Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 18th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I follow my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham in being most grateful to the Government for bringing forward this Bill; there is much in it that is very welcome. I know that the complexities of parliamentary timetables can mean that Bills get introduced to us with fairly short notice, but there is one clause in the Bill that causes particular concern. Clause 29—formerly Clause 15—has the opportunity to roll back significant child protection legislation from the past. My personal concern is that something as important as that needs more time for consultation.

The document Putting Children First, which lays out the basis for this particular proposal, came out in July—so, just as we were looking at this proposed amendment, we were also given the theoretical background to it. We have not had enough information or a long enough time to process this important clause, so I ask the Minister to consider withdrawing the amendment, consulting on it properly and bringing it back at a later date. I know that we have not yet settled a second day on Report, which gives us more time to consider this important issue. I hope that that suggestion is helpful.

I support the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, on this matter, and declare my interest in mental health assessments for looked-after children and designated mental health professionals for them. I am a trustee of the Brent Centre for Young People, a centre of excellence in the treatment of adolescents with health disorders, including eating disorders and other issues, and of the charitable foundation the Child and Family Practice, which brings together paediatricians, head teachers and psychiatrists to produce assessments of children with complex needs such as autism. I strongly support her amendment and I have added my name to it.

The Minister may be concerned about whether we should assess all children. I have heard people say, “What about young children? They will not necessarily need a mental health assessment”. But research from the Tavistock a few years ago was quite clear that we were overlooking the need to assess the mental health of three and four year-olds; their needs were not being caught or addressed. I have been interested in the work of the Anna Freud Centre for many years. It does admirable work with infants, for example in Holloway Prison and in refuges, working with very young children and providing them with therapy and assistance—so that should not be an obstacle.

I look forward to the Minister’s response. There is such a call on mental health provision at the moment and I am afraid about what will happen if we do not legislate—and obviously we want to legislate sensitively. The mental health of these young people has been ignored for many years. We have prioritised their education but we have not given enough thought to the trauma that they experience before entering care and on entering care—and that trauma is often exacerbated by suffering many different placements in care. I strongly support the noble Baroness’s amendment.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in this group, particularly Amendment 4. I am pleased to support the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who stressed the need for screening for the various neurodevelopmental disorders and neurodisability needs listed in the amendment. Many of those arguments were made in Committee with particular reference to communication disorders, and I hope the Minister will find them more persuasive on this occasion.

There are many problems related to getting children an assessment and/or a diagnosis. The social worker needs to be aware of neurodisabilities and the support and training to enable them to develop this understanding. The lack of time to build meaningful relationships with a child and really get to know them is also of concern. Again, I hope the Minister will have something to positive to say on that.

On Amendment 1, the Minister acknowledged the need for parity of esteem between physical and mental health, and of course that is welcome. That being the case, however, there is surely no reason why he should not accept that his amendment is logically extended by the wording of Amendment 8 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler. Looked-after children are among the most vulnerable in our society, often entering care with a history of abuse and neglect. But it is the sad case that once they are in the care system—a system intended to protect them—many continue to be at risk of further abuse. The Children’s Commissioner estimated that between 20% and 35% of children who had been sexually exploited were in care at the time of that exploitation. I am afraid that, all too obviously, there have been several such cases in our newspapers recently.

Knowing and understanding what types of support would benefit children entering care should be a simple step. It should be a basic element of that support that they receive a mental health assessment alongside the physical health assessment that already happens. Not only would that identify children with diagnosable conditions that require clinical interventions, it would allow foster carers, social workers, teachers and other responsible professionals to develop an understanding of how they could foster therapeutic relationships with those children in their care. I echo the recent remarks by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel: in many cases children require mental health assessments prior to entering the formal education system because damage can often be done at that stage that it is very difficult to deal with later. Children cared for in institutional settings have often experienced a high number of foster placements which have subsequently broken down, which can often be a by-product of poor emotional well-being.

It is estimated that almost three-quarters of children in residential care have a clinically diagnosable mental health condition. If a concerted effort had been made to address the mental health needs of those children when they entered care, it is at least possible that they may never have needed to be placed in residential care, which is, after all, a much more expensive option than foster care. That is why a whole raft of professionals working with the mental health needs of looked-after children believe that this help should be offered as early as possible. There is no rational reason for delaying the introduction of these simple measures, which could prevent further trauma being inflicted on these children.

