Independent Review of Children’s Social Care

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

I reiterate my thanks to Josh MacAlister and his team for this most excellent review. My hon. Friend is right that there will be an immediate laser-like focus on foster care recruitment—local, regional and, to some extent, national. That is hugely important because we need additional places. The figures are a bit misleading, because there are huge numbers of expressions of interests, often to multiple agencies, and there are some people in there whom we would not want to be foster carers. However, the number of expressions of interest versus the number of successful foster carers is not where we want it to be. That means massively increasing the pool and, when it comes to expressions of interest, really hand-holding and making sure that people get the support that they need to go through to fostering and beyond.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I thank the Minister for his statement and I congratulate him on Colchester becoming a city. We are very proud of that in Essex.