of the registration, as the Bill is drafted, and some that will require an improvement plan. While I understand that Clause 12 is intended to sit alongside the existing regulatory regime for individual homes, it is unclear how they will mesh together. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain that.
My Amendments 135 and 136 would require an immediate inspection where the breaches of standards indicate concerns about the safety of children. My Amendment 137 would encourage Regulation 44 visitors to make an unannounced visit to establish whether there are lower-level breaches. If these are established, the visitor could make a recommendation to Ofsted about what they have seen—which, of course, it is not obliged to accept. The idea I am trying to get across is that having immediate eyes and boots on the ground, so to speak, is essential where there are serious safeguarding concerns.
I remember a case from when I was in the department where two homes of a particular children’s home group were judged to be inadequate. I requested that all the other homes in the group should be immediately inspected, and that happened. The Minister may say that these amendments are not needed, but it would help to have on record the Government’s explanation of how they expect this to work in practice.
Thirdly, my Amendments 138A to 138C would require the department to communicate with local authorities that might be commissioning a provider, where there are concerns, to make sure that these are shared. I appreciate that this might be difficult in reality. But as we just discussed, there is a similar provision in the financial oversight regime, so I assume this is something the department has considered.
Finally, I have a number of specific questions that sit behind my Amendment 138, which might form the basis of some tidying-up government amendments on Report. I do not expect the Minister to have the answer to every one of these; if she would like to write to me, that is absolutely fine.
On page 18, line 8, how is “reasonably suspects” defined? Is that from a recent inspection—and if so, how recent—or is it from wider intelligence? Secondly, how is an individual with
“a significant role in the management of the parent undertaking”
defined? Is that a director? Do they have to be registered at Companies House? What happens if it is an offshore holding company?
In new Section 23A(7) on page 19, line 3, can the Minister confirm that the Bill is correct where it says:
“The period mentioned in subsection (4)(d) must not be less than … 28 days”?
Should it not say that it must not be more than 28 days? I read this about eight times and am still not clear on what it means. The point is: do we not want to receive improvement plans as promptly as possible?
Should new subsection (8) not clarify that the CIECSS—or Ofsted to its friends—can withdraw an improvement notice only if it has strong evidence that it is no longer needed? What evidence does the Minister expect Ofsted to require before it withdraws an improvement notice? In new Section 23B(2), on line 22, should it not be clear that Ofsted must inform the parent undertaking and any subsidiaries within 28 days, and should this not be mirrored for all the stages of the process?
Can the Minister confirm whether the timeline for the communications listed in Clause 12 will be set out in regulations? At the moment, it is not clear what the maximum time periods are for each stage of the improvement notice process, including for Ofsted to inform and respond to the provider. It would be useful for this to be as clear as possible.
In new Section 23B(5), I wondered whether a step is missing from the processes set out in the Bill. Surely the parent undertaking needs to inform the chief inspector when the plan has been fully implemented within an agreed timescale, which is currently not stated, and then the chief inspector should arrange for an inspection or take whatever appropriate action to confirm that that is the case. I beg to move.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
As always. That was the point that I was making. For all the reasons given, I would kindly ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Barran (Con)
I thank the Minister for her very detailed reply and for her commitment to write; that is much appreciated.
To respond to the Minister’s remarks, the reason for tabling Amendments 135, 136 and 137 is that the improvement plan is for the parent company or parent undertaking, but it is for when there are concerns about two or more of their establishments or agencies, in the language of the Bill. I understood that to mean, given the severity—that Ofsted suspects that there are grounds for cancelling the undertakings registration—there could within that be concerns about the safety of children in those homes. So the spirit of Amendments 135, 136 and 137 was that we should have really experienced people, either inspectors or Regulation 44 visitors, going in, not to inspect the parent—I am sorry if my amendments were unclear in that regard—but to inspect the subsidiary undertakings. Maybe when the Minister comes to write, she could just reflect on that point.
In the reference to Regulation 44, the amendment should have stated that
“Ofsted may issue an improvement plan notice”,
not
“the local authority may issue an improvement plan notice”.
Of course, the Minister is absolutely right—the local authority cannot issue an improvement plan notice. But again, it was just trying to get at the idea that, if there was a variation in the levels of concern and the level of breach, for a lower-level breach, a Regulation 44 visitor could advise Ofsted. There is an urgency, if it is thought that an undertakings registration should be cancelled, which will not be met by the improvement plan approach on its own.
In relation to the Minister’s remarks about Amendments 138A, 138B and 138C, I think the answer is that, if the process works reasonably quickly, the proportionality that she set out is completely reasonable. If it gets bogged down, and it comes down to, “We sent you a plan, Ofsted doesn’t think the plan is fit for purpose”, and it goes back and forth and back and forth, we would not get the speed that might be needed to prevent other local authorities commissioning a provider when there are grave concerns, as set out in the Bill. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Baroness Barran
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to limit the financial penalties that can be imposed upon the operators of children’s homes to exclude natural persons.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, Clause 13, as we have heard, introduces monetary penalties for non-compliance with an improvement plan or for running an unregistered children’s home or fostering agency. My Amendments 138D, 138E and 139A seek to exclude natural persons from the power to impose financial penalties on individuals involved in the management of these organisations. As my noble friend Lord Nash said earlier, there is a reasonable concern that this will result in a dearth of people who are prepared to take such a risk, particularly as the financial penalty regime is being set out in regulations and could therefore be altered at any point. Having said that, given that the fines, as I understand it, are currently unlimited, perhaps that is not the greatest worry, but obviously if that concern were to materialise, it would have an impact on provision.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
There is a deafening silence. I turn to group six and the amendments, all in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, which concern Clause 13: Amendments 138D, 138E and 139A. They seek to exclude natural persons from the provisions relating to the issue of monetary penalties. Clause 13, as drafted, gives Ofsted an additional power to issue monetary penalties to providers that have breached requirements set out in, or under, the Care Standards Act, including operating a children’s home without registering with Ofsted, which they could also prosecute as a criminal offence.
Ofsted will also be able to issue a monetary penalty to provider groups for failure to comply with new requirements set out in Clause 12 of the Bill. This measure will ensure Ofsted has a full range of enforcement powers so that it can act proportionately and at pace, which will act as a deterrent. This includes individuals who operate children’s homes, other establishments or agencies. It is difficult to see why a natural person running a children’s home, other establishment or agency should not be subject to the same enforcement powers as a partnership or organisation when they have breached the law, and where Ofsted could prosecute that natural person for the relevant breach.
Furthermore, based on data from Companies House, these amendments would result in Ofsted being unable to fine 10 individuals who currently operate children’s homes if they breached the law, compared with the 2,738 companies that operate children’s homes. Ofsted have told me directly that it strongly opposes any amendment that would exclude natural persons and limit who financial penalties can be imposed on for illegally operating children’s homes without being registered. Individuals will—and do—gain financially from illegally operating children’s homes without being registered, and should not be excluded from the potential consequences of doing so. All the discussions in Committee have been about protecting children and making sure that they are safe. We have to make sure that, in this area, in spite of the comments made by the noble Baroness, children and their safety are at the forefront of our minds. It is also worth noting that it is common in legislation for natural persons to be subject to financial penalties in the same way as operations and companies.
For example, the Tenant Fees Act 2019 enables fines to be imposed on landlords, who may be natural persons, for breaching the ban on letting fees being charged, and the Data Protection Act 2018 enables the Information Commissioner to impose fines on persons, including natural persons, who have failed to comply with various notices issued by the ICO.
I have already stated the reasons for the need and intent of these additional powers. However, I add that the clause ensures that Ofsted has an alternative to prosecution where that is currently the only enforcement action. Ofsted will not be able to impose a monetary penalty on a person for the same conduct where criminal proceedings have been brought against them in relation to that same conduct. Further, and importantly, to act as a deterrent and to ensure transparency for the public, the clause gives the Secretary of State the power by regulations to require Ofsted to publish details about the monetary penalties it has issued. Ofsted must also notify local authorities when a monetary penalty has been issued, as it is currently required to do in relation to other enforcement action it takes. A monetary penalty may be used by Ofsted as grounds for cancellation of registration.
I assume it will come as no surprise to the noble Baroness that I will have to write to her on the financial assessment and the other questions she raised on the specific requirements in place. I am more than happy to do that, and to share it with any interested parties. Therefore, for the reasons I have outlined, I kindly ask the noble Baroness not to press her amendments and that the clause stand part of the Bill.
Baroness Barran (Con)
I thank the Minister, and I will keep my remarks brief. It was very helpful of her to set out the examples of where natural persons are fined, as in data protection and with landlord and tenant. I did not quite follow, but I think she said there were 10 people who might escape this, which seemed like a small number in the totality. I suppose I would still argue that criminal proceedings could be brought, even if they could not be fined, but it was helpful to get those examples and I look forward to her letter. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Baroness Barran Excerpts(1 day, 8 hours ago)
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
Since we are forming a set for Amendment 117, I will stand up now, having attached my name to it, and will focus chiefly on that amendment.
The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has stolen my starting line with her final line: nothing about us without us. I first used that phrase in a debate on rather similar amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill. I think that your Lordships’ House and the country are increasingly coming to realise that we have to listen to children far more.
In this context, I will cite an interesting case from the past week, where a 14 year-old who had been tricked by his parents into going to Ghana took his parents to court. The Court of Appeal ruled that he should have the right to come back to Britain, as he wanted to do. That is an interesting court case that shows how, generally, our legal system is starting to listen more and more to children. It is important that our legislation does so and that that is in the Bill.
This raises issues that I will come back to on a later group, but the basic point about the regional care co-operatives is that they will take decision-making further away from local authorities. People have been studying this, and the care review evidence group, for example, said that
“care will need to be taken that these structural reforms do not dilute local accountability mechanisms”.