As many noble Lords present will know, we have raised this issue time and again. I was among several noble Lords making the case at each stage in the passage of the Children and Families Act 2014. It was repeated at Second Reading and in Committee on this Bill. I raised it again at the briefing session on the Bill for noble Lords which the Public Health Minister hosted in September. All this was to no avail. Nor has this House been the only source of such pleading. As the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, said, in April, the Commons Education Select Committee published its report entitled Mental Health and Well-being of Looked-after Children. One of its recommendations was that,

“all looked-after children should have a full mental health assessment by a qualified mental health professional. Where required this should be followed by regular assessment of mental health and well-being as part of existing looked-after children reviews”.

The Government considered the Committee’s report, rejected most of it, it must be said, and their response on that point was:

“We do not accept the recommendation as it stands”.

The response went on to refer to the expert working group for looked-after children that the Government established in May as a possible means of filling this long-established gap in provision for looked-after children. Perhaps there is reason to be optimistic as to that group’s recommendations, since it will have as its co-chairs Alison O’Sullivan, the former president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, and Professor Peter Fonagy, a psychologist and medical researcher. By what I am sure is complete coincidence, both gave evidence to the Education Select Committee’s inquiry and both, I understand, indicated their support for children having a full mental health assessment when they enter care. The expert working group also included four people who gave evidence to the Select Committee, plus the person who acted as its adviser, so the crossover is considerable, which I very much hope is all to the good.

It would lack consistency for the Minister today to submit Amendment 1 but then dig in his heels and steadfastly refuse to go further with regard to a full mental health assessment. Simply pointing to the expert group is not satisfactory, because it is not due to report for at least 18 months, which means that the Government will effectively stonewall again when the Bill reaches another place. Even if the expert group recommends a mental health assessment for each child entering care, the Government would then need to accept the recommendation—which, on past practice, requires a leap of faith—and then we would need to await the next suitable Bill as a vehicle to introduce it. So if anything does change, it will be quite some way down the line.

The Minister, his advisers and officials at the DfE should ask themselves how many more children will have their mental health issues undiagnosed because of government foot-dragging on an issue that the professionals are quite clear on. Over the years ahead it will be many thousands and that is not a thought of which anyone associated with the Bill on the government side should be proud.

[Lord Warner (CB)]

My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group, particularly Amendment 8, spoken to so ably by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler. I shall turn to Amendments 4 and 5, to which I have added my name, in a moment. It is a strange irony that she could find an assessment tool in the youth justice system for these conditions; looked-after children seem to have to work their way into the criminal justice system before they can avail themselves of this tool. If I may say so to the Minister, it might be worth considering getting in there a little earlier with looked-after children and accepting the noble Baroness’s amendment.

I strongly support Amendments 4 and 5 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. I declare my interest as the grandparent of a child on the autistic spectrum and a staunch supporter of the National Autistic Society. From all my involvement with looked-after children over the years, many of whom then appeared in the youth justice system, where I saw them again, far too many of these children end up in that system and far too many of them have neurodisabilities or neurodevelopmental disorders. Their problem has often been overlooked for a very long time. These disabilities can be at the heart of their problems in terms of social non-compliance in the school and in the wider community. This leads to their becoming children at risk and in need, as well as often ending up in the youth justice system. The way that they process information and instructions—or, more accurately, fail to do so—is at the heart of many of their problems. Knowing about this is a first step to helping them to manage their condition.

If the state is to take the drastic step of assuming responsibility for these children, the least it can do is to make very sure whether these children have disorders and disabilities about which, on their own, they can do very little and with whose management they need help. The Government should take this issue seriously and include in the Bill a provision of the kind set out in Amendments 4 and 5.

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[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I and other noble Lords attempted in Committee to persuade the Minister that the list of corporate partners in the Bill should be widened. We were unsuccessful then, so today we have tried a slightly different approach with an amendment that speaks only of,

“such other persons or bodies as may be defined in regulations”,

with the proviso that such regulations must be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.

