Education and Adoption Bill (Fourth sitting)

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Bill Esterson]

I thank the Minister. He chaired both groups, so he is well aware of the good practice over a number of years of taking evidence from children and young people.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for the work that he has done, through various all-party groups, for looked-after children or children in the care system. He will have listened to evidence from care leavers as a member of the Education Committee in the previous Parliament. Does he agree that it is not simply children currently in care who need a voice, but those who have recently left it?

[Bill Esterson]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. We served together on that Committee in the previous Parliament. We held inquiries into leaving care and the quality of 16-to-19 care options and, indeed, a further inquiry into residential care. Previously, there was an inquiry into child protection. All those things are in the space that we are discussing under this aspect of the Bill and all will probably lend themselves to slightly fuller discussion under some of the other amendments. She is right to say that we should listen to what those who have left care have to say about their experiences. The experiences and life chances of children and young people who end up in the care system, whether they go on to be adopted or, we hope, into other forms of permanence, are affected very much, and for the same reasons. As parliamentarians looking to get this right for that group of children and young people, we should take every opportunity to listen to what children and young people and in particular, as she says, care leavers have to say.