Children’s Social Care: Enduring Relationships Strategy

Debate between Baroness Smith of Malvern and Lord Bellingham

Monday 8th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

That is a very important point. One of the important things we legislated for in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act is the requirement for the use of family group decision-making in precisely that way, when thinking about children coming into the care system, by engaging their families and those who might have the capacity to support them at that point. That is a really important statement at the very beginning of the process about the need to think about kinship care and the support that families can provide.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I had the pleasure of working with the Minister in Committee on the Bill on the regional care co-operatives, and I am very grateful to her for agreeing to many of the things the Opposition were keen to have in the Bill. The successful expansion of the RCCs will depend to a large extent on good will and co-operation with local authorities in its implementation. Can she say something about how this will be achieved in the context of local government reform, which will mean many existing local authorities will be turned into unitaries and there will be a lot of changes across a number of counties and other areas?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that this is a period of local government reorganisation. It is also a time when local government finances are under considerable pressure, not least from having to find placements in an unplanned way, which is likely to lead to unexpected and very high costs. The very fact that local authorities can group together to use the planning and spending power of a regional care co-operative is beneficial to them at a point at which local government reorganisation is going on. Even more importantly, it is beneficial for the children who are more likely to have a placement that works for them, rather than simply one scrambled together on a Friday afternoon.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Baroness Smith of Malvern and Lord Bellingham

Tuesday 17th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

As usual, my friend the noble and learned Baroness makes an important point about the application of the law in this particular case. I think, as she suggests, that legal accountability and responsibility remains with the authority placing the child, but that does not mean that, in practical terms, there should not be engagement, and I would have thought that that would have been good practice. I also think that it is important that there is clarity about where the responsibility stays. That goes for the care co-operatives as well.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for the extremely comprehensive response that she has given the Committee; it lasted a while but she covered a lot of ground on a lot of amendments.

I certainly agree with what she had to say about the wider strategy of trying to fix the current placement market and, above all, making sure that the right home is in the right place for children around the country. She certainly gave me some comfort on the role of the RCCs and the way in which they are going to be able to help local authorities and work with them and take pressure off them. I am grateful that she mentioned that there is going to be work in progress to look at the consequences of the abolition of NHS England.

On the role of the ICBs, I should have been aware of Section 10 of the Children Act 2004, because I was on that Bill committee many years ago and I remember the clauses about multi-agency safeguarding and the other bodies that are involved in this process.

I am very grateful to the Minister. I am sure that colleagues here will look very carefully at what she said. If need be, I for one will want to discuss this further with her and will look carefully in more detail at her reply, and maybe come back to this on Report. In the meantime, I thank her and beg leave to withdraw my amendment.