Corporate parenting is one of the most important roles of a local authority, and elected councillors take that responsibility extremely seriously. Corporate parenting means the full and active involvement of the formal and local partnerships needed between local authority departments and services and associated agencies which are responsible for working together to meet the needs of looked-after children and young people as well as care leavers. Recognising that the different component parts each have a contribution to make is critical to the success of corporate parenting. A major challenge in operating effective corporate parenting is to manage its contradictory nature, balancing the need for continuity with the changes necessarily involved, whether through political control, staff changes within the local authority or other partners, or the emergence of new policies, perhaps even new legislation. The aim must remain static: to help provide each individual child or young person with a sense of stability in their life.

Any duties to co-operate must, of course, be reciprocal, with local government, health partners and the police all working together to protect and support looked-after children in their area. All corporate partners need to fully understand and accept their responsibilities as corporate parents, and governance arrangements will be in place to make sure that work within councils and their partner organisations is child-centred and focused on achieving the overarching outcome. The overarching outcome of corporate parenting should be for young people who have experienced the care system to go on to be successful learners in whatever career path they choose, to become confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors whose life outcomes mirror those of their peers as far as possible. The ultimate aim must be that there is no discernible difference between the outcomes of children and young people who have been looked after and those who have not. That, I accept, is a lofty aim, but it is surely one that no one who has the interests of our most vulnerable children at heart can turn away from. I hope that, in that sense, the Minister will look upon Amendments 6 and 7 and give a positive response.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my interests as a councillor in the Borough of Kirklees and therefore a corporate parent, with whom the buck finally lands. We had a considerable debate in Committee, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, because there was a lot of concern about having clarity of definition about corporate parenting principles. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, talked about the report of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, In Care, Out of Trouble, drawing attention to, “Less clarity leading to more inconsistencies”. That is precisely why, at this stage, there is an endeavour to find greater clarity in the corporate parenting principles laid out in the Bill as it stands.

I also suggest that we ought to support greater clarity because of the changing role of local authorities, given the financial pressures on them. It is also the right thing to do because it makes corporate parenting more effective. There has to be work across other public sector partners; those referred to in the amendment laid before us are the police and the health service. The reason for doing that is to ensure that those two bodies in particular have it as a priority in their planning and actions that they take note of the importance of corporate parenting when they meet young people who are in need of care, and who are sometimes—more often than we would like—brought to the attention of the law.

The third reason why we support the amendment proposed is because, in the principles as laid out, and as described by the Minister in Committee, everyone who is employed by a local authority is responsible as a corporate parent. My fear is that, if everybody is responsible, no one is. That is why I have argued consistently that we need to be clear about where the final responsibility lies.

We need to expand the definition of corporate parenting responsibilities to include other key public sector organisations, but also to have clarity within local authorities on where the final responsibility lies. In the words of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, it is always helpful to refresh requirements in earlier legislation because it brings it to the attention of professionals that this is a matter on which legislators place great importance. With those words, I support wholeheartedly Amendments 6 and 7.

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Moved by

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

10: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty to provide suitable accommodation
(1) Each local authority in England must take reasonable steps to provide all former relevant children up to the age of 21 with accommodation that—(a) is within the authority’s area; and(b) meets the needs of those former relevant children.(2) A local authority is deemed to have discharged this duty towards a former relevant child where staying put arrangements have been made under section 98 of the Children and Families Act 2014 (arrangements for living with former foster parents after reaching adulthood).”

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, Amendment 10 would place a new duty on local authorities to take reasonable steps to provide care leavers up to the age of 21 with suitable accommodation. It would also end the inequality between young people in stable foster care placements, who are entitled to stay with their foster family until the age of 21 under the “staying put” arrangements, and other groups of young people leaving care.

The Bill rightly aims to improve outcomes for care leavers, a group of young people who, as many noble Lords have said, face significant challenges. However, as currently drafted, we do not believe that it goes far enough to make a real difference to young people’s lives. Organisations supporting these young people have consistently said that safe and stable accommodation must be the starting point for improving outcomes in other areas. Education, training, employment and health would be the main examples. A 2015 report by the National Audit Office found that young people with a background in care were more likely to become homeless or to end up in custody. Indeed, the most recent figures from the Department for Education show that, in 2015-16, 7% of care leavers aged 19 to 21 were in accommodation considered unsuitable and the suitability of the accommodation of a further 11% could not be established. Equally, 4% of care leavers aged 19 to 21 were in custody, and 40% of care leavers in that age group were not in education, employment or training. All these figures combined show the scale of the task that faces us when we seek to look after young people leaving care.

