Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Tyler of Enfield Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cash (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 116B, 117B, 117C and 117D in this group, which are tabled in my name. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, and to the noble Lords who have already spoken. I agree wholeheartedly with what has been said so far.

The intention behind these amendments is to address the issues of attachment, disruption and trauma, which can ensue from housing children too far from home—noble Lords who have already spoken have addressed this. We know that we can minimise the damage and effects of being housed too far away by proximity. I have therefore tabled amendments in a probing manner to invite the Minister to reflect on whether there is some way in which these concerns, as expressed in Committee today, could be accommodated in this legislation.

Amendment 116B essentially proposes a duty to collect sufficiency data. It would address the basic idea that you cannot plan what you do not measure. We know from the MacAlister review and from many other organisations which support RCCs—as, indeed I do—that there are concerns about current provision already, and that we need to make sure there is strategic visibility, so that RCCs working together know how many foster carers, residential beds and emergency places are truly needed and where investment is most urgent. In the independent review commissioned by the last Government, the now Labour MP Josh MacAlister was very clear that data should drive the planning. I urge the Government Benches to consider that viewpoint. This amendment would give legislative force to his recommendation. It would allow readily available data to be collected so that we could target spending wisely, empower the local leaders who are responsible for assigning the places and avoid waste.

Amendment 117C just builds on the previous proposal requiring the RCCs to publish an annual sufficiency report. It is a basic governance issue of transparency and accountability, which would allow the local authorities, providers, Parliament and, most importantly, children and their families, to know whether the system is, in fact, working. Placement decisions, as we know because there has been a lot of coverage of it, are currently shaped by what is available at the time. Many of us in this House have concerns about supply being driven by various commercial providers. The amendment would help to reverse some of that by making the data transparent at a ready time. It would also ensure that the RCCs are open and responsive to their stakeholders, the local authorities, and to Ofsted, ensuring that young people and foster carers were accommodated rather than the commercial providers. This public report would really just amount to good governance.

Amendment 117C involves the use of the sufficiency data to inform the commissioning and it follows on from the previous provisions. I have said already that I support the amendments proposed by fellow noble Lords, and these proposals invite the Government to consider in what way the best accommodation of this data collection takes place. This amendment would ensure that placement commissioning was rooted in real need, not market convenience. It would help RCCs to invest early in local provision and reduce the reliance—which worries all of us—on expensive private options, which have been driving children to be accommodated out of their local areas, with all the concerns that the noble Lord, Lord Meston, has raised in relation to that. The amendment also aligns with the ambition of all parties in this House for relational and stable care for children, rather than a race to the bottom in pricing or availability.

Amendment 117D would put the focus on the outcomes for children. I emphasise this amendment because it ties in with the stated objectives of this Bill, whose title includes “Children’s Wellbeing”. It cannot be right that RCCs will be introduced without the requirement to collate data showing whether or not they are working for the very children that they are intended to provide for. It connects two critical questions: did we have enough places, and did we make a difference? As noble Lords know, the children’s care system is too often evaluated on the inputs—how many beds, how many carers—but what really matters, what is really going to make a difference, is whether those children are safe, settled and supported to thrive, hopefully in proximity to their own families or kinship that may be available to them. The amendment would allow the RCCs to link their planning with real-world results, helping the Government and local leaders to learn what works so that there can be continuous improvement.

I believe the amendments are proportionate and sensible measures that meet the stated purpose of the Bill, and I beg the Government’s support.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 117 in my name, and I thank my noble friend Lady Walmsley, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for adding their names to it.

This is an important group. Many times in discussions on the Bill, and more generally, we have talked about the dangers of children being placed far away from home. That is why this is such a critical group. I strongly support everything that has been said so far and the amendments that have been tabled specifically with regard to trying to prevent children from being placed far from home when there are any other viable alternatives.

The intention of my amendment is quite simple: it is to ensure that those making decisions affecting children and young people seek and take into account their wishes and feelings. I shall say a couple of words of general context. I welcome the Government’s ambition to be a child-centred Government, and I support the important steps taken in the Bill to strengthen systems that intend to do that and to keep children safe, but there is more that the Bill could do to be truly child centred. At the moment, it needs to do more to embed real consideration of children’s wishes and feelings—hence my amendment, which was discussed on an earlier occasion, about children’s wishes and feelings being respected in relation to family group decision-making.

