Children’s Social Care Implementation Strategy (Public Services Committee Report)

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts

Wednesday 20th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the committee for this report. It is a fair and, in a sense, generous report to the Government but it raises some serious issues, as my right honourable and noble friend Lady Morris did in her excellent opening speech. This could not be more serious for thousands and thousands of children and families. We want to see that urgency and challenge in the Government’s implementation of the MacAlister report.

This report demonstrates the value in the House of a committee which is ongoing but can keep returning to serious issues. Under my chairmanship, I think we had two or three reports. This one follows those up and, as my noble friend Lady Morris made clear, the current committee will also do that, which is a very important aspect of our work.

In the short time I have—I have already used far too much—I do not have time to comment on everything, so I will be very specific. I am currently chairing an advisory group to the North East Child Poverty Commission and really want to talk about what I have been learning from that. The north-east has experienced the steepest increases in child poverty in the country over much of the last decade. It has risen from 26% in 2014-15 to 35% in 2021-22. The north-east has the highest proportion anywhere in England, by a fairly significant amount, of looked-after children. It also shares the highest proportion of children within kinship care settings. All of those things matter, and they add up to really effect the fabric for children in the region.

In a joint submission to the initial report, the north- east’s directors of children’s services—all of 12 them —said:

“Exceptional levels of poverty in the North East are driving dramatic rises in child protection intervention and the number of children in care. The cost of this cannot be afforded. Exacerbated by reductions in government funding, spending on early help has reduced at a time when it has been most needed. This vicious cycle can only be broken by different ways of working, backed up by adequate investment”.


They submitted another joint response to what the Government had to say in response to the MacAlister report. Their concern was:

“The long-term intergenerational impact of poverty and deprivation is not being addressed and will continue to feed rising demand for services. A new national child poverty strategy is needed”.


An academic study last year, I think by the University of Liverpool, found that rising child poverty can be linked to an additional 10,000-plus children having been taken into care across England between 2015 and 2020. The problem with this is, as my right honourable and noble friends said, the more that services locally are having to spend on the crisis in the care system, the less they are spending on prevention. That has become more difficult in the last year, rather than easier. We really have to face up to that.

The other thing is that during austerity the north-east suffered the highest level of funding cuts to local government. Child poverty increased and local government services were reduced by 26% across the region on average, which means that the support and help for children and families simply was not there. Is it any wonder that I want to associate myself with what the report says in its plea for the Government to show more “pace” and “ambition” to enact the review? We need that in the north-east. The children in the north-east need it and the Government really must respond.