When most young people leave home, they are usually able to continue to rely on their parents, as the noble Lord, Lord Warner, said, for many things, not least advice as well as practical and financial support. Young people who have been in care do not have that support system open to them. Many have significant emotional and mental health needs which are often due to a history of abuse or neglect. The transition to adulthood can be daunting at the best of times for all young people. By definition, looked-after children rarely experience the best of times and have to cope with multiple changes: finishing school or college; moving from child and adolescent mental health services to adult services; and often the need to find alternative living arrangements. Even among children in different forms of care, there is real inequality between care leavers who can stay with their foster family under “staying put” and all other young people leaving care.

The Government have promised to pilot “staying close”, which would offer accommodation to young people leaving residential care, but we understand there is to be no duty on local authorities to do so, and there is certainly no clarity on funding. As it stands, if you are not in a stable foster placement at 18, you may well end up in an unsafe or unstable accommodation placement or be homeless or sofa-surfing. Outcomes for care leavers in general will not improve until this issue is addressed.

In 2014, the Government recognised the importance of safe, stable and appropriate accommodation for care leavers. “Staying put” arrangements mean some young people can remain with their foster family until they reach 21. In 2015-16, of those who ceased to be looked after on their 18th birthday and who were in foster care, 54% of 18 year-olds, 30% of 19 year-olds and 16% of 20 year-olds were able to remain with their foster family. However, for other young people, including those in residential accommodation, who may be the most vulnerable of all and have significant needs, no equivalent support is available. This Bill offers an opportunity to ensure that all young people leaving care have an appropriate place to live until they reach 21 to help them start their adult lives.

In July, the Government committed to piloting “staying close” in Keep on Caring: Supporting Young People from Care to Independence. The aim is to explore models of accommodation for young people leaving residential care. That is to be welcomed, but Amendment 10 enables us to go a step further. I hope that the Government will look upon it favourably.

Amendment 12 in my name amends Clause 2. It concerns the local offer for care leavers and seeks to set up a national minimum standard that would set out the quality and extent of services to be offered by local authorities to care leavers. In a later group, we will discuss the national offer. I am aware that the Government, at this stage at least, are not minded to embrace such a concept. Setting out a national minimum standard is a similar approach in the sense of avoiding the postcode lottery that we all understand and that applies in different ways in different settings. That lottery could allow local authorities in some areas to provide a much less satisfactory service to care leavers than is provided in others. That is why it makes sense to set a national minimum standard. It would be no more than a minimum to be built on but it is necessary so as to have something on which to fall back.

Regarding the other part of the amendment, it makes sense to consult appropriately to ensure that the basis on which the national minimum standard would be set was one that carried the benefit of the experience of the various corporate parenting partners. It is important to say that the setting of a minimum standard is something that we need to do because the patchwork effect of the accommodation issues to which I referred in commenting on the earlier amendment show that there is no common policy across the country. That, surely, is not acceptable. For that reason, I beg to move.

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I shall speak in support Amendment 12, to which I have added my name, but I should like first to add my support to Amendment 10. Affordable single-person accommodation is one of the areas in shortest supply in many of our cities. This is the pool in which we are often trying to find accommodation for these young people. They do need a lot of support. We are asking them to live independently and to battle their way through what is often a confusing and difficult accommodation market. Even older, more mature adults find it difficult to survive in that market.

We are setting these young people up to fail if we do not do more to help them to get into safe and suitable accommodation. It is no wonder, sadly, that we find so many of these young people having been in care sleeping rough in many of our inner cities, including not far from this place. Anyone who late at night wanders around the South Bank will find some of these characters who have been in care having a difficult time. When you talk to some of them, you hear that they have never had good accommodation.

The Minister should take this seriously. When I was chairman of the Youth Justice Board this area was one of the major contributory factors to many of these young people moving down a path of crime and into the youth justice system. Tackling it is therefore in everyone’s interests, not just those of the young people. I strongly support Amendment 10.

I also support Amendment 12. Too often we pass reforming legislation without saying what would be an acceptable level of response by those responsible for implementing that legislation. There is a long history of the lifetime outcomes for looked-after children being inadequate. We shall come to the issue of outcomes in a later amendment. To address this long-standing problem, the Government would do well to set out some national minimum standards for the services that must be offered under their local offer for care leavers. Far too many young care leavers do not know what they can expect from the authority that has been looking after them when they move into the wider world.

