Support for Kinship Carers

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Caroline Ansell

Thursday 14th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers, and to follow the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell), who made some important points that I wholeheartedly support. I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) for securing the debate and all the cross-party work that she does on the issue. She works incredibly hard in this area. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the time.

It would be remiss of me not to welcome the new Children’s Minister to his post. I hope that he enjoys his time in the Department for Education, dealing with some important issues. Today it is kinship care, but there is also the wider issue of how we improve children’s services across England, because in too many parts of our country, children’s services are not just underperforming but letting children down. I hope that the Government take a close look at those local authorities that could and should be doing better for our children and young people.

I wanted to speak in this debate because not only am I the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on kinship care, but, as many Members know, my wife Allison and I are kinship carers to our grandson Lyle. We never planned on becoming kinship carers, but life can be unpredictable. Sadly, Lyle’s mum and dad were unable to care for him, and social services knocked on our door. We did not think twice—of course we would take him in; of course we would care for him. It was, and it is, one of the best decisions that I—that both of us—have ever made, probably apart from getting married, as otherwise the rest would not have happened.

We love Lyle to pieces. He is a little ball of energy and joy. He is four now, and has just started primary school. He is kind, caring, incredibly funny and just the right level of mischievous. That is why being a kinship carer is such a strange conundrum: on the one hand, you are given this gift, whom you love more than anything in the world. Every Thursday evening I race home from this place back to Manchester, because spending time with Lyle is the thing above all else that I look forward to.

[Caroline Ansell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because in my contribution I focused on the issues, challenges, setbacks and disasters, but I should also say that all the kinship carers I met spoke about love. That is how the conversations started: they spoke about their motivation to reach out and to protect the child, and how they would do anything and everything in their power to look after them.

[Andrew Gwynne]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I can speak from experience. Mondays and Fridays have now got even better for me because I get to take Lyle to the local primary school. He is loving his time there, especially now he has worked out that he gets fed—last week was the first week he was there all the time, and it came as a revelation to him that they fed him at lunchtime.

On the other hand, as we have heard in the previous two contributions, kinship care is also exceptionally hard. Kinship carers are essentially picked up and dropped into a legal and emotional labyrinth, with precious little support from anyone. Like many carers, Allison and I had to go through the family courts to obtain a special guardianship order, which gives us parental responsibilities so that we can make active decisions about Lyle’s upbringing and about precisely the things the hon. Member for Eastbourne mentioned—healthcare, school and passports. We have parental rights and can make those decisions for Lyle. We had to undergo hours and hours of assessment—really intrusive police assessment of not just me and Allison, but my children and my friends. It is a gruelling system that demands an extraordinary amount from all those involved.

There are also wider family implications. Children are raised in kinship care for a variety of complex reasons, including parental mental health problems, substance misuse or illness. A kinship carer often has to manage a sensitive family situation while fiercely protecting the health and wellbeing of the child they are caring for. They are given absolutely no formal emotional support. It is only thanks to organisations such as Kinship and the Family Rights Group that Allison and I have been able to speak with other kinship carers, build support networks and access advice. It is amazing, because you find that you are not alone and that virtually every other person in the system has, to a lesser or greater extent, gone through the things you are going through, which you think are incredibly traumatic and a massive upheaval.

Then there are the financial implications. Allison and I have spent thousands of pounds in legal fees since we became kinship carers, and we continue to do so. There is always the threat of being taken back to court umpteen times. That puts a carer under such stress, trauma and emotional and financial pressure while they are trying to care for and protect their loved one. Allison and I are lucky because we are in a financial position to be able to pay these fees, but over the years I have found myself asking pretty basic questions: What if we did not have that money? What if I lost my job? What if I did not have a platform? What then?