Making sure that children are actually heard in the making of regulations is in some way a counterbalance to the risk that quite a lot of experts have identified in taking this approach.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 116A, 117A and 119ZA in my name. As we have heard, the proposals to create regional care co-operatives came from the independent review into children’s social care. In principle, we support them. However, we are aware that a number of regions are already using informal co-operation agreements, so I question whether we need more legislation to make this happen. Maybe the Minister can comment on this when she sums up. The Secretary of State is taking the power to direct areas to create one of three models of co-operation, but it is important that we understand how this will work in practice, because, presumably, if areas are not adopting this approach voluntarily, there would be significant barriers and potentially good reasons for doing so. Can the Minister clarify those few points when she closes?
The Local Government Association has stated its support for the narrower requirements of a regional care co-operative, as being used by the pathfinder areas —namely, on
“strategic planning and placements for children with more complex needs”.
However, the Bill states in proposed new Section 22J(3)(c) that regional care co-operatives will be responsible for commissioning
“the provision of accommodation for children being looked after by the local authority”.
There is a real worry about mission creep and confusion over responsibilities, which I have tried to address through my Amendment 119ZA, as has my noble friend Lady Cash through her Amendment 117B.
Will the Minister comment on the concern expressed by organisations such as Barnardo’s that this model will squeeze out some of the smaller providers, increasing even further the dependence on independent providers in the private sector, many of whom, as we know, have a combination of very high profitability and high debts?
Can the Minister confirm the start date for the pathfinders, and when there will be publicly available evidence from them, either via the evaluation or from any other data? Does the department have an idea that it can publicly share of the likely size of each of the areas? The two pilot sites, Greater Manchester and the south-east, are both very large, with about 3 million people within them. Is that the size the Government expect to be typical?
Amendment 116A would remove a power equivalent to a Henry VIII power from the Bill. Clause 10(2) defines strategic accommodation functions as
“(a) assessing current and future requirements for the accommodation of children being looked after by the local authority,
(b) developing and publishing strategies for meeting those requirements,
(c) commissioning the provision of accommodation for children being looked after by the local authority,
(d) recruiting prospective local authority foster parents and supporting local authority foster parents,
(e) developing, or facilitating the development of, new provision for the accommodation of children being looked after by the local authority, and
(f) any other functions relating to a local authority’s duties under section 22A, 22C or 22G that are specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State”.
New Section 22J(3)(f) gives the Secretary of State a power akin to a Henry VIII power to add to the above list of strategic accommodation functions by regulations. In justifying the power, the department goes on to say:
“The Department has sought to achieve the right balance between confining the scope of the delegated powers through primary provisions and leaving necessary matters of detail to regulations. This is the first time the Secretary of State has sought to bring local authorities together to collaborate in the delivery of their strategic accommodation functions. Regional co-operation arrangements (known as Regional Care Co-operatives) … are currently being tested via pathfinders … in two local authority regions. When the pathfinders are evaluated, the Secretary of State may need to prescribe additional functions. There may also be a need for additional functions to be specified in the future depending on the needs of a particular area and to keep pace with the changing children’s social care placements market. The power has been limited to one which enables additional functions to be added to the list in the future. It does not enable the Secretary of State to amend or remove any of the functions already listed in the clause and so it is not a Henry VIII power”.
My amendment is a probing amendment, as this feels like another example of the Government introducing legislation before they are quite ready. Why not wait until the pathfinders are evaluated to be clear what additional strategic functions might be needed? Maybe the Minister can inform the House if the department is aware of any gaps in the current strategic powers that have been identified in areas using this approach already. It would be good to understand whether the Government have in mind any particular powers that might be needed, or whether this is a belt and braces, “just in case” kind of power, without having anything particular in mind.
My Amendment 117A seeks to ensure that Ofsted inspects regional care co-operatives. It is obviously important that we have an independent assessment of their effectiveness and impact and whether they are achieving the Government’s goals—and, perhaps even more importantly, the needs of children. There may be other ways of achieving this and, if so, it would be helpful to understand what those are.
More specifically, my amendment aims to bring a spotlight on the use of unregistered provision. My understanding of the regional care co-operative approach is that it will anticipate and commission capacity in a more effective, and cost-effective, way. One outcome of this would be a drop in or complete removal of the use of unregistered provision, something I know local authorities are keen to see, as are noble many Lords across the House.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, before I turn to the amendments in the first group, I want to be clear, as many noble Lords have recognised, that the measures in Clause 10, together with those that we will come to later in Clauses 12 to 18, are part of an overarching, broad-ranging strategy to fix the market for placements for looked-after children.
The review conducted by my honourable friend Josh MacAlister, which several noble Lords have quite rightly referenced, and the report from the Competition and Markets Authority were explicit that the placement market is dysfunctional and that some private providers are making excessive profits from placements for our most vulnerable children. We are now taking concerted action to address this, including through measures in the Bill, but also through a wide range of non-legislative measures, to deliver a broader range of providers in the market so that local authorities have more options when finding the right place for children in their care. These must be the right homes in the right parts of the country, so that children do not have to move miles from their communities and support networks, as many noble Lords have referenced in this debate. These homes must be delivered at a sustainable cost to the taxpayer by providers no longer making excessive profits. A failure to address the dysfunction in the system has led to many of the issues that noble Lords are rightly identifying today, which they hope and expect us to respond to—not only, I suspect, in these clauses relating to regional care co-operatives but more broadly in the action that we are taking to fix that dysfunctional market.
Amendments 108 to 116 in the name of my noble friend Lady Longfield seek to amend the definition of local authorities’ strategic accommodation functions as defined by this clause to ensure that it meets the current and future needs of looked-after children. This and my noble friend’s contribution exactly get to the crux of the problems we are trying to solve here. She is correct, as I have already suggested, about the issues raised by the lack of sufficiency caused by the current placement market for children. Children being too far away from home; too big cost pressures; inappropriate placements: those are all things that this provision and the other elements of our strategy are aimed at addressing.
Amendment 119ZA from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, sets out the principles that local authorities that have formed a regional care co-operative, following a direction from the Secretary of State, would have to adhere to when commissioning accommodation for looked-after children. She is right that the provisions in this clause relate to the direction powers for the Secretary of State in circumstances either where local authorities have refused to take part in regional arrangements or perhaps where regional arrangements have been set up and local authorities might not have managed to be part of any of those arrangements. I certainly think it is already the case that authorities are trying to bring themselves together into regional arrangements, precisely to be able to solve some of the issues that we have outlined.
The Government completely agree that there must be sufficient accommodation for all children who are looked after by their local authority and that in future this accommodation must meet their needs and provide appropriate support. It should allow them to live as close to home as possible, where that is in their interests. That is precisely the reason for trying to ensure that the market operates more effectively.
But it is also the case that there are existing legal requirements on local authorities to the effect of some of the understandable calls that have been made in these amendments and by other noble Lords. Local authorities already have a general statutory duty under Section 22G of the Children Act 1989 to take such steps, as far as is reasonably practicable, to ensure that there is sufficient accommodation within their area to meet the needs of looked-after children. They are also under a duty, via Sections 22 and 22C of the same Act, to provide accommodation that meets the needs of looked-after children by ensuring it is consistent with the child’s welfare and has due consideration to the child’s age and understanding, as well as their wishes and feelings. Finally, they have a statutory duty under Section 22C(8)(a) and (9) of the 1989 Act to ensure they provide accommodation that allows children to live near their home, unless it is inconsistent with the child’s welfare or not reasonably practicable. Those duties will all remain.
The problem is not that there is no legal recognition of these issues and the need for them to be taken into consideration in providing sufficient accommodation and placements for children. It is that the market has prevented local authorities being able to fulfil their statutory requirements. That is why regional care co-operatives, which in the legislation are called “regional co-operation arrangements”, will assist local authorities in meeting these duties, including by analysing what accommodation is needed for children across the region, publishing sufficiency strategies, recruiting and supporting foster parents and commissioning care places, as recommended by both the review conducted by Josh MacAlister and the report from the Competition and Markets Authority. They will support local authorities to carry out their strategic accommodation functions but, as I have suggested, these functions are not new and are already in law, including the duty to take steps, as reasonably practicable, to ensure sufficient accommodation for looked-after children. Any decision-making responsibility for where individual children are placed, however, will continue to rest with local authorities.
Amendment 116A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, would prevent the Secretary of State adding to a local authority’s strategic accommodation functions for regional care co-operatives. I would like to reassure the noble Baroness of the safeguards in place regarding the power to add to the list of strategic accommodation functions to be exercised through regional care co-operatives. I slightly lost track of whether she was accusing the Government of currently having a Henry VIII power within the legislation— I will go back and check.
Baroness Barran (Con)
I was aware that my remarks may not have been clear that, in the department’s own memorandum, it describes this power as being akin to a Henry VIII power.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I will certainly take advice and look carefully at that, but I assure the Committee that the appropriate committee, the name of which escapes me, has of course looked in detail at the delegated provisions within the legislation and we will be responding to the committee and covering off any issues that might be of the sort of concern that the noble Baroness raises.
I hope to provide some further reassurance on that. First, the scope of regulations is limited to those local authority functions covered by specific sections of the Children Act 1989, namely Section 22A, the duty to accommodate looked-after children; Section 22C, how looked-after children should be accommodated by the local authority; and Section 22G, the duty to ensure sufficient accommodation for looked-after children.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, that all these amendments would enhance the life chances and life opportunities of looked-after children, and they should be seriously considered.
In the 21st century, the words “unregistered” or “unregulated” should never enter into our dialogue or vocabulary. It is not acceptable for our schools or our children; whether it is an unregulated school or an unregulated home, it should not exist. I wish that I had signed the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and I apologise for not doing so. The noble Lord is absolutely right to call it scandalous. Noble Lords should have a look at the BBC “Panorama” programme from two or three years ago that looked at looked-after children in unregulated schools. Never mind caravans—some of them were being housed in barges. Imagine that in the winter. Unregulated provision is never inspected, and anything can go on in them. The children are not safe—we should not allow it to happen. Of course, Ofsted does not inspect them either. We owe it to our children to give them something better than that. I agree with my noble friend Lady Tyler that we cannot do that overnight, but we can make a stand and say that we are not going to have children in unregistered provision and we will phase it out. That would be a testimony to the current Government.
