Adoption and Kinship Placements

Alistair Strathern Excerpts

Tuesday 20th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship. Mrs Harris. I congratulate the hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) on securing what we all acknowledge is a really important debate.

Like a lot of people in the Chamber today, one of my biggest privileges before coming to this space was serving as a corporate parent on the local authority of the place I lived at the time. Although “corporate parent” can feel like quite a stale and bureaucratic term, it is actually one of the most deeply important and human parts of a councillor’s role, making sure they are there for, championing and supporting every young person who, for whatever reason—whatever has happened to them in their life—now finds themself in their local authority’s care. There is nothing more moving or devastating than to speak to some of those young people, to see their inspiring resilience in the face of traumas that lots of people here never have to even contemplate happening to themselves, and to know the very real ways in which the current system is continuing to let them down and fail them.

We know that kinship placements, strong supportive fostering placements and adoptive placements are strongly associated with the best outcomes for young people in care, providing the best support for them to make the best start in life and later to thrive, but far too often the system is not set up to facilitate that. Young people often end up—at great cost to all of us and our local authorities—in unproductive and sometimes deeply cold private placements.

[Olivia Bailey (Reading West and Mid Berkshire) (Lab)]

We rightly hear about the many challenges that adopted children can face, but as a proud adoptive parent, I say we also need to remember the huge joy they bring to their families and adoptive parents. My hon. Friend is right to highlight the many challenges in children’s social care. Does he agree it is vital that the Government get on with the root and branch reform of children’s social care, as they are committed to do, so that we get children into permanent, safe, long-term placements as soon as possible?

[Alistair Strathern]

Absolutely. In a heartwarming way, my hon. Friend has reminded us of the opportunity we have if we can get the system right, to make sure that more young people who have had deeply difficult starts in life can experience the parenting, support and love that we all want for our children.

I am glad that, whether through investment or reform, the Government are committed to overcome the challenges in the system they inherited. Whether it is finally funding a long overdue and important kinship care pilot or reforming and supporting more local authorities to attract more people into foster caring, there is a lot to shout about. I am glad, albeit with some caveats, that in the context of a difficult financial and public services inheritance, we have been able at least to safeguard existing funding to keep adoption support going for the next year.

Although it is welcome that the funding is now being accessed by many more families, there is no getting away from the fact that the changing cap will have an impact on young people with SEND and their carers. Their concern is understandable. There will be lots of conversations about how we can best bring to life our broader vision and look after the young people in our care in the best way, by supporting more of them into nourishing, fantastic and thriving placements. In the meantime, we owe it to them to use every available lever to provide the fullest support possible.

I welcome that support, but what more can we do to ensure that local authorities use their virtual heads to hold schools accountable for the pupil premium placement money they are given for children in adoption and foster care placements under their watch, to widen support available to them? Where we have given local authorities more money for children’s social care, I would welcome consideration being given to how guidance could be strengthened to ensure that they are filling in the gaps. We know that is in the child’s, the family’s and all our best interests.

Like many others, I welcome further opportunities to work with the Minister. We have a number of champions of care and care leavers here. It is one of the most exciting and energising things about being an MP in this new Parliament. I know we would all be excited to work with the Minister to bring to life fully this Government’s vision of ensuring that every young person, particularly those entrusted to all of us, those society cares for, gets the support in life they desperately need.