The answers to those questions are as depressing as they are concerning. Last year, the APPG on kinship care found that 38% of kinship carers surveyed had received no legal advice about their rights and options in relation to their kinship child. Where carers had received legal advice, just 16% had received part or full payment through legal aid. Of the kinship carers who ended up in court, almost a third had to represent themselves. Some 53% of carers have made personal contributions of above £1,000, with 9% accruing costs of £10,000 or more. To be frank, the system treats kinship carers as an afterthought. They are a convenient solution in a time of crisis, and then they are left to drift in a buckling system that does not seem to recognise their existence, let alone the love they have for the children they care for.

Studies consistently show that kinship care, where possible, is in the best interests of the child. It certainly is for Lyle, and it is for hundreds of thousands of children across the country. Research from the parliamentary taskforce on kinship care shows that behavioural, educational and emotional outcomes for children in kinship care are, on the whole, better than for children living with unrelated foster carers. Kinship care allows children to develop a strong sense of their own identity and a feeling of belonging that comes from the stability of living within their wider network of family and friends. Kinship care placements are 2.6 times more likely to be permanent than unrelated foster care arrangements. It is essential that we embrace the opportunities that kinship care offers and that we make it easier for families who want to be kinship carers to do so.

It is estimated that around 100,000 children will be in care by 2032, and we must prioritise things such as kinship care if we want to avoid that reality. However, without even a legal, inclusive definition of kinship care in legislation, there is a long way to go. I am glad the Government have committed to publishing a national kinship care strategy by the end of the year. I sincerely hope Ministers will listen to the voices of kinship carers and organisations such as the Family Rights Group and Kinship and develop a system that gives kinship carers not only the support they need but the recognition they deserve.

I get uncharacteristically nervous when this subject is debated in Parliament. It sometimes feels a bit too exposing and personal to speak publicly about it. The reality is that there are hundreds of thousands of kinship carers in the same position as Allison and me. We owe it to them to get this right. Above all, we owe it to the children being cared for—children such as Lyle, who deserve all the love, care and stability the world can give. Kinship care makes that possible, so let’s make it happen.

Under-age Vaping

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Caroline Ansell

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne]

The right hon. Lady is absolutely right. We tabled the motion because we believe that the action it calls for is something we can do quickly, but the price of vapes is also a driver, and she is right that we should look into deals whereby vapes can be bought really cheaply—as she says, with pocket money—because that would be another step to take vaping out of the reach of children and young people.

As I said, ASH estimates that most children who vape make the purchases themselves. Put simply, children are then increasingly being hooked on to addictive substances that are deliberately packaged—and, indeed, sometimes priced—to catch their eye. This affects not only their health but their education.

Who could have seen it coming? Well, not the Government, it turns out. In November 2021, my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) tabled an amendment to the Health and Care Bill that would have given the Secretary of State the power to prohibit branding that appeals to children on e-cigarette packaging. It received cross-party support but was voted down by the Government. When the Minister stands up in a few minutes and claims that the Government are on top of the epidemic of youth vaping, I hope he will explain to the House—to Members from all parties who supported that measure—why the Government voted down that sensible amendment in 2021, and why they are still failing to do something about this acute problem now.

Sadly, this approach to public health has become all too familiar when it comes to the Conservatives. We were promised a tobacco control plan; that was binned. We were promised a health disparities White Paper; that was binned. We were promised a ban on junk food advertising to children; that was binned. Why? Because the Prime Minister is too weak to take on those on the fringes of his own party who view public health with suspicion. That is why, on the Conservatives’ watch, health inequalities have widened, and why vaping companies have been given free rein to profit off children and young people.

The next Labour Government will not allow the trend to continue, which is why in Labour’s health mission we have been clear that we will ban the packaging and marketing of vapes to children, and we will come down like a ton of bricks on those who sell vapes illegally to children.