On Amendment 129 from my noble friend Lady Tyler, to which I added my name, everything that she says almost ties in with that of the noble Lord, Lord Watson; they are very similar on what they say.
I turn to Amendment 119 from the noble Lord, Lord Agnew. I think that the noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Bennett, are looking at a stereotypical view of boarding schools. I would like to take them both to Liverpool College, which was an independent school and is now an academy, and where the local authority buys in places for looked-after children. The children get accommodation of high quality, but they also get adults who properly look after them, and they get sport and they get clubs and activities as well as outdoor pursuits. What is more, they go to the school and get fantastic results. I agree that not every boarding school would be suitable, but if it is a choice between being on a barge or in a caravan or some other dump, as some of the unregistered schools are, a boarding school would be a better prospect.
I had not thought about the link between schools, GPs and looked-after children moving into a particular area. Presumably, in a digital age, when we are about to move to a new registration system, probably linked to NHS numbers, there is a real opportunity for us to be very joined up. When children move into those areas, the doctor and the school will be notified, and it can only benefit the child as well.
I like the idea from the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, of a national plan to ensure that there are sufficient places for children and we are not in the same position that we are in currently. We cannot wave a magic wand and expect this to happen overnight, but all of us in this Chamber want the same thing—we want the best possible opportunities for children, including registered schools and proper provision properly inspected. As we have said time and again, we also want the children to be as close to their locality and their family and friends as possible.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, this has been an excellent debate on a range of specific amendments, all of which either seek to improve the residential care provision for children and young people or, in the case of Amendment 165, require notification if a child is placed in temporary accommodation. This group has been named the “Why wouldn’t we?” group.
Baroness Barran
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to include children with EHCPs in residential care and allow residential schools to use deprivation of liberty in specific settings for specific children rather than moving them to a residential home.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, Clause 11 epitomises both the responsibility and the privilege that we all share as lawmakers in ensuring that the law works as well as possible for children who are extraordinarily vulnerable through no fault of their own. I put on record my gratitude to the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory and the Nuffield Foundation for their expertise and meticulous work in this area, and to Homes2Inspire, the Shaw Trust and Somerset County Council for allowing me to visit a home where up to two children deprived of their liberty can live, so that I could understand these issues better.
Children deprived of their liberty face severe and immediate risks from their own actions or the actions of others. They typically face six different types of restrictions and are under constant supervision, and two thirds experience restraint. The majority live on their own. Currently, under Section 25 of the Children Act 1989, children in care can be placed in registered secure accommodation. When this is not possible, local authorities can apply to the High Court for a deprivation of liberty order through their inherent jurisdiction. This often leads to crisis-driven placements in unsuitable settings, does not address the harmful effects of restraint and isolation and is clearly intended as a measure of last resort.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this important debate. I echo the noble Lord, Lord Storey: the House of Lords was at its best with the expertise that was shared generously by your Lordships. I also thank the Minister for her comprehensive response. I believe she addressed —or is going to come back on—the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, regarding the use of handcuffs, as well as the specific gaps in relation to children who are not looked after, which was raised by my noble friend Lady Berridge. I think she also gave a very positive response to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, in relation to his amendments. So it is so far, so good.
In relation to my amendments, there were some genuinely positive and helpful responses. In relation to Amendments 119A and 119B, there was a category of response. I understand—the Minister is obviously telling the truth—that these duties already exist, whether it be in relation to children receiving education or therapeutic support, or, indeed, that they are in registered accommodation; but the Minister knows as well as I do that that is not working in real life.
It may be that the problem is a difficult one to solve, but it still needs to be solved. These children are not typically getting an education; although I would agree with her that, if they are nearer their community, they have a better chance of doing so. We know that these children have frequently been in unregistered accommodation and that, as I said in my remarks, they often do not meet the criteria for CAMHS to provide therapeutic support.
I also felt something distinctly promising about her tone in relation to my Amendment 134C, so I live in hope.
There are two amendments that I want to touch on briefly. In the case of Amendment 124, I believe the Minister said that she agreed on the need for clear safeguards, and that the same powers would be available to the Secretary of State as exist today for children in secure accommodation, but those powers will be set out in regulations. That was the bit where, if I have understood correctly, I stopped feeling comfortable because, obviously, regulations can be reversed, and I cannot see why you would not want the same safeguards for these children on the face of legislation as for those in secure accommodation. But I will read what she said and, if I have misunderstood, she is welcome to intervene on me.
Similarly, in relation to my Amendment 132 regarding the independent reviewing officer, the Minister said that those powers already exist, but my amendment would explicitly extend and strengthen those powers. I would be grateful if she could perhaps reflect on that in her comments in relation to Amendment 132. We need proper scrutiny and oversight, we need proper therapy and care for these children, and they need to be in the right accommodation. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Baroness Barran Excerpts(6 days, 8 hours ago)
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Lord Storey (LD)
I just want to say a few words, especially in support of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Watson. I remember that 14 years ago this issue was discussed during consideration of the Children and Families Bill. We all sort of huffed and puffed and said, yes, this is really important, but nothing came of it. I just wish we had seized that opportunity then. As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, rightly said, we do not want to make this a missed opportunity. Some young people are ready to leave, but many are not. If you look at the figures for young people who are not in care and not fostered—I think the noble Lord, Lord Watson, mentioned 24 year-olds—sometimes we see people in their 30s still living at their parents’ home. What happens in those families should be reflected right throughout our society. Sometimes young people are not emotionally ready. We heard of “pack the bag and go”, but I can tell of the opposite: foster parents, at their own cost and in their own time, being prepared to keep on their foster children for several years afterwards. That is amazing.
I turn to the amendment from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. Having each local authority publish what its national care offer should be seems such an obvious thing to do. I just hope that the Government will seize this opportunity and do that.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 85, 89, 92 and 93 in my name. Clause 7 introduces new requirements for local authorities in England to assess whether certain care leavers aged under 25 need Staying Close support; and when such support is deemed necessary, the local authority must provide it. This provision builds on the Staying Close pilot scheme, which gives care leavers safe and secure accommodation along with a trusted adult relationship for emotional and practical support. I am very grateful to the charity Become for sharing its expertise in this area with me. As the Minister knows, each year thousands of young people face what we might describe as a care cliff edge. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, vividly described, when they leave the system, they are expected to leave home at around 18—often abruptly but, I hope, not always as abruptly as in the case she described—losing vital relationships and support when they most need help transitioning to adulthood.
Research by Become shows that
“the transition from care to ‘independent living’ is often poorly planned and managed, and many young people feel unsupported”.
Evidence from the Staying Close pilots demonstrates
“improved outcomes for care-experienced young people … including better ‘independent living’ skills, increased happiness, better stability, increased participation in … education and employment; and a reduced risk of homelessness”,
and that extending Staying Close support to age 25 will benefit thousands of young people leaving care. We warmly welcome that.
However, we have concerns about the drafting of Clause 7, which could limit its impact. First, Clause 7(2) requires local authorities to assess whether Staying Close support serves the young person’s welfare, but without providing specified assessment criteria. We worry that this could lead to the rationing of support or a postcode lottery. Our Amendment 85 seeks to address that by explicitly setting out the factors the local authority must have due regard to, including the
“wishes and preferences … accommodation requirements … emotional and practical support needs … and existing support network”
of the young person. Our ever-optimistic Amendment 92 would give the local authority flexibility to offer additional support where it is judged to be appropriate.
The current wording defines Staying Close support merely as providing advice and information or making representations to help with accommodation and services. The Minister will know that “making representations” does not always translate into a service. That narrow definition does not reflect the comprehensive support that was offered in the pilots, so our worry is that it will not achieve the same positive outcomes that the pilot did.
Our Amendment 89 aims to strengthen the voice of young people and ensure that a record of their wishes is kept. The Bill does not reference young people’s wishes and preferences. We believe, and I know that the Minister agrees and has been a great leader in this, that young people’s input is vital when determining support.
Lastly, our Amendment 93 gives a strong legal entitlement to an opt-out for all care leavers, ensuring young people’s preferences guide decisions about their support and create consistent assessment criteria. I very much hope the Minister agrees that these are reasonable and practical amendments that the Government could turn into their own.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, very generously pointed out the response of the previous Government and put the case for extended Staying Put support extremely ably. I am sympathetic to the spirit of his amendments; indeed, he or another noble Lord mentioned that, when asked, 75% of children said that they would like to go on living with their foster parents beyond the current limitations. I look forward to what the Minister has to say on that. I am also sympathetic to my noble friend Lord Lucas’s Amendment 94. Having clarity and good performance-management data should always lead to better outcomes.
I feel rather mealy-mouthed not to be more enthusiastic about the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester’s Amendment 164. I absolutely do not want to sound preachy, but I worry. Of course it is extremely important that information is accessible and easily accessible, but, as we often discuss in your Lordships’ House, some of that comes from the culture and the attitude to young people in care and the relationships that we have with them. I suppose my only hesitation is that information without relationships does not get us much further, but I know that all noble Lords know that.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
My Lords, in responding to these amendments, I start by re-emphasising that we all know that care leavers have some of the worst long-term life outcomes in society and that many have not received the care and support that we would want and expect for them. We are committed to ensuring that young people leaving care have stable homes, access to health services and support to build lifelong, loving relationships, and are engaged in education, employment and training. The ongoing work and the measures in Clause 7 are geared to improving outcomes for those eligible and will help address any cliff edge of support they may face when leaving care.
On Amendments 84, 86 to 88, 90 and 91 in the name of my noble friend Lord Watson, I thank him for highlighting the issues and for going through the background so thoroughly, but also for highlighting the very positive measures that were announced in the spending review yesterday. We look forward to further detail on how this will feed through into supporting some of the most vulnerable children in our society.