In 1991, the UK ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. In so doing, we recognised that children have a distinct set of rights that uniquely value all that it means to be a child. In short, it recognises that children are expert in their own lives. As we know, in cases of abuse and neglect, giving children the opportunity to express their views is a critical factor and lever in building trust and keeping children safe.

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[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, there are around 35 state boarding schools in the country, but there are also a number of private boarding schools that are ready to provide support, which is why I mentioned the Royal SpringBoard scholarships and bursaries that are available. I completely accept the noble Lord’s point—that people need to be kept, wherever possible, near their homes—but we need flexibility. We must not make the perfect the enemy of the good. If there is a good boarding school place that is reasonably accessible to the child’s home, but more importantly to the foster carer or kinship carer, then that is what matters. But I take onboard what the noble Lord said.

In her summing-up of Amendment 82, the Minister spoke about stability of setting, and she was very right. The Norfolk study showed that there was a very strong correlation between improvements in those children’s well-being and the length of tenure. The study showed that three years of continuity made a tremendous difference. I hope the Minister will consider this amendment.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, before speaking to my Amendment 129, to which the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and my noble friend Lord Storey have added their names, I first add my very strong support for Amendment 144 by the noble Lord, Lord Watson. I am sorry that I did not manage to add my name to it; it deals with such an important issue.

I was shocked to read a report by the Children’s Commissioner, which said that last September, there were 775 children in unregistered homes, including children under the age of 10, children who had spent over two years in those homes and children in entirely inappropriate unregistered settings such as caravans. Staggeringly, the average cost was over £1,500 a day, with an estimated total annual cost to local authorities of over £400 million. As the Children’s Commissioner said, and I very much agree with her, the use of these homes is a national scandal. Vulnerable children are being failed. We would not allow it for our own children, and we simply should not allow it for those for whom the state is corporate parent. Therefore, I very strongly support phasing out unregistered accommodation.

My Amendment 129 is closely linked to the discussion we had on the first group about children being placed far from home. It would amend

“the sufficiency duty to prevent children being moved far away from home”

when that is not in their best interests. We heard a lot of the arguments in the previous group, and I will pull out a few specifics.

In recent years, there has been a marked and shocking rise in the number of children in care who are moved far away from their support networks and communities. Last year, more than a fifth of all children in care were living more than 20 miles away from home. That might not sound far but, frankly, that is a long way from family and local support networks. In addition, more than 3,000 children were living more than 100 miles from home—that is 4% of all children in care—and more than 800 children under the care of English local authorities were living in Scotland and Wales. Although I accept that there may be legitimate reasons why children in care are moved far from home—safeguarding, preventing them being exploited or harmed, or their being moved to wider family networks—far too often it is simply because of a lack of appropriate local options.

As highlighted by the charity Become in its Gone Too Far campaign, being moved far from their family, friends and schools can have a significant and long-term adverse impact on children’s relationships, mental health, well-being, sense of identity et cetera—the sort of things we discussed in our last session on relationships.

Clearly, local authorities across the country have faced a number of challenges recently—that is why we have just had the discussion about regional care co-operatives —particularly in ensuring that there are the right number and type of homes in their local area to meet the needs of children under their care. The current sufficiency duty is not fit for purpose, and there is a lack of accountability and oversight regarding the extent to which sufficiency is being fulfilled.

That is the reason for tabling this important amendment, which seeks to strengthen the sufficiency duty by requiring local authorities to plan, commission and deliver provision and to take “all reasonable steps” to ensure that children in care remain living within or near to the local authority. The amendment builds on recent reforms by the Welsh Government, and we would very much benefit from taking it forward.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 119 tabled by my noble friend Lord Agnew, to which I have added my name. He spoke very persuasively for it.

I did read the Minister’s response to the debate last Thursday on Amendment 82, which would similarly have made it compulsory for children in kinship care to be offered such a place. I agree with her answer in pretty much all respects. She recognised the positive impact that boarding schools can have, but they should not be the default for all children living in kinship care. She cited the importance of stability in education and friendships to well-being and educational outcomes. Moving schools would, of course, be potentially highly detrimental.

I ask the Minister: could she work with me and my noble friend Lord Agnew to word this legislation to remove any sense of default? My aim is simply to make this option available to all, as this is currently not the case. The arguments and evidence—for making the boarding school option available to both children in kinship care and children in local authority care—overlap significantly in these amendments. My noble friend Lady Berridge eloquently made the case for Amendment 82 when I was unable to be here, so I will not repeat it.