[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

I agree with the shadow Minister that this is an increasingly serious issue that we must arrest. Does he agree that this is not just a health mission but an education mission? The surest reason why young people will now either give up and desist or not take up vaping is if they understand the harms and the risks, so the new education provision that the Government are helping to bring forward in schools, whereby children themselves will speak to their peers to communicate the risks, is a really important and welcome intervention.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Of course education has a role. When I went to secondary school, we were educated about the harms of smoking, although it did not stop a number of my peers becoming addicted to cigarettes—to nicotine and tobacco. Education has a role, then, but it does not have a full role. We only really clamped down on smoking and cut the numbers of people who smoke when we introduced regulations on smoking, including the smoking ban, which I am incredibly proud that a Labour Government introduced because it has had massive public health benefits for many people in the years since.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) referred to the research conducted by King’s College London in conjunction with ASH, which suggests that the removal of child-friendly imagery and colours on e-cigarettes can reduce their appeal to children while, crucially, not discouraging their use by adult smokers to quit. This is precisely the balance that the next Labour Government want to strike, so that vapes are used exclusively as a stop-smoking tool by adults, not as a way of getting young people hooked on highly addictive substances such as nicotine. I would hope that ambition was shared on both sides of the House but, unless the Minister changes his mind at the Dispatch Box, the Government are still refusing to commit to a promotion ban. That is bizarre because, in a recent interview, the Prime Minister was asked about the marketing of vapes to children, and he said:

“It looks like they are targeted at kids, which is ridiculous.”

The Prime Minister also said:

“The marketing and the illegal sales of vapes to children is completely unacceptable and I will do everything in my power to end this practice for good.”

Apparently, everything in his power does not include banning the practice of advertising vapes in this way.

Instead, the Government have announced yet another call for evidence, further kicking into the long grass the action that academics, teachers, parents and Members on both sides of the House all agree is essential now. The Government can try all they like to feign outrage at the current situation, but it is partly because of their inaction that we find ourselves in this mess. The Department of Health and Social Care could easily have included these measures in its tobacco control plan, had it not decided to scrap that plan.

The measures are eminently sensible, and we do not need another call for evidence to tell us what we can all see in our own communities. When the Minister responds, I am sure he will point to the illicit vape enforcement squad that the Government announced back in April to enforce rules on vaping and to tackle illegal sales. The squad is obviously welcome, but a few things remain unclear. First, when will the squad start its fieldwork? In a recent answer to a written parliamentary question, the Minister admitted that it will not be until “later this year”. When specifically? We are now in July. What are parents and guardians who are concerned about their children’s vaping expected to do in the meantime?

What the Minister announced in April simply does not add up to a comprehensive tobacco control plan or a strategy for a smoke-free 2030, nor will it stop the companies that are specifically targeting vapes and e-liquids at our children. The Minister knows it and we know it, so let us drop the pretence.

The next Labour Government will end the 13 years of Tory public health neglect that have seen health inequalities widen and healthy life expectancy stall and go into reverse in some communities. In our health mission, we pledged to make this country a Marmot nation, to tackle the social inequalities that influence health and to ensure that children have the very best start possible, to give them the building blocks for a healthy life.

There has been no joined-up plan for public health for 13 years, and the British people have paid the price. That is why Labour will put a mission delivery board right at the heart of Government—one that works across the whole of Whitehall to deliver secure jobs, fair pay, adequate housing, safe streets and clean air. The next Labour Government will build on our legacy of smoking cessation and take the bold steps needed to reach a smoke-free future, a future that has drifted further and further away under this rudderless Government. We will tackle underage vaping and work alongside councils and the NHS to ensure that vapes are used exclusively as a stop-smoking aid.

In short, prevention is better than cure. We will reform our healthcare system so that it focuses relentlessly on preventing the causes of ill health in the first place. For voters, the next general election will be a crystal-clear choice: choose a Conservative Government who have undone decades of progress when it comes to public health, or choose a Labour Government who will work day in, day out to give everyone in Britain the opportunity to lead a happy, healthy and fulfilling life.

I commend our motion to the House.