These amendments together would require local authorities to provide former relevant children under the age of 25 with Staying Put support where their welfare requires it. They seek to probe why the Bill makes provision for Staying Close support to be offered to eligible care leavers up to the age of 25 when the Children Act 1989 puts duties on local authorities to support former relevant children and their former foster parents to maintain a Staying Put arrangement until the former relevant child reaches the age of 21.
I acknowledge the example given by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett; of course, it would not be appropriate to comment on an individual case but I am sure that many of us in this Chamber could put our minds to similar extremely stressful and difficult examples that are based on the real experience of some young people. That is exactly why we have the Bill before us and what we are trying to achieve with it.
We fully recognise the importance of these duties and remain strongly committed to the Staying Put arrangements. But, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Russell, as well as my noble friend Lord Watson, we believe at this moment that it is essential that we prioritise filling the gaps that exist in current support, in particular for young people transitioning into independent living, including those who may have been in residential care, who often have the most complex needs. It is difficult to have to prioritise and focus, but this is the place we are in at the moment.
We are doing this very positive work through the introduction of Clause 7, where all former relevant children under the age of 25, including those in or who have left a Staying Put arrangement, will be provided with Staying Close support where their welfare requires it. Staying Close support includes support to find and keep suitable accommodation, and support to access wraparound services.
On Amendments 85, 92 and 93, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, I start by reassuring her that we agree with the sentiment of the amendments and that Clause 7 is already very much in that spirit. We are very keen, of course, to make sure that everything we do links and aligns with the different opportunities: for example, how we can bring pathway plans into the mix and make sure that there is a seamless direction of travel. There will be more to discuss on this as we go forward, as I understand she acknowledges.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I added my name to Amendment 95 in the name of my noble friend Lady Tyler, and to Amendment 130. We have heard that 67% of care leavers are anxious about money, according to the study by the charity Money Ready. Given that the second Oral Question today was on financial education post-16, it seems appropriate to talk about this in considering this amendment.
Some 80% of care leavers want more help managing their finances. Rent eviction and homelessness are the consequences of poor financial literacy. In 2024, a report from the Become charity revealed that 4,300 young care leavers aged between 18 and 20 end up homeless. This represents an increase of 54% in the last five years. The Staying Put charity has helped, but most still leave care on or before their 18th birthday.
In contrast, 55% of female and 59% of male 20 year-olds still live at home, and 47% of men and 29% of women still live at home at the age of 25. Most young people move out when they feel ready, when they have the financial capacity and literacy to live away from home. In contrast, care leavers need to be ready to leave home at a much younger age and do so usually with very tight financial budgets. There is no home to go back to if the money runs out.
It is easy for care leavers to miss out on financial education to help prevent issues that come up with independent living for the first time. Not only is there little information about financial management; the avenues available for reaching support to apply for grants and loans mean that many struggle to access these resources.
Because of the nature of the job market and house prices, 47% of men and 29% of women still live at home at the age of 25. The cost of living is keeping people at home; care leavers should have this support too. The expansion of the Staying Put scheme is supported by charities, and evidence from the charity Become shows that this would be a core way of mitigating against homelessness among care leavers.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Russell, said that this was a wide-ranging group. As I was thinking about it, I thought that what pulls it together is that it is a kind of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. A lot of the amendments in it are the basic planks at the bottom of Maslow’s pyramid; one of those planks is of course healthcare.
My Amendments 96 and 107A try to address some of the evidence, which noble Lords will be well aware of, that shows that care leavers face much more negative physical and mental health outcomes than their peers. These disparities stem from the trauma they have suffered, adverse childhood experiences and, sadly, in some cases, the inability of their carers to meet their healthcare needs.
In the general population, children and young people visit specialist clinics more frequently than adults, if they need them, and their growth and development necessitate regular adjustments to medication and treatments. In young adulthood, health needs typically stabilise. We expect adults to manage their own healthcare, work with GPs and other medical systems, and self-manage long-term health conditions. Parents in supportive family settings will guide their children, and maybe even grandchildren, through this transition, but care leavers do not have that support. They often struggle to recognise that they need help, they do not know how to seek it, and it can often be very difficult to navigate complex healthcare systems. As a result, care-experienced people have a very poor uptake of physical and mental health support but very great physical and mental health needs. These clear and practical points were raised with me by the National Network of Designated Healthcare Professionals, to which I am extremely grateful for its briefing and advice, and for the time it has taken talking me through these issues.
My Amendment 96 would require local areas to set out clearly the transition arrangements for health and primary care for care leavers. It does not feel like it should be too much to expect this to be available. As importantly, my Amendment 107A would automatically schedule an extended GP appointment for care leavers who wish to use it; that is the simplest way to bridge this gap and empower them to talk about their health needs, and understand what local services are available to them and how to access them easily. Through this, they would receive support in navigating health systems—from booking appointments and requesting repeat prescriptions, to recognising when they need help. It seems a very small ask, and I hope the Minister will say yes.
There is a coherence to the other amendments in this group. They are the planks that all of us all too easily take for granted, such as having confidence in and transparency about how money works, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, so ably argued. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, cited the interesting example of the appetite for financial education of care leavers who are part of the universal basic income pilot.
I put the case for health and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, put the case for Staying Put—it was such a good idea that we have had it twice—and possibly the national offer. My noble friend Lord Young of Cookham highlighted very simple human requests about how the housing system works for care leavers. The idea that a young person aged between 21 and 25 who has been through the care system has to yet again prove they are vulnerable is frankly shocking. I hope the Minister can say something encouraging about that.
We have a combination of the specific elements that would make a difference to care leavers’ lives: the reporting data that my noble friend Lord Lucas raised; the financial aspects highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Bird; and, crucially, as I mentioned on an earlier group, the importance of relationships, ably explained by my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott on behalf of my noble friend Lord Farmer. I remember listening to the honourable Member for Whitehaven and Workington talking about this issue, and I think he said that every child is one or two relationships away from success or failure. Actually, in the example given by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, of children going into gangs, they are seeking relationships. We would all do the same if we had no choice, but we want strong, positive relationships such as lifelong links has been proven to create, so I very much hope that, when the noble Baroness comes to sum up, she will come with good news.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
My Lords, I like the description of the hierarchy of needs and I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I jump around a bit as well in my summing up. It has been a very rich set of contributions to an incredibly important part of the work that has been undertaken in bringing the Bill before your Lordships.
The first four amendments in this group seek to amend Clause 8, which will require local authorities to publish information on the support available to care leavers as they transition to independent living as part of their local offer for care leavers, set out in Section 2 of the Children and Social Work Act 2017. The remaining amendments seek to extend support for care leavers to address the poor outcomes they experience across so many aspects of their lives. Improving support for care leavers is something the Government are committed to doing through the measures in this Bill on Staying Close, local offer, corporate parenting and other programmes such as the care leaver covenant, and also by other initiatives that seek to work across government.
The fact that the Government have set up the care leaver ministerial board, chaired by Secretary of State for Education Bridget Phillipson and for MHCLG Angela Rayner, shows absolutely top-level commitment to bringing all the relevant departments together so that they can most properly address the issues that have been raised here. It is probably beyond our ability through this Bill to address all the very important issues that have been raised and spoken to so eloquently from across the Committee.
Of course, the basic principle is that we want to ensure that young people are leaving care with stable homes, access to health services and support to build lifelong loving relationships, engaged in education, employment and training. In response to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, that is exactly the reason this board has been set up: to bring everything together to address the complex needs of the young people we are addressing.
I assure noble Lords that we are funding a number of family-finding, befriending and mentoring programmes. These help looked-after children and care leavers to identify and connect with important people in their lives and create safe, stable, loving relationships. The family-finding, befriending and mentoring programme is being evaluated, and this will help to inform decisions about the future of the programme. From personal experience, the school that two of my grandchildren go to works on the restorative practice model. If noble Lords have not come across it before, I suggest having a look at how it works and how young people can learn at the youngest age how to form relationships and how to express their needs in a coherent and structured way, which can then inform all the complex issues that they will reach going through their lives.
Baroness Barran (Con)
Before the noble Baroness moves on, I am not clear about something. The specific recommendation from the National Network of Designated Healthcare Professionals is to have this extended GP appointment. The noble Baroness has now amended my amendment to make sure that it is at a convenient time. I just was not clear whether she said it would take time to produce the statutory guidance that will underpin all the corporate parenting responsibilities. However, as regards putting something—I am going to get the terminology wrong, so forgive me—into the kind of agreement with general practitioners, so that part of their contract is to offer this extended appointment as children young people leave local authority care, I was not clear whether the noble Baroness thought that was a realistic option, with the tweak of it being at a convenient time.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for picking me up on that commitment. This is quite a detailed ask, but it is absolutely realistic that this is a new departure going forward and there will need to be consultation and everyone coming together to make sure that the statutory guidance is deliverable and works. However, I am happy to write to the noble Baroness with more specific detail on that area as we move forward.
Amendment 130, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, seeks to extend the provision of Staying Put to age 25. We have discussed this at great length and I am no clearer as to why this is in this group of amendments rather than one of the others. So, without repeating the arguments, I will just say that the rationale is that we cannot commit off the top of our heads to effecting fostering arrangements without recognising that there will be a knock-on impact of change on the whole area of the foster care market, as it were. Any changes in this area are sensitive and have to be taken in the round.
However, the most important thing that we have to address is that too many young people who have come through the route into independent living from residential care, for example—who often, as I said earlier, have the most complex needs—will be a priority area in terms of addressing the support that they do not have because they have not entered the foster care route. So, we are keeping an eye on all of this through the introduction of statutory Staying Close duties, making sure that all former relevant children under the age of 25, including those who are still in a Staying Put arrangement, as well as those who have left it, will be provided with Staying Close support where their welfare requires it.
Amendment 153, in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford, would require public bodies, when carrying out equality assessments, to consider the needs of people who are or have been in local authority care. We know that looked-after children and care leavers face stigma and discrimination and we are determined to tackle this. There has been effective and passionate campaigning, with many local authorities taking positive action as a result.
