Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Third sitting)

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I rise to speak to amendment 49 regarding family group decision making at the point of family reunification.

Reunification—the process of returning a child in care to their family—is the most common route by which children leave care, accounting for 27% of all children who left care in 2023. It is also one of the most sensitive and significant transitions a child can experience. When done well, it can offer children stability, security and permanence at home with their family, but too often the reunifications fail. In fact, one in three children who return home then re-enter the care system, so thousands of children are enduring yet more displacement, disrupted attachments, instability and broken trust.

The human cost of those failed reunifications is immeasurable, but the financial cost is also stark. Failed reunifications cost the public purse £370 million annually—money that would be better spent supporting families in the first place. Research tells us that too many reunifications break down because families do not receive the support that they need to make that process successful, tut there is no national strategy for supporting reunifications. Support across the country is inconsistent, and alarmingly, 78% of authorities report that the support that they offer is inadequate—the authorities report that themselves.

Amendment 49 provides a clear, practical, evidence-based solution—effectively a mirror to the Government’s clause 1. The amendment would require local authorities to offer family group decision making no later than one month after the discharge of a care order for the purpose of family reunification. Of course, in practice, it is envisaged that the family group decision-making process would be offered before the child returns home to support that return.

As the Committee has already heard and discussed, family group decision making is a powerful tool. It brings families together to identify solutions, develop a plan and build a network of support around the child. It can empower families to take ownership of the challenges that they face, and foster collaborative work with professionals that promotes the safety and wellbeing of the child while also amplifying the child’s voice. My argument is that that is as important towards the end of a care process as it is at the beginning.

Family group decision making is well established and recognised as best practice by professionals. We already have clear evidence on its effectiveness, and we are awaiting more, as the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston said. However, the lack of a statutory duty to offer it has led to patchy practice across the country. One third of local authorities do not offer family group decision making at all during reunification. Amendment 49 addresses that gap. It would ensure that every family in England has the opportunity to benefit from that approach. The requirement in the amendment is to offer it; it does not impose any sort of time limit.

Some Members might worry about the practicalities or cost of introducing the duty, but as I have already explained, the breakdown of family reunification is an incredibly costly process, both financially and for the child’s welfare. The amendment is a financial cost-saving measure as well as a child-centred one. Research shows that providing support to meet a family’s needs during reunification costs just £7,857 per child. By contrast, the cost of a single reunification breakdown is £105,000. Amendment 49 would be

The amendment is practical and allows for professional judgment, recognising that every family is different. Where a meeting is not in a child’s best interests, the local authority would be exempt from the duty to make the offer, and that flexibility ensures that the needs of children always come first. The amendment also complements existing provisions in the Bill. It effectively mirrors the duty to offer family group decision making before care proceedings, and therefore offers a coherent support framework at both ends of the care process—effectively bookending it. It brings much-needed consistency to a fragmented system.

With more children in care than ever before, as we have noted, and with children’s services under immense strain, the amendment represents a real opportunity. By embedding family group decision making we can enable more families to stay together, reduce the number of children returning to care, which is an incredibly damaging process, and relieve pressure on an overstretched system, all while delivering better outcomes for those children. This is about fairness, consistency, investing in what works and ensuring that all reunifying families, not just some, are given the help they need. It is about recognising the importance of successful reunification within the care process. I very much look forward to hearing the Minister’s reflections on the proposal and the other questions raised this morning.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Of course I agree with and entirely support the spirit of what the Government are doing. It forms part of the strand of development intended in the “Stable Homes, Built on Love” strategy; across the House, we share similar motivations on all these matters.

On the comments from the hon. Member for North Herefordshire on reunification and amendment 49, I do not think an amendment to a Bill is the moment to introduce such a thing, but I am sure that in their continuing work, Ministers and officials will look at how the reunification process can be improved for all the reasons that she rightly gave.

I have a couple of questions on the inclusion of children in meetings, which is relevant to clause stand part and to amendment 36. My first question is: what guidance will accompany the new provisions? In some cases it will be obvious that a child should not be present, but beyond that it is perhaps difficult to generalise. Of course we trust professional judgment, but I wonder about the extent to which further guidance may be useful. I am thinking particularly of children with learning disabilities, who sometimes feel that things are done that affect their lives in a big way and they have less of a say than other children, because somebody has made that judgment when perhaps they did not need to. Secondly—this is a minor point in the grand scheme of things—I wonder why the legislation and the explanatory notes do not say that a child may be present for part of the meeting. It may be appropriate to have part of it with the child and part of it without them.

[The Chair]

I call the Minister. [Interruption.] I call Tom Hayes. It is helpful for the Chair if you rise in your place if you intend to speak.