Kinship Carers

Debate between Alistair Strathern and Blake Stephenson

Wednesday 13th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Alistair Strathern]

Absolutely. Since they took office, we have seen from the new Secretary of State, the Minister and the Government an urgency that, finally, is starting to meet the needs of the moment, and the needs of young people in kinship care and their carers. Whether it is making sure that we finally have a kinship care ambassador to actively champion the role of kinship carers and take to task local authorities that do not always provide the support they need, as some kinship carers in the room might be able to attest to; bringing forward statutory guidance and a framework to ensure that we have more in place to recognise the values of wider family networks in planning decisions for young people, and to do everything we can to remove the barriers to placing young people in kinship care; or—

[Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

As the previous Member for Mid Bedfordshire, the hon. Member knows how profoundly important this issue is to constituents like Amanda and Carol, who are tenacious. Does he agree that it is important to make sure that there is not a postcode lottery between local authorities and that there is equality of service across borders?

[Alistair Strathern]

Absolutely. The new kinship care ambassador and the guidance for local authorities that was brought out earlier this year will be important in delivering that, as will making sure that local authorities are held to account for delivering the local offer for kinship carers. This is an incredibly important issue, and whether a kinship carer and a young person get the support they need cannot be left to the luck of a postcode.

Flooding: Bedfordshire

Debate between Alistair Strathern and Blake Stephenson

Wednesday 16th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Blake Stephenson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I agree that that is something the Government should be looking at.

During the recent flooding, I was appalled to learn that drains and sewers in the new town of Wixams were overloaded with surface floodwater. Seventeen years after construction began in Wixams, the drainage infra- structure should be adequate to accommodate many more houses than have so far been built. I urge the Minister to join me in pressing Anglian Water to take urgent action to expand its sewerage and drainage infra- structure.

Wixams is merely the most obvious example of a problem that residents are seeing repeatedly with development. House by house, development by development, infrastructure is failing to keep pace. While an individual development might not be enough to overwhelm the system or cause knock-on flooding impacts, the accumulated weight of development is creating huge problems across the country—including in Maulden in my constituency, where development has crept gradually up the slope of the Greensand ridge, resulting in water having fewer places to stop and soak, so that it instead surges down into the village. While the flooding infrastructure for these new developments might in theory be sufficient for planners to justify development, planning is failing to cope with the demands placed on it by multiple and interconnected developments, which is piling pressure on to networks and our natural environment.

With the Government set to review the planning system and ask for our towns and villages to take thousands of additional homes, I implore the Minister to work with colleagues to deliver reforms that require flooding authorities to take a wider systems view of the impact of developments. We need to ensure that housing targets do not put the delivery of new homes over the habitability of housing stock, or the safety and sustainability of our communities.

[Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and for securing such an important debate not only for his constituents, but for all Bedfordshire Members present. The point he is making is really important, and is felt keenly by my residents in Langford, on Southland Rise, where the failure of flood prevention measures put in place as part of a new development meant that several of them have had catastrophic flooding in a very short space of time over the past few weeks. Does he share my view that not only is consideration of flooding risk through local and national planning frameworks clearly in need of review, but we need to ensure that measures are in place for robust enforcement, to ensure that the flooding mitigation measures that are included in new developments actually work as it is claimed they should?

[Blake Stephenson]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. That story is felt and heard all across Mid Bedfordshire, and I agree with the points he made.

As a starting point, I would like the Government to consider urgently introducing secondary legislation to bring into effect schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. The Minister smiles, so she perhaps has a point to make on that when she winds up. I understand from a recent answer to my written question that the Minister wants to be mindful of the impact of over-regulation on developers, but building homes in a way that increases the flooding risk in our towns and villages does nothing to alleviate the housing crisis.

We must also consider the benefits of nature and nature-based solutions. Natural upstream solutions would help capture water and absorb some of the worst impacts of flooding. The Bedford and Milton Keynes waterway park is a great local example of a project that has the potential to remove water during flooding—and, indeed, to deliver water when it is most needed during droughts—and we must press ahead and deliver it at pace.

In addition, we need the Government to look again at their plans to designate inferior-quality areas of the countryside for development, and instead commit to a bold strategy of restoring nature, and in so doing, creating natural flood defences for our towns and villages. In our towns and villages themselves, I would like the Government to commit to a natural regeneration programme, using trees and nature to create sponge cities by enhancing drainage to prevent surface water flooding.

I will conclude with a final lesson that I hope the Minister will reflect on. My constituents were disappointed that, while she took the time to visit those in nearby Leighton Buzzard and to observe the impacts of flooding there, our towns and villages in Mid Bedfordshire received no attention from the Government at all. With a major road closed and a substantial number of houses and businesses impacted, had the flooding in Mid Bedfordshire been concentrated in a single major urban area, I have no doubt that we would have attracted some specific focus.

I have raised questions with the Minister and the Department that remain unanswered. I urge the Government to remember that rural areas are impacted by flooding too, and that they should be properly served by this Government, not an afterthought.

SEND Provision: Hertfordshire and Central Bedfordshire

Debate between Alistair Strathern and Blake Stephenson

Wednesday 4th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Alistair Strathern]

I could not agree more. The way in which families and, crucially, young people in Hertfordshire have been let down typifies a challenge facing local authorities right across the country: in the context of a nationally failing system, how do we make sure our local leaders remain ambitious for our young people and do not become incredibly complacent about performance that cannot be justified? We saw that in Hertfordshire and, heartbreakingly, we see it today in other parts of the UK.

It is clear that even with the early signs of improvement there are significant challenges to address. Local statistics, including those published today by ITV Anglia, lay bare some of the shocking challenges that families and young people are still facing. It is evident that far too many young people are waiting far too long for an assessment, for the support that follows that and, shamefully, even for the school places that are most appropriate for their needs. Alongside that, far too many families are having to battle an appeals system just to secure confirmation of the support their young persons are clearly in need of and clearly entitled to.

[Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I declare an interest as a Central Bedfordshire councillor, which puts me in a somewhat awkward position. I thank the hon. Member for securing the debate. As my predecessor in Mid Bedfordshire, he knows all too well the challenges across the constituency, and I thank him for his work on the matter.

It is important for all the parents and grandparents in our constituencies that children with special needs get the right support, and I absolutely want to deliver that for the people of Mid Bedfordshire. I know there have been failures in the past; we need to move forward and find solutions. I want to do that in a cross-party way and I hope I can work with the hon. Gentleman, who is my neighbour, and with the Minister to do that. I think that is the right way to go. This has been too partisan for too long and some cross-party working would be valuable. The hon. Member has my support.

[Alistair Strathern]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention and for his commitment to working alongside everyone in the Chamber, whether in Central Bedfordshire or in Hertfordshire, to make sure our local authorities deliver the improvements in their gift and to make sure we support the new Government in finally getting a grip on the problems we have inherited.

I challenge anyone faced with the statistics we have been seeing over the past few months not to run the full gauntlet of emotions, all the way from despair to anger. For me, hearing the personal stories of the young people affected by the challenges has truly broken my heart.