Amendment 183A, tabled by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, seeks to enable care leavers to claim the higher over-25 rate of universal credit. Although he is not in his place, his amendment is an opportunity to revisit this: I was at the Dispatch Box at Second Reading of his PMB on this subject. Just to emphasise what we have already said, the Government recognise the considerable challenges that care leavers face and remain committed to supporting them. However, we do not believe that this amendment is necessary.
The Government have recently announced the first sustained increase to the universal credit standard allowance, and, while under-25s receive a slightly lower rate, additional elements are available, including for housing costs, to help them to live independently, and towards their living costs. They may also be eligible for universal credit elements, including for children, childcare costs and disability. Under-35s who are single and renting in the private rented sector and claim either housing benefit or universal credit can receive help towards their rental costs via the shared accommodation rate of the local housing allowance. Single care leavers under 25 may qualify for the one-bedroom local housing allowance. Discretionary housing payments administered by local authorities can be paid to those entitled to housing benefit or the housing element of universal credit.
The Government have extended the household support fund by a further year, from 1 April 2025 until 31 March 2026. I would emphasise the work that the DWP is doing in this area: its objective to help care leavers into long-term employment is the key to supporting their independent living. This is why we are focusing on providing access to the right skills and opportunities for sustained employment and career progression. Therefore, with all of those considerations, I kindly ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, briefly, I lend my support to Amendment 143, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, to which I have added my name. This amendment, on the need for a foster care strategy, was, if I may say so, powerfully brought to life by the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and I thank him for that. The noble Lord, Lord Young, put it very well when he talked about the gap that exists, saying that we had strategies for other aspects of children’s social care but not for fostering. It is a gap that it would be useful to fill, in the same way that the amendment I brought last time suggested a strategy for neglect.
As we have heard, urgent action is needed to address the recruitment and retention crisis in foster care. Nationwide, it has been calculated that we have a shortfall of some 6,000 foster carers across the UK, with 5,000 more needed in England. Certainly, more foster carers are continuing to leave than are joining up. Various surveys have shown that the three key reasons for this have been inadequate financial remuneration, lack of support from their fostering service and a lack of respect for their role. I think that last one is really sad. I did notice in the 2024 State of the Nations’ Foster Care report that the number of foster carers who said they would recommend fostering to others has decreased. Indeed, fewer than half of foster carers said that they would recommend fostering to others who may be considering it. It is for those reasons that we need a national strategy to lay out how fostering will be more sustainable in the long term, not least to meet the needs of some of the children who the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, was talking about.
I also support Amendment 105, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, which would be an important part of raising the whole status of fostering.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, the context for my Amendments 134 and 178 is, as we have heard in this short debate, that we face a very severe shortage of foster carers. As other noble Lords have said, this Bill feels like a huge missed opportunity to try to address this problem. Honestly, I do not really understand why the Government have not chosen to do more to address it—but perhaps the amendments in this group will offer the way.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, mentioned that there is currently a shortage of 5,000 foster carers in England; that is 33 foster carers per local authority. It just does not feel like an insuperable problem to find 33 homes across the country in each local authority—though, absolutely rightly, my noble friend Lady Spielman spoke of the very high prevalence of complex needs in children who go into foster care.
This speaks to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham and others about a strategy, which would also address the recommendation in the MacAlister review that we need more flexible models of fostering. As we have heard, of just over 160,000 families who expressed an interest in becoming foster carers in 2020-21, only just over 2,000 were approved—a conversion rate of 1.3%. I understand that many applicants apply to multiple agencies and so get counted twice. There may be timing issues for potential carers, and there are structural challenges, including pay and the need for training, and difficulties in the application process, as we have heard. This is the most significant area for the roughly 83,000 children in care. Over 56,000 of them are in foster care, half of them with independent agencies and half in local authority foster care. That is a very big and important number, and it feels fundamental to address it.
It sits at the heart of what we might call the children’s homes problem of cost and profits, which we will debate in subsequent groups. If we had more foster carers, the pressure would come off children’s homes, prices would adjust and we would be in a much better situation, particularly, as the noble Lord, Lord Bird, put so convincingly, because the wraparound of foster care—the fact that there is a family and relationships—leads to vastly better outcomes for the child. For all those reasons, this is an important group, and I hope that Amendment 143 is one that the Minister takes very seriously.
My amendments are much simpler. Amendment 134 would give more flexibility to allow young children over the age of three to share a room. My intention is that this would apply to primary-aged children, although re-reading my amendment I think that my drafting skills have come through yet again. Having talked to directors of children’s services in London and other areas with high housing costs, I know that the number of potential foster carers with several spare rooms is very limited. I am aware that some organisations in the sector see this as a safeguarding risk, but I argue that we are already trusting the foster carer to care for a very vulnerable child. Within that, we should trust their judgment about the sleeping arrangements of the children in their home. Sadly, safeguarding risks are not confined to what happens in a child’s bedroom. This amendment could potentially add several hundred more places, at little or no cost, in areas with the greatest pressure to place children locally, and would avoid children being placed very far from home—as we have heard about several times today—their roots and their communities.
This is not the only way to expand capacity. Another would be to invest in initiatives such as the Greater Manchester Room Makers scheme and roll it out more widely. It provides funding for foster carers to renovate existing rooms or build extensions to allow them to care for more children.
My Amendment 178 seeks to clarify the delegated authority that foster carers have for the children in their care. This was tabled in the other place by the honourable Member for North Herefordshire and received a positive response from the Minister. I seek further confirmation from the Minister here that the Government still intend to consult on this point. Perhaps she could update the House on the likely timeline for the consultation and for the secondary legislation to be amended.
Thinking more broadly, and returning to Amendment 143, it would help the House if the Minister could share other ideas the Government are working on to improve recruitment and retention. I spoke recently to the organisation Now Foster, which is developing “weekenders”—that might not be the right term—which offer regular weekend placements for children who might be either in kinship or foster care, giving much needed rest and space to both parties, and a consistency and stability for the child or young person that can extend beyond the age of 18. Crucially, it also gives foster carers a chance for a more modest but still substantial commitment, rather than taking in a child full time with everything that entails. This idea—again, this came up in the MacAlister review—of having different options and different models of fostering is long overdue for more work.
My noble friend Lord Young of Cookham talked about the importance of a support network for foster carers. I visited an amazing group of foster carers—some brand new and about to receive their first child, some who had been fostering for over 20 years—who are part of an employee co-operative, Capstone Foster Care, in Peasedown St John in Somerset. Again and again they spoke eloquently about the impact of that network on their ability to foster and to offer love and care to very vulnerable children.
They also talked—this ties in with the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson—about the need for a really positive recruitment campaign. Most people hear about fostering only when there is a case of severe neglect or worse. But across the House we have heard examples of many noble Lords who have either been foster carers or who recognise the extraordinary and life-changing work that foster carers do. We need that message to get outside this Chamber and out to people who might consider this and see it as a respected and important profession. We need more innovation in this area to unlock the potential in our communities to provide this kind of support for children who need it, and to improve retention.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My Lords, this has been a well-informed debate on the amendments in group 5 concerning foster care, particularly informed by those who have had personal experience. The noble Lord, Lord Young, gave his experience of being a foster carer and I agree that the noble Lord, Lord Bird, made a very important contribution on what it feels like to be a child in the system and the lifelong impacts that has.
I think there has been a consensus once again that foster carers offer crucial support to some of the most vulnerable children in our society. They provide love, stability and compassion to children and young people when they need it most. We very much share the concerns raised in this House about the falling numbers of fostering households—a fall of 9% since 2020—and the effect this has on children. Perhaps it was the late night I had had, but I felt marginally grumpy about the suggestion from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, that because there is not more about fostering in this legislation, somehow or another that means that this Government are not committed to righting the decline we have seen over recent years. Therefore, I will take the opportunity to spell out exactly what the Government have been doing. There is a tendency in this House, which is understandable because we are legislators, to think that things happen only if they are put into legislation. I hope I can demonstrate that there is plenty happening on fostering due to the actions of and investment put in by this Government.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
That is good, because I was about to say—although I think he called it a battle plan, not a battle strategy—that the Government will set out our plans for foster care in due course, bringing together the range of activities that is already happening and taking on board the need to go further in the way that noble Lords have rightly pushed us to today.
Amendment 105, introduced by my noble friend Lord Watson, is on the introduction of a national foster care register. As he outlined, fostering services currently maintain local registers of foster carers alongside records relating to prospective foster carers. A national foster care register would insert central government into the systems and processes of foster care oversight, which are currently deployed locally. But as he said, and as I think my honourable friend in the other place outlined in Committee there, we are considering the possible benefits and costs of a national register of foster carers as part of our wider reforms.
There are a range of proposals for such a register. It will require some careful consideration. Specifically, I am sure we all recognise the need to ensure that a national foster care register would also meet local needs and avoid unforeseen negative consequences, and that it would overcome some of the risks surrounding the security of sensitive data, as well as imposing additional bureaucracy on the sector. But we want to engage with fostering stakeholders on this issue to determine next steps, and we can see some of the advantages of the national register that my noble friend outlined.
Amendment 134, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, is on the sharing of bedrooms for foster children to enable foster carers to look after more children in their home. She identified that one of the pushes for this comes back to one of the fundamental issues that we will discuss on upcoming clauses and which lies very much at the heart of the Government’s reforms: the insufficiency of high-quality places, fostering or otherwise, for the children who need them. I completely understand the belief that changing standards in this way might enable us to increase capacity.
I have already identified that the Government will invest money, for example, in allowing extensions and other ways that foster carers might alter their homes to provide more space and capacity for children. But it is also the case that our national minimum standards already allow foster children aged three or over to share a bedroom, subject to conditions being met, which are in place to safeguard and protect children. That means that fostered children, such as siblings, can share a bedroom where it is in the best interests of the child, provided that each child has their own area of the room.