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[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Meston, whose wisdom and experience of the court processes in this area are, I am sure, very valuable to the Committee.

I will speak to Amendment 133 in my name. I have also added my name to that of my noble friend Lady Barran on Amendment 120. Amendment 133 states:

“Information required to be published by a local authority includes information about the authority’s arrangements for enabling children subject to deprivation of liberty orders to maintain, strengthen and build family and social relationships”.


This Bill picks up much of the intent of Josh MacAlister’s Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, but one of its key emphases, the importance of relationships, could feature more prominently throughout. Josh’s review drew on an experts by experience board informing his recommendations: young people and adults who had been through the care system. They said in the foreword that this review was their chance

“to reshape the system by placing relationships front and centre”.

I was on the design group on that review, and this emphasis came through again and again in evidence—hence the first paragraph of the report, which states:

“What we need is a system that … puts lifelong loving relationships at the heart of the care system”.


It calls for a reset that

“starts with recognising that it is loving relationships that hold the solutions for children and families overcoming adversity”.

On an earlier group of amendments focusing on care leavers, my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott said we need to make sure that the loving, committed relationships that come to the fore in the family group decision-making process do not fall through the cracks in a child’s care pathway as they walk along it. If the local authority intentionally helps a child or young person to maintain them from day one, these relationships will not only be there when the child leaves but have the potential to transform the whole experience of being in care.

My noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott talks very effectively about the lifelong links model imported from California and thoroughly adapted and tested by the Department for Education for British children, families and friends. Lifelong links ensures that children have a lasting support network of relatives and others who care about them throughout their time in the care system. In my work with the Ministry of Justice, I have recommended it for children in the youth custody and wider youth justice system, with whom children deprived of their liberty are an overlapping cohort.

We can underestimate the strength of the pull towards blood connections. Without the corporate parent’s gentle hand on the tiller in this area, many young people in or leaving care go looking on the internet and social media for family members, and not all of them will be beneficial relationships. While I would like lifelong links to be included in regulations and guidance as an offer to all children in care, care leavers and those deprived of their liberty, as the Minister said, this programme is being evaluated. Whatever its future, local authorities should be required to be intentional and systematic about relationships. Children in care, especially when they are in trouble in care, desperately need to feel that they belong somewhere.

Mark Riddell MBE, the Government’s national adviser for care leavers—at least, I think he still is; he certainly has been for some time—tells how his turnaround moment came when he was about 14 years old in the Scottish care system and had just trashed the children’s home where he lived after several failed placements. He had been called to the manager’s office, so he packed his black bag, expecting to be moved on again. The first thing the manager said to him was, “What’s that bag for?”. Mark said, “It’s all my stuff; you’re going to kick me out”. The manager told him, “We can sort out the damage, but you’re not leaving: this is your home”. Knowing that he belonged somewhere and that people were committed to him, regardless of his behaviour, finally settled him down, and he is now a voice for government.

Young people deprived of their liberty need a profound sense of belonging. Relationships with dedicated and compassionate staff are essential, but they also need to know that they have not been abandoned by their families, friends and other trusted adults. They belong in a relational web. We must not let this be torn apart by the already very traumatic experience of being deprived of their liberty.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I will make a couple of points and ask a question. Like others, I have found this both a very humbling and a very disturbing group, which, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Meston, has shone a light on a little-understood area and highlighted some disturbing details. It is an area that I now realise I knew far too little about and that has not received anything like the transparency that it should.

The two points I want to make are on Amendment 127 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, about placing a duty on local authorities to provide therapeutic treatment for children who are subject to a deprivation of liberty order. It reminds me of all the detailed scrutiny that I and other noble Lords gave to the Mental Health Bill during its passage in the first few months of the year.

One of the things that was particularly in my mind was that that Bill included four core principles for making decisions about detaining people under the Mental Health Act, and one of those was that it would be of “therapeutic benefit”. I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, who told us that for quite a few of the children who would be subject to these deprivation of liberty orders, it would be because of their severe mental health problems. It struck me that there are parallels between the two Bills; and in the same way that we have said in the Mental Health Bill that detention must be of therapeutic benefit, Amendment 127, which is about providing therapeutic treatment for children subject to a deprivation of liberty order, is particularly important.