From my experience as the commissioner for children’s services in Birmingham—appointed by the current Secretary of State’s predecessor but one, who has since gone on to further fame—one also finds huge variations in the performance of some of the leaving-care teams within the same authority. This is not an area that has been well served by consistency even within the same authority. Setting some national standards would not just be helpful for consistency between authorities but would help some of the bigger authorities to have consistency within themselves. So I strongly support Amendment 12.

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In light of the points I have made, I hope the noble Lord will feel reassured enough to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, first, I hope and suspect that my eyebrows were not the only ones to raise when the Minister said that it was not for the Government to set in statute what local authorities should be doing. It has been the pattern in recent years for Government to say what local authorities should not be doing. Housing and education were increasingly taken away from them; then planning was taken away; and social work services will to some extent be taken away if Clause 29 of the Bill becomes law. I suspect some in local authorities would be quite pleased to have the Minister standing up for them, but I am not being entirely serious, because I am suggesting that the Government should go beyond the minimum. The Minister says that there is a minimum, but the Bill does not say what that should be. Without that being set out, what is a minimum? We could be here until a week on Tuesday discussing what that is, so that is not a suitable answer. I am not asking the Government to tell all local authorities what they should do but I am asking them to set the minimum, because some local authorities clearly do not meet that minimum. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Warner, a man whose experience is vast, of the inconsistences that already exist. I cannot believe that the Minister would regard that as acceptable—indeed, I know he would not. If it is not acceptable, we need to do something about it. That is why this amendment has been framed.

The Minister said a few moments ago that the local offer must aim to support independent living. Well, the most basic part of independent living is accommodation. While I accept what the Minister says about various agencies supporting accommodation, the most basic right anyone needs to build a sustainable life is accommodation of their own, rented or owned. Without that, I do not see how anybody can be expected to make their way in life successfully for very long. So the Government’s response is disappointing and—dare I say—a bit complacent. The situation that the Minister outlines is not that found on the ground by local authorities or by many of the organisations working in the field. I regret that the Minister has not been willing to go further, but I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 10 withdrawn.

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[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, Amendment 13 relates to the national offer for care leavers. I am grateful for the support of the Labour and Liberal Democrat Front Benches for this amendment. Recently I heard from Ashley, an 18 year-old in a Staying Put placement who has experienced at least six different foster placements during her time in care.

As I speak, I am thinking about a colleague from a charity board who recently described to me her early experience. Her mother was a crack addict who told her children both that she valued drugs more than them and that if they did not visit her regularly, she would take her own life. My colleague is extremely bright and hard-working and made it to university—one of the 6% of care leavers who do so. There, she had many black days, but she was supported by her flatmates, she completed her degree and, in August of this year, was married to a kind man—an accountant. So many care leavers do not experience that success. Without a family to call on, they might quickly find themselves alone and in debt, perhaps destitute. Our ambition must be to furnish care leavers with the necessary skills and training to allow them to excel and achieve their full potential, as we would wish for our own children.

However, financial security—the bedrock of being able to do these things—is so often difficult for them. Jack, a care leaver who attended a meeting organised by the Children’s Society last week, subsequently told me that, “The national offer would provide stability to care leavers, with protection from the darker side of financial troubles. It means we could focus on our education, employment or training and not on the stress of how we are going to pay for this or that, or whether to buy a bus pass or food shopping that week”.

I welcome the steps that the Government have taken to better support care leavers: allowing them to stay put with their foster carers until the age of 21; the Ofsted inspection of care leavers services; the Government’s care leavers strategy; and the new rights under the Bill. However, we all know that we need to do more. The Bill makes a local offer, which is very welcome, but in their role as corporate parent, the national Government need also to provide a robust offer for care leavers, with a particular focus on financial support. If the Government are serious about building a country that works for all and improves the lives of those who are just managing to keep their heads above water, they must ensure that a package of improved support for care leavers is central to that commitment. It is certainly not for this House to decide on financial matters. However, as this Bill begins with your Lordships, we can give the other place an opportunity to discuss matters that are vital to the welfare of care leavers.

This amendment has four parts. The first provides for a reduction in the penalties attached to sanctions targeted at care leavers under the age of 25. The second would provide working tax credit for care leavers under 25, and the third would extend the current exemption from the shared accommodation rate for housing benefit for care leavers from 22 to 24. Finally, the amendment would provide an exemption from council tax for care leavers under 25.