We can update those national minimum standards at any time. We do not require a change to Section 23 of the Care Standards Act, as suggested in this amendment, to do so. The language in this amendment would change the tone of the national minimum standards. I am not averse to the point that is being made here; we just need to be careful about the balance that we are setting. It would shift the default position to present room sharing both as appropriate and, in fact, standard practice, rather than the current tone, where room sharing should be considered where it is not possible for each child to have their own room.
I think we all agree that children in foster care deserve to be treated as a good parent would treat their own children and to have the opportunity for as full an experience of family life and childhood as possible. I know that there are many good parents who will have children who share bedrooms, especially at a younger age, but I also know that for many children, fostered or otherwise, and for many parents, the gold standard would for them to have their own room. If we add to that the fact that children often enter foster care after experiencing neglect or abuse, including sexual abuse, and may have a greater need for their own personal space and for privacy, we can see the need to be careful about shifting the position to promoting sharing.
We recognise that room sharing in foster care may be suitable, as I have said, particularly for siblings, and we think it is right that flexibilities are already in place, but we are reluctant to suggest that room sharing should be promoted as standard practice. Importantly, we have seen no evidence from children and young people themselves to suggest that they want room sharing to become standard practice in foster care.
Baroness Barran (Con)
The Minister mentioned that the Government are putting funding into extensions and so forth. Will she write with details of how many additional places that funding is expected to secure? I do not mean precisely, but just to give a sense.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Yes, I am happy to do that. Of course, that is just one part of the sufficiency work that the Government are doing and that other elements of the Bill aim to make progress on, but I will write specifically on that project.
Amendment 178 on delegated authority for foster carers, which is also tabled by the noble Lady Baroness, Lady Barran, would give foster carers more autonomy and flexibility. All foster carers should have delegated authority in relation to day-to-day parenting of the child in their care, such as routine decisions about health, hygiene, education and leisure activities. That is so that they can support the child in having a normal upbringing, full of the experiences and opportunities that any other child would have. Under the current system of delegated authority, if something is not listed on the child’s placement plan then the foster carer does not have delegated authority and they must check with their social worker before decisions can be made. Foster carers can only take decisions that are in line with the child’s agreed placement plan and the law governing parental responsibility. This amendment would change that current system of delegated authority.
I have considerable sympathy with the idea that if we are asking people to take on the crucial role of caring for children on a day-to-day basis and making them part of their families then they also need the authority to be able to do that in the rounded way that any parent would expect to have. That is why we have begun conversations with foster carers and fostering services about proposed changes to ensure that all foster carers should have delegated authority by default in relation to the day-to-day parenting of the child in their care. We think that reforming this policy area would benefit from a period of consultation with stakeholders to ensure that any change to delegated authority best reflects the interests of all parties but, following a consultation, we are committed to implementing necessary amendments to secondary legislation. We do not believe that we would need changes to primary legislation in order to do that. Delegated authority is outlined in the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010. I hope that provides some assurance to the noble Baroness that, in that area, we very much see the case being made and want to make progress.
With all the assurances and further information that I provided, I hope that noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments.
Lord Meston (CB)
My Lords, briefly, I support what the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Watson, have said, on the basis of my experience as an adoption judge.
First, in respect of what the noble Lord, Lord Russell, said about the variability—as it has now emerged—of regional adoption agencies, I suggest that that is something the Government should be reviewing carefully. Secondly, I want to emphasise the point he made about the sheer awfulness of disrupted and failed adoptions, particularly in cases where so many hopes have been pinned on the adoption and so much trouble has apparently been made in preparing the child and the adopters.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted to add my name to Amendment 107 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Storey. I commend him and his colleagues in the other place, particularly the honourable Member for Twickenham, on their concerted efforts to bring attention to this important fund, which provides support to about 20,000 very vulnerable children who have suffered great trauma. The anecdote that the noble Lord gave of the family he met brought this issue to life very vividly. I also thank other noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate, all of whom have brought great experience, and in particular the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for his remarks, his expertise and the work of the APPG that he co-chairs.
I will not go into detail on the rather unusual set of announcements that the Government made about the fund, first on 1 April and then very shortly afterwards on 22 April, when it was announced that the fair access limit, or funding per child, would, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, explained, be cut from £5,000 to £3,000 per child per year, and that the £2,500 limit for specialist assessment—which, as I understand it, was in addition to the £5,000—had been abolished. The remaining fund now has to cover both the assessment, judged by the department, I assume, to cost up to £2,500 per child, and the therapy. If we give the department the benefit of the doubt and say that the assessment cost around £1,500, then, being very generous, that leaves about six sessions of funded therapy per year, which for these children is simply insufficient. I am not suggesting that those are the real numbers; they are just my back-of-the-envelope estimates to give the Committee a sense of what is happening here.
Hence the importance of this amendment, which focuses on the per-child funding level and seeks to bring some clarity to the amounts needed. In her Written Ministerial Statement, the Minister said that the ASGF—that is a new acronym for me—
“will still enable those eligible to access a significant package of therapeutic support, tailored to meet their individual needs”.
Can the Minister give the Committee some examples of what the department considers to be a significant package of therapeutic support that could be funded from £3,000, including the assessments?
The issue of therapeutic support is, of course, broader than just this fund. On my visit to Capstone Foster Care, I learned of the difficulty of receiving funding for therapeutic work and the bureaucracy involved in retaining it. This feels so short-sighted as local authorities search for a sound placement—defined in the sector, as I understand it, as a standard placement that does not have additional therapeutic support funding attached to it—which then, perhaps predictably, breaks down and potentially needs to be substituted with a placement in a children’s home at many times the cost.
This is at a time when we hear that funding from integrated care boards for safeguarding work will be cut by around 50% and that the threshold for health involvement is simply too high to be useful. The cuts to the fund will result in a loss of adopters and special guardians, who find—as we heard very powerfully from noble Lords who spoke earlier—that without this support they simply cannot take on these responsibilities. The very late announcement has led to a backlog and will require almost half of applicants to reapply, as their original application does not meet the new threshold.
I wondered what estimate or cost-benefit analysis—and I appreciate that the human cost is far more important than the financial one—the department has done on the savings from the cuts to the fund set against the cost of potential breakdowns. If the Minister does not have those figures with her, perhaps she could write to me with them. As other noble Lords have said, this decision feels like an error, and I hope that the Minister will urge her ministerial colleagues to accept these amendments.
Industrial Training Levy (Construction Industry Training Board) Order 2025
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Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I rise to speak on this draft order, which, as the Minister set out, directly impacts the future development of the construction sector’s workforce. As we heard from the Minister, the CITB has been responsible, for the past 60 years or so, for ensuring that the sector has the skilled, diverse and competent workforce that it needs to meet both current and future challenges.
However, as we heard, following the 2023 review of the industrial training boards led by Mark Farmer and published in January 2025, it is clear that we need some radical changes to the way that we address the structural skills shortages in the construction sector. So we are left with a one-year SI, which of course is far from ideal from the perspective of the sector, but we accept that it gives time to work out an alternative approach. I hope the Minister will be relieved to hear that I think there is little to debate in relation to this SI, which I imagine will mark the end of an era, but it gives us an opportunity to hear from the Government about how they plan to deliver on the recommendations of the Farmer review.
I thank Mark Farmer, on behalf of these Benches, for his leadership of the review and his approach to analysing the challenges that the sector faces. His review does not mince its words, if that is the right phrase, by underlining the extent of the challenge facing the sector and the need for radical change in the way that skills are developed.
We welcome his focus on the need for a “competent, productive and resilient” industry, with the capacity to deliver on the nation’s critical infrastructure projects while ensuring high standards of quality and safety, and
“a ruthless focus on addressing the future workforce capacity, capability and resiliency challenges set out in this review”.
His recommendations are clear in terms of merging the ITBs into a single workforce planning and development body for construction and construction engineering, supported by a statutory levy. The shortages in the workforce that employers face are shown starkly by the combination of wages rising far faster than the national average while productivity has fallen. In the words of his review, these are
“crucial lead indicators of the industry’s future trajectory and represent a direct challenge to the effectiveness of the ITBs over the last 15-20 years”.
The review highlights the continued reliance on labour intensity but, sadly, appears to conclude—if I have understood correctly—that there are still too few incentives for individual businesses to markedly review that reliance through capital deployment or production model reforms. Of course, one unintended consequence of the increases in employers’ national insurance contributions might be more capital investment, but surely this is a clear call to the Government to create exactly the incentives that are currently lacking if the productivity of the sector is going to see the kind of step-change improvement that it needs. I would be grateful if the Minister could comment on that.
The review also argues for
“a pivot in levy spend with a more forced redistribution for maximum industry impact”—
I love that; it is so direct. The review argues for
“more efficient industry drawdown and mobilisation of both ITB levy and apprenticeship levy”.
How can the Minister reassure the Committee that this will happen in practice and within the next year?
That leads me to the Government’s response to the review, which is where I began to worry. I reassure the Committee that, although my speech is longer than I had planned, it will not cover all 40 or so pages of the Government’s response. I absolutely know and believe that the Minister is very focused and cares a great deal about delivering on this area, but some of the responses left me very uneasy, and I would be grateful for her reassurance on this.
As the Minister said in her opening remarks, recommendation 1.1 is that the ITB model should be retained in terms of its “basic statutory mandate”, but it goes on to say that
“its strategic priorities, core capabilities and activity require wholesale transformation. This all needs to be ruthlessly focused on addressing the fundamental workforce resilience challenges facing the construction and engineering construction industries”.
The DfE response is:
“Meeting the skills needs of the next decade is central to delivering the government’s missions across all regions and nations. This government is committed to ensuring we have the highly trained and more productive workforce needed to deliver the national, regional and local skills needs of the next decade, aligned with the new Industrial Strategy and government infrastructure and built environment commitments. In this context, we agree that there is still a case to maintain the Industry Training Boards (ITB) in their basic form. The construction and engineering construction sectors recognise both ITBs service and that training levels would be negatively affected without the ITB model and are broadly convinced of each organisation’s value”.
