Baroness Grey-Thompson

Local authorities are required to provide services for children in need for the purposes of safeguarding and promoting their welfare.

All local authorities must adhere to statutory guidance including ‘Working together to safeguard children 2023’, which is attached and can also be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-safeguard-children--2. The guidance is clear that safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children relies on providing help and support to meet the needs of children as soon as problems emerge.

Ofsted inspects whether local authorities are delivering appropriately for children.

On 18 November 2024, the department published ‘Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive’, which is attached and can also be accessed here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67375fe5ed0fc07b53499a42/Keeping_Children_Safe__Helping_Families_Thrive_.pdf. This sets out this government’s approach to reforming the system of support for children and families, including rebalancing the system toward earlier intervention through the national roll out of family help and child protection reforms. The local government finance policy statement published on 28 November 2024, by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government confirmed that the rollout of these reforms will be supported by £500 million of funding from April 2025. The statement is accessible here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-government-finance-policy-statement-2025-to-2026/local-government-finance-policy-statement-2025-to-2026.

Family Help is a seamless, non-stigmatising offer of support delivered by multi-disciplinary community-based teams. It combines the strengths of targeted early help and section 17 work, with an emphasis on whole-family working and greater flexibility on who leads work with families, ensuring children and families receive the right support at the earliest opportunity, crucially improving their outcomes and also reducing costs to public services.

Through the £45 million Families First for Children Pathfinder programme and Family Networks pilot running in ten local authorities, the department is testing models and approaches to parental support and advocacy, so that parents feel empowered to have a strong voice when navigating the child protection process. Through the same programme, we are also testing stronger multi-agency approaches to support families. This includes new Multi-Agency Child Protection Teams and Lead Child Protection Practitioners, who are qualified social workers with strong expertise in child protection and assessments. These teams will see local authority, police, and health and other relevant agencies work together in an integrated way to help families overcome challenges, stay together wherever possible, and thrive whilst keeping children safe.

The introduction of Family Help and reforms to child protection from April 2025 will produce a fundamental shift in the way the department is able to respond to children and families who need help. The changes will form part of an improved end-to-end system that offers a seamless system of support, ensuring children and families access the right support at the right time, delivered by the right person.

More detailed guidance on these reforms will be published in the new year which will confirm the changes we expect local authorities and their partners to deliver, including minimum expectations for delivery and opportunities for local flexibility.

The measures in the Mental Health Bill will give patients greater choice, enhanced rights, and support, and will ensure that everyone is treated with dignity and respect throughout treatment. The Government’s view is that the Mental Health Bill is compatible with both the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and does not plan to publish further legal analysis.

The Mental Health Bill reflects the recommendations of Professor Sir Simon Wessely’s Independent Review into the Mental Health Act of 2018, which engaged widely with a number of organisations. The review’s advisory panel brought together a range of stakeholders to serve as a forum for gathering evidence and insight throughout the course of the review. The membership of the advisory panel comprised of individuals with lived experience, advocacy organisations, professionals and representative bodies, and representatives from the statutory system.

Following this, the Government ran an extensive public consultation on the proposals in the Mental Health Act White Paper, which received more than 1,700 responses. A draft bill was then published in 2022 for pre-legislative scrutiny (PLS), during which a range of stakeholders and organisations representing service users, patients, and professionals provided their views on how the draft bill could be improved.

The Mental Health Bill has been further strengthened through recommendations made by the PLS joint committee. Since July 2024, we have further engaged with range of key stakeholders, and we will continue to engage further, and consult widely, on the development of the Mental Health Act Code of Practice, the statutory guidance which will inform practice under the bill.

Through our proposed reforms to the Mental Health Act, we want to ensure people get the support they need in the community, improve care and prevent admission to hospitals. We recognise that strong community support must be in place to improve care and reduce reliance on mental health hospitals for people with a learning disability and autistic people. We will engage with expert stakeholders to inform implementation planning, including in respect of the development of strong community services.

The National Health Service’s 2024/25 priorities and operational planning guidance sets out the objective of reducing reliance on mental health inpatient care for people with a learning disability and autistic people. In 2024/2025, NHS England has allocated £124 million of transformation funding for learning disability and autism services which includes funding to reduce reliance on mental health inpatient settings.

We recognise how important the right housing arrangements are in supporting people to live independently, and the need to support people to live behind their own front door wherever possible. We incentivise the supply of supported housing in England for older people and adults with a physical or learning disability, autistic people, or adults with mental ill-health. The Government will bring forward details of future investment in affordable housing at the multi-year Spending Review next year.

The Government is required to provide an annual update outlining the progress the United Kingdom has made on the Committee’s recommendations following the 2016 inquiry and most recently gave evidence to the Committee at a dialogue in Geneva in March 2024.

The reforms delivered by the Mental Health Bill reflect the recommendations made by the Independent Review into the Mental Health Act, which engaged widely with stakeholders, including people with lived experience of a learning disability or autism under the Mental Health Act 1983. There was extensive consultation following this, to develop the draft bill, most notably on the Government’s White Paper, Reforming the Mental Health Act. Since the initial draft bill, we have taken on board several recommendations from the pre-legislative scrutiny committee, which heard from a range of stakeholders and organisations representing service users, patients, and professionals.

Regarding the learning disability and autism specific measures, we recognise that strong community support must be in place to improve care and reduce reliance on mental health hospitals. We will engage with expert stakeholders to inform implementation planning, including in respect of the development of strong community services.

We will engage further with the relevant stakeholders on the development of the Code of Practice, the statutory guidance which informs practice under the Mental Health Bill.

The Home Office is working closely with departments across Government, including the Department for Education, Department for Health and Social Care, and the Ministry of Justice, to identify where progress can be made against the recommendations made in the final report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, and will provide further detail in due course.

The Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips MP, has convened ministers from across departments to discuss the recommendations and has met victims and survivors, child protection charities and Professor Alexis Jay, former Chair of the Inquiry, to ensure their views on this important issue are considered.