Research from the Children’s Society shows that currently, care leavers are three times more likely to receive a sanction than other young claimants, yet are much less likely to challenge these sanctions, perhaps due to the lack of a pushy parent. When they do appeal, however, two-thirds of these sanctions are overturned. This amendment would soften the sanctions on care leavers under the new universal credit system, in recognition of the additional complexities in their lives—meaning that the maximum sanction would apply for four weeks, as opposed to the existing four to 13 weeks for a first-time infraction. The cost of this measure is effectively nil, as sanctioning is a form of punishment, not a revenue generator for the Treasury.

The noble Lord, Lord Freud, has made an eloquent case for the mental health benefits of employment—but, to be a viable option for care leavers, work must pay. For this reason, our amendment would allow for care leavers under the age of 25 to claim working tax credit—a crucial form of support already paid to those over the age of 25 and to those under that age if they have children or disability. I recognise that working tax credit is soon to be phased out, but, under the new universal credit arrangements, under-25s will still be penalised, so it would be a very important flag to ensure that universal credit will also recognise the needs of this particular group.

For care leavers, a job can mean the end of isolation, as well as the beginning of independence; yet care leavers are heavily overrepresented among young people who are not in employment, education or training. Perhaps the existing assumption behind the working tax credit age limit is that low-income young people will be living at home with their family. This assumption clearly does not apply to care leavers, and they should therefore be able to benefit from this extra help if on a low income.

Thirdly, our amendment would ensure that no care leaver would pay council tax up to the age of 25. Already, six local authorities have suspended this charge for care leavers. Where they are liable for council tax, most care leavers already receive heavy discounts—but still, many struggle to cover this. Despite these changes, we still have the nonsense of corporate parents sending around the bailiffs or taking their own children—or children for whom they have a corporate responsibility—to court to pursue small amounts of money, which might cost more than the money recovered. I am encouraged that, in their latest strategy, the Government have asked local authorities to consider a council tax exemption for care leavers. However, I am sure that noble Lords would agree that the sensible thing to do is to mandate that all local authorities do this, as they do already for those in higher education.

Finally, our amendment would disapply the shared accommodation rate for care leavers until the age of 25. Currently, when a care leaver turns 22, if they are living in privately rented accommodation, their housing benefit is often reduced to that sufficient to rent for a room in shared accommodation, rather than a self-contained property. For many care leavers, their first home might be the first stable home they have ever had. Faced with reduced housing benefit, they might experience dislocation and, possibly, homelessness. We know that approximately 25% of the homeless population have been in the care of a local authority and are therefore care leavers. It cannot be right that, when almost half of all 20 to 24 year-olds still live at home with their parents, we put care leavers in a position where they could see a typical £31 a week cut to their housing benefit at the age of 22.

The cost of our amendment is estimated at around £50 million a year. The aim of the Bill is to extend provision of some key forms of support for care leavers until the age of 25. The logic behind the national offer is to extend the financial support that a care leaver can expect to receive up to that age. The cost of not introducing this amendment is far higher than the cost of its introduction. I beg your Lordships to allow the other place the opportunity to consider this national offer for care leavers. I beg to move.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I have added my name in support of this amendment. I pay tribute to the work done by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and by the Children’s Society, to which he referred. Many noble Lords have benefited from the briefing provided by that organisation and it is a matter that it cares very deeply about. We in your Lordships’ House should also care deeply about it.

In July, the Government launched Keep on Caring, a strategy for cross-government provision. That was certainly welcome, not least because it contained the proposal to introduce a care-leaver covenant. The Government have characterised this as complementing the local offer that local authorities will be required to provide. However, it did not meet what we, and several organisations involved day-to-day in the delivery of social services to children, see as the need for a national offer delivered locally. I referred to this on the previous group of amendments. We believe that the national offer is necessary because of the patchwork provision that will be made by local authorities, so I would like to reinforce the arguments that I made on the earlier group.

I will not repeat the details of the national offer that the noble Earl outlined, but I want to refer to one or two aspects of it. There are four points, and the Minister, perhaps slightly unusually, replied to all four in a letter to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, before the debate. The noble Earl has kindly circulated that letter, and it is helpful for us to know what the Government’s position is. It is not exactly positive. None the less, it is helpful to have it outlined.