I do not know what the Minister thinks, but that does not feel to me like the “ruthlessly focused” tone of the recommendation.
Recommendation 1.3 of the review is:
“Proposals to implement the recommendations set out below should be developed quickly with agreed milestones to be monitored by DfE. If DfE”—
I emphasise that—
“is unsatisfied with progress it should reconsider the viability of the ITB model”.
The department’s response says:
“Department for Education (DfE) officials will update ministers on progress as part of the implementation plan, with a view to commenting on the ongoing viability of the ITB model. This assessment of progress will be undertaken in conjunction with wider reform of the skills landscape, focussing on the introduction of Skills England and the Growth and Skills Levy (in England)”.
I had a couple of other examples, but I think my point rests.
I would be grateful if the Minister could address the question raised by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in its remarks on the SI in its report. It said that,
“for the future period, agreement with the industry will be sought when there is little clarity about how the CITB will operate and, therefore, what the levy will be funding”.
Finally, in its briefing for this debate, the CITB explains that £143 million—over 12%—of the funds raised from the levy over the life of the Parliament will be spent on
“running the business, including grant and levy administration”.
I work out that this is about £28 million a year. I wondered how that compared with the projected budget for Skills England and what the Minister thinks about this as a level of running costs. Can this money, together with that of the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board, be put to use in addressing the urgency and importance of the recommendations in the Farmer review?
As the noble Baroness rightly said, the construction industry is vital for the future of our nation, and it is essential that we take an effective approach to its workforce needs. As the Official Opposition, we support the Government to ensure that the levy works effectively for the next year and hope very much that our concerns about the DfE’s response to the Farmer review prove to be unfounded, and that a year from now we will have a clear and compelling plan for the future of the sector and its workforce.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I thank noble Lords who have attended today for their contributions to this debate—we are of quality rather than quantity. I will endeavour to cover all of the questions raised; where I fail to, I will follow up in writing.
The theme of both noble Lords’ contributions relates to our shared understanding of the challenge for the construction sector to be able to meet current requirements for construction skills and the construction skills necessary to deliver the Government’s plan for change, particularly to build the 1.5 million new homes that we have committed to. I wholly understand noble Lords’ concerns that we need to do more to fill the considerable gaps that exist there. That is why a much wider range of activity will be necessary, such as the important work that the CITB is doing, including the £40 million contribution to housebuilding hubs that I identified in my opening speech, which will make a considerable contribution to construction skills. A much broader approach is going to be necessary from the Government as well.
Such an approach will encompass, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, how we support our further education colleges to deliver the specific skills necessary, how we develop a broader and more flexible offer in the growth and skills levy than has been available up to this point, and how we ensure that the construction industry is making the most of the diversity of those who might be available to contribute to construction skills. The CITB’s analysis shows that just 7.4% of UK construction workers are from an ethnic-minority background and that only 15% of the workforce are female. We can see that there is much more work that the CITB and the industry need to do to ensure that we are developing a construction workforce that reflects the whole of our society and not just part of it. That in itself will enable us to go further in ensuring that people are coming into the industry.
In particular, the CITB in its homebuilding hubs will support individuals to become employment-ready and site-ready. It will support all people wishing to enter the sector, including underrepresented groups, women, and those from black, Asian and other minority-ethnic backgrounds. The Into Work grant supports progression to employment from FE provision. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, identified what is sometimes a leaky pipeline from training into work. There, employers can receive £1,500 if they support work experience and then recruit someone from an FE construction course. That funding makes local employment opportunities in SMEs more viable for employers. In addition, the CITB is funding the training of industry construction ambassadors on fairness, inclusion and respect, to drive improvements in human resources practices and site experience.
The CITB is already undertaking a range of activity. As part of the Government’s skills strategy, there is more that we will want to look at in relation to that pipeline, to support for employers and to the knowledge of employers, in order to take on those who have done training in the construction industry in our colleges so that they can take their place in the industry and maximise the contribution being made.
Apprenticeships: Entry Requirements
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My noble friend is right about that. I will write to him with some of the details about the occupational standards that already exist to enable apprenticeships in the maritime industry. We have seen a development of these occupational standards, supported by employers and others. I agree with him that ensuring this apprenticeship route—whether into the maritime industry or more broadly, particularly across industrial areas that have been identified in the industrial strategy—is a crucial way to enable growth and opportunities for individual young people.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, the Minister says that the Government are committed to making sure that young people have a good grounding in English and maths. If that is the case, why have the Government cut the number of hours of maths teaching in colleges from four to three hours a week?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
We provided a continuation of the expectation that young people who have not achieved level 2 in English and maths continue to have the ability to study those subjects. We continued the funding to enable that and provided some flexibility for colleges to deliver that in a way that is most appropriate for them.
Schools: Mobile Phones
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord makes an important point, but sometimes parents are right. Perhaps, for example, there are circumstances where there is a long journey to and from school and parents want to be able to be in touch with their children. I take the point that one of the things that we could do is support parents to understand how their children’s use of screen time might impact on them, both positively and negatively, and to encourage them—particularly those with younger children—to engage with that screen time, to understand what their children are watching and doing. That is certainly something we are looking at in some of the early years and family support work that the department is doing.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, we are not in a good place in relation to children and phones and social media. We heard from my noble friend Lord Young the evidence of disruption in classes. Parentkind has just published evidence which confirms that and shows that only one in seven pupils have an effective ban in place. Yesterday, we saw the watering down of the honourable Member for Whitehaven’s Private Member’s Bill on the protection of under-16s from social media and smartphones. Surely, with our children, we should be pursuing the precautionary principle. There is so much evidence of a correlation between the rise in mental health problems among young people and the advent of smartphones and social media. Until we know that that is not causation, surely the Government should be acting and not delaying.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
We are of course in a place that reflects the guidance issued by the last Government—probably by the noble Baroness, actually—less than a year ago. On other occasions, quite rightly in this House, the Government are challenged on the approach that they take to the autonomy and decision-making of head teachers. With respect to schools, it is clearly important that we continue to monitor this issue. I know it is of concern to parents, but we also need to be in a position where we trust head teachers to make appropriate decisions within the guidance about what happens in their schools. Some of the points that the noble Baroness rightly identifies come back to the point I made earlier about the impact of phones and social media way beyond what happens in our schools. There, our cross-government approach, which focuses on the implementation of the Online Safety Act, for example, and other issues, is really important in helping us to address this issue of great concern, which I accept is complex and does not exist only in schools.
International Women’s Day
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Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, it is a huge privilege to speak in this debate today, and to have listened to so many exceptional speeches that have highlighted the extraordinary achievements of women and, sadly, the oppression that too many still face. I start by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, on finding another way to fill what little she had left of her free time.
We have heard five excellent maiden speeches. The noble Baroness, Lady Alexander of Clevedon, talked about her pioneering work in the Scottish Parliament, and in listening to her I felt that Malawi’s loss was Holyrood’s gain. The noble Baroness, Lady Hunter of Auchenreoch, talked about alliance building. I felt that the tone of her remarks was welcome and very much the way that we all aim to work across all sides of this House.
Of the five, the noble Baroness, Lady Bousted, is the only one who I had the pleasure of knowing in a previous life—my previous life, but hers too. I recognise the way that she talked about herself in terms of self-reliance and walking with more confidence. She is warmly welcome here. There is lots of work to be done in the areas that both she and I are interested in.
The noble Baroness, Lady Rafferty, talked about being inspired by her mother. For the first time in several years, I have managed to resist talking about my mother in this speech, but, in listening to the noble Baroness, I felt that she will inspire many here. I am not sure there is a pool table anywhere in the House, though others might know, but there is plenty of homework.
I want to note other women on my Benches who have been influential. Quite rightly, the noble Baronesses who I mentioned talked about their political careers, and on these Benches my noble friends Lady Jenkin of Kennington and Lady May were influential in their work on Women2Win, which has changed the shape of our party.
Last, but definitely not least, was the noble Lord, Lord Jones of Penybont. It was a privilege to listen to the humanity that he expressed in talking about the Act that he chose to highlight to the House today, which was literally, in his words, life-saving.
It is a double privilege to be standing here today, because I am taking the place of my noble friend Lady Williams of Trafford, who is unable to be here. Like many of us, she had a strong woman in her life—again, her mother—who paved the way for her to do a science degree. Her mother was a pioneer, going to University College Cork in the 1960s to study medicine alongside a small number of women, including several nuns. Apparently she was so talented that she was given full marks in an exam that she did not actually sit because she was busy having her son at the time.
As we have heard today in the speeches of many noble Lords and noble Baronesses, women have had to fight and campaign for the right to contribute economically in general, and in science and technology in particular, including for the stepping stones along the way of education, reproductive rights, childcare, health education and of course the right to vote. As we have heard, progress for women has not gone in a straight line, and in some cases it has gone backwards.
International Women’s Day itself, 8 March, has seen major demonstrations calling for change, such as in Tehran in 1979, where women protested in their thousands against the mandatory wearing of the hijab. International Women’s Day in 2012 saw the opening of the first women’s internet café in Kabul. I wonder if it is still there—sadly, I think we can guess the answer.
Thinking about those stepping stones, the noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika, talked rightly about the importance of online safety. There is so much more to be done in all areas of gender-based violence. She mentioned the plight of older women, and it was striking that in the humbling and troubling list read out by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, two of the ladies over 70 had no name. Such women are not traditionally recognised as victims.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bousted, talked about the sexual harassment of children in classrooms, which of course happens in this country and internationally. My noble friend Lady Owen of Alderley Edge talked powerfully about the changing shape of misogyny online and how that impacts behaviour offline. Rightly, the noble Baronesses, Lady Smith of Llanfaes and Lady Bennett, and the noble Lords, Lords McConnell and Lord Loomba, expressed their concerns about the impact of aid cuts, particularly on girls’ education. Of course, education has been a crucial way for women to gain their economic independence, exercise their rights and fulfil their potential. The noble Lord, Lord McConnell, painted a vivid picture of the 200 girls in Malawi and the change that education can make to their lives.
Turning to the technology sector itself, the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, rightly said that this is an issue of power, justice and fairness, sentiments that were echoed by the noble Baroness, Lady Greenfield. My noble friend Lady Stowell gave us the strong sense of the community of women in the Beeston Plessey factory and how that became the heart of the local town.
Just to bring a little ray of hope, in the spirit of my noble friend Lady Moyo, there is, as many noble Lords have said, fantastic work in diversity going on around the country, including from the other Professor Sue Black—not the noble Baroness in your Lordships’ House—at Durham University. She is best known, perhaps, for her work on Bletchley Park but also with Tech Up Women, ensuring that we have more diversity in AI in particular.
We have heard about remarkable women from the global north. I would just like to mention a few who stand out from the global south, including Dr Asima Chatterjee from India, whose groundbreaking work in organic chemistry led to treatments for epilepsy and malaria, Dr Segenet Kelemu of Ethiopia, who transformed agricultural science, and, in Latin America, Dr Adriana Ocampo of Colombia, who has led NASA’s New Frontiers Program.
Looking forward, it feels like we are at a particularly perilous time in our history, as we look at some of the geopolitical shifts that are taking place. The conversation about the need for more defence expenditure and more investment in AI to drive the defence systems of the future has been dialled up, perhaps unimaginably, when compared to just a few weeks or months ago. As others have observed, much technological talent has been focused on consumer innovations in social media, food delivery apps and other services that can thrive only in a stable and peaceful world. It feels inevitable that more investment needs to, and will, go into critical areas of innovation, particularly in relation to defence and, within this, AI.
Defence in particular remains an area with low representation of women—where women’s voices, insights and skills are vitally needed, exactly as my noble friend Lady Morrissey and the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, said, to create the strong ethical framework and organisational culture that this sector needs, perhaps almost more than any other. We need women to be part of the solution and not just the voices left behind as men suffer the ultimate price of warfare. We must not lose sight of the absolute imperative to protect our values of freedom, democracy and the rule of law, without which opportunities for women will evaporate.
As we close this debate, we remember the brave women all around the world fighting for their freedom, their right to go to school and their right to develop their talents and potential. We celebrate the extraordinary achievements of women in science and technology, without whom so many advances would not have been made. Many in this House have been role models to and champions of younger women. So, on this International Women’s Day, I particularly wish that our daughters and granddaughters, in the widest sense, seize the opportunities that life presents them. In the words of the late, great Maya Angelou,
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better”.
Erasmus Programme
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Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, at the risk of injuring my noble friend twice in a row, may I pick up on the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Patel? Can the Minister update the House on which countries are most popular among students undertaking the Turing scheme, and how does the percentage of disadvantaged students engaging with the scheme compare with that for its predecessor, the Erasmus scheme?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Yes, the noble Baroness can encourage me to do that, and I hope I will be able to do so. I think I am right in saying that five out of 10 of the most popular Turing scheme countries are outside the EU. As we have previously discussed, that is important. In 2024-25, 53% of people who are expected to take part in the scheme are from disadvantaged backgrounds. I think that all who have contributed so far have recognised that, whatever scheme we have, the focus we put on that opportunity is really important.
Relationship, Sex and Health Education
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
It is fundamentally important that what our schools teach is based both on the best interests of children and on factually accurate information. Ensuring that that is the case is part of the reason for making sure that we take our time on this guidance, and for ensuring that schools are supported to find the right sources of that information.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, the Minister talks about the Government taking their time, but the review of the RSHE statutory guidance consultation closed in July last year, so we are nearly nine months on. Can she give a date for the publication of the results of that and the revised guidance? The Minister is right that these are very sensitive subjects, but that is why the previous Government had a very respected independent panel to advise them on this. Can she say whether its report will be published?
Higher Education (Fee Limits and Fee Limit Condition) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2025
Baroness Barran Excerpts(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Storey (LD)
It always seemed to me that were almost gloating about this, but what a fine way to show that in the financing of our university sector, or in how we look after our students in many cases.
As I think has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, last year the Minister very bravely said the Government were going to increase tuition fees to get over that difficulty. Then, of course, along came national insurance and all that wonderful extra financial resource is completely lost.
My knowledge of the university sector has increased over the years with my children going to university and I also served on the governing council of Liverpool Hope University, so my interest has grown. I always think that we do not really grapple with some of the issues that face us; we try to push them away. I thought that when loans were introduced, it would put students in the driving seat of a university education. I do not think that has happened. In some universities, the way students are regarded is not as good as it should be.
I also wonder whether Tony Blair saying he wanted 50% of young people to go to university was the right way of deciding how we grow the university sector. I look now, and I see some universities really struggling, offering very low grades to get into university. I see universities almost competing with each other on courses when they are in the same city, for goodness’ sake—I just do not understand that. I look at private universities, which, obviously, get finances from the system. I was heavily involved in the Greenwich School of Management, where the Government were able to say, “We’re taking all these young people from deprived backgrounds and giving them a university education”—but, at the end of the first year, they took the money and ran. What went on in that particular private institution, along with others, was completely wrong. When it was highlighted on “Panorama”, the college was closed down, along with others. In one case, police took action. So we have to look carefully at how we use the money as well. Some of the practices that we currently carry out are, in my mind, just not acceptable.
I want to see students really value their university education. I will give an example of something that is a great pity. When I was at university, I stayed on Merseyside, but I loved the fact that I met people from all over the country, who are some of my best friends—from the north-east and elsewhere. Nowadays, students cannot afford that and, increasingly, they go to the university in their home area or even their home city. The figures for Liverpool John Moores or the University of Liverpool, for example, increasingly show that the students come from that city, that conurbation or that region. We have lost something in losing that opportunity.
I am delighted that the Minister talked to us about how we need to look at this properly and come forward with some proposals in the summer. I am delighted and excited by that, to be quite honest, but I hope those proposals will give us the opportunity to give our ideas and thoughts on what that might be. But, in terms of this SI, I very much support what the Government are doing.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, as we have heard, this statutory instrument increases by 3.1% the maximum tuition fees that higher education providers can charge for the majority of courses and, in turn, the amount of tuition fee loans that students can take out. It also reduces the maximum amount of tuition fees that can be charged for foundation year courses in certain classroom-based subjects, such as business studies, humanities and social sciences. These Benches very much welcome the Government’s decision on foundation year courses; we have seen potentially troubling increases in the number of students taking these courses, particularly where franchise providers are used to deliver them.
However, I have three main concerns about the approach that the Government are taking to the tuition fee increases. First, this increase, in line with inflation, sets a precedent for future fee increases. I absolutely hear the points made by the Minister and my noble friends about the importance of giving universities visibility and stability in their financial model. But if we assume, in line with the OBR, that inflation remains at around 3%, it will take only a further two years of this policy before students will have to pay more than £10,000 a year in fees. So, after a typical three-year degree, students will leave with debt of around £59,000, or up to £68,600 if they live in London. Echoing the requests of my noble friends, I ask the Minister to clarify whether the Government plan to increase fees again in this Parliament in line with inflation—taking my noble friend Lord Johnson’s advice and doing that quickly—or is this a one-off decision?
Secondly, the Government have stated that they increased university fees for 2025-26 to
“help cement higher education providers’ roles as engines of growth in the heart of communities”.—[Official Report, Commons, 20/1/25; col. 19WS.]
The Secretary of State for Education deemed that this action was necessary to
“secure the future of higher education”.—[Official Report, Commons, 4/11/24; col. 47.]
However, as we have heard from all speakers this afternoon, this increase will not result in a net improvement in university budgets; indeed, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee commented in its report on this SI that the increase will “not reduce those difficulties” that higher education providers are facing. Our understanding is that the Government’s choice to increase employers’ national insurance will cost the university sector around £372 million, which will more than offset the increase in fees. So we are left in a situation where the Government have increased costs for all parties—students and taxpayers—without fixing the root of the problem. Indeed, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee noted that
“the ultimate costs of increases in tuition fee loans (and presumably also of maintenance loans, for the same reason) fall on the public purse to a significantly greater extent than the costs of those loans overall”.
So, although the focus is on students, the committee clearly believes that, ultimately, it will be the taxpayer who picks up the bill.
Thirdly, although, as I noted previously, we very much support the Government’s decision to reduce fees on foundation year courses, again, the SLSC notes that about 12 or so institutions will be most affected by the drop in income, which it estimates—or, perhaps, the Government estimate—as being between £154 million and £239 million annually. What assessment have the Government made of that impact? Can the Minister update the Committee on it?
More broadly, I hear and respect the comments of my noble friend Lord Johnson but I think it is fair to say that, as the number of degrees has expanded, some degrees have—my noble friend does not want to use the term “value for money”; I am fine with that—resulted in the taxpayer picking up a greater proportion of the costs than was the case in the past. The IFS noted in its 2020 report that total returns from a degree will be negative for about 30% of the men and women undertaking them. I totally understand that a degree is about much more than one’s earnings power, but one’s earnings power, particularly if you come from a disadvantaged community, is not insignificant either.
So I would be interested to know what the Government are doing to try to give students greater transparency about the degree choices that they are making in terms of future employability, career options and earnings power. The Minister will know that even a degree such as maths, depending on where you do it, will end up with very different outcomes in terms of earnings. It is important for students to understand the implications of their degree choices. The latest data showed that the median first-degree graduate earnings five years after graduation were £29,900 as compared to £33,800 for a level 4 apprentice. I appreciate that they are not interchangeable; I just use that as a demonstration of the point I am making.
It has taken a freedom of information request from my honourable friend Neil O’Brien to reveal the wide variations in the share of loans that are being repaid between different higher education institutions. In some cases, we see only very small fractions of what is being loaned out getting paid back, which means that these courses are definitely not great for the taxpayer but are arguably not great for the student either, who may feel that their degree has cost them a lot but not taken them to where they had hoped to get to.