Support for Kinship Carers

George Howarth Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of support for kinship carers.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I start by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for granting this important debate and by welcoming the many kinship carers who are here listening. The last two times that I led a debate on kinship care, the Children’s Minister resigned shortly after—literally within days—but in an exciting plot twist, this time the Children’s Minister got a promotion the week before, so perhaps things are looking up for the new Minister. I welcome him to his place.

On a serious note, I launched this campaign in Parliament in July last year and the hon. Member for Wantage (David Johnston) is the fourth Children’s Minister I have engaged with on this issue since then. I know that his brief covers so many important areas. I really hope, for the sake of our country’s children, that we will get some stability now and that we will be able to progress—on opposite sides of the Chamber, and also by working together on some of the critical issues facing children up and down the country. I know that the Minister has an extensive and long-standing interest in children’s policy, so I look forward to seeing him hit the ground running. We are all looking to him to ensure that the upcoming kinship care strategy will be delivered before the end of the year, as his Department has promised.

The last debate that I led on this issue was in this Chamber 11 months ago. I set out many of the themes and issues that are in my ten-minute rule Bill from July last year, so I want to focus on the upcoming strategy as well as revisiting some of the themes that we have talked about consistently.

I acknowledge some of the progress that has been made over the last year in getting the Government to acknowledge kinship. In their response to Josh MacAlister’s independent review of children’s social care—the Government document was called “Stable Homes, Built on Love”—we finally saw an acknowledgement by Government of kinship and kinship carers. In the document, there was recognition that

“kinship care has received little national policy attention”

and that

“too little support is given to extended family members who play a caring role for their young relatives.”

When the previous Children’s Minister made the statement in the House of Commons, I was really heartened by the number of Members on both sides of the House who spoke about kinship care. It was the first time that I had heard so much attention given to this important issue, which has too often been overlooked.

The MacAlister review was the crucial moment in putting kinship carers on the map, kick-starting what has happened. It recognised that, with the right help, housing a child in crisis with family or friends they know and love will often be the best outcome for them. We know that, every year, thousands of grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings and family friends step up in this way, and they do so instinctively, out of love, despite the huge personal sacrifice involved. We know that children in kinship care have equal or better mental health, education and employment chances than looked-after children. With my Bill, I sought to press the Government to implement several of the MacAlister review’s recommendations.

I am delighted that, since then, kinship carers have shared their stories numerous times on breakfast TV and local radio. An ITV documentary highlighted their plight. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) shared, on Sky News, his moving story of growing up in kinship care, and I am really proud that in March this year, at the Liberal Democrat spring conference, Lib Dem members approved as party policy a lot of what was in my Bill about allowances, leave, pupil premium plus and having a statutory definition of kinship care.

Kinship care is on the Government’s lips and in the media spotlight in a way that it rarely has been. It has been a pleasure to work alongside these carers, the Family Rights Group, Kinship and other MPs in making the case that kinship care is worth investing in—saving the taxpayer in the long run. It would be remiss of me if I did not also acknowledge and thank, from the bottom of my heart, Andrew Burrell from my team, who is here today and has been the driving force in my office behind this work. He is leaving my office in a couple of weeks, and a lot of what I have done would not have been possible without his expertise and dedication, so I am very grateful to him.

Ministers are finally beginning to listen, and the attention given to kinship care in “Stable Homes, Built on Love” is hugely welcome. I am sad to say, however, that the document was policy-lite, with commitments to merely “explore the case” for greater financial support for kinship carers, and to pilot new “family first” decision making in just seven council areas. Other announcements were kicked down the road into the kinship care strategy promised by the end of the year, but, as the cost of living crisis bites, too many children in kinship care cannot afford to wait. There is a serious risk to children’s outcomes and the public finances if kinship care does not get the investment that it needs. The MacAlister review warned that, with no action, almost 20,000 more children will be in local authority care by 2032, costing the Treasury an extra £5 billion.

In recent months, Kinship has seen a significant increase in the complexity and severity of cases to its advice and support line. In its 2022 “The Cost of Loving” survey of more than 1,000 kinship carers, out of the three quarters who said that they were not getting the support they needed, one third said that they may not be able to continue caring for their children as a result.

The need for change is becoming increasingly urgent. We need the Government not just to acknowledge the love that kinship carers provide, but to value it, invest in it and step up for those who are struggling.

[Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing the debate and the very eloquent way in which she is putting the case. Does she agree that if what she described were to happen to that one third, it would be a disaster not just for those families and the care system, but for the taxpayer, because it would require a very expensive solution to a problem that we could resolve by other means?

[Munira Wilson]

Absolutely, and I am grateful for that intervention, because the right hon. Member makes a case that I have made throughout, whenever I have talked about kinship carers: the Government cannot afford not to provide this support. The analysis shows that if we paid kinship carers a similar allowance to foster carers, for every child that we prevent from going into care, the Government would save £35,000 a year. It is a no-brainer because of both the short-term savings to the Treasury and the long-term savings, in terms of the more positive outcomes that we achieve for those children.

So what opportunity stands before us with the national kinship care strategy? It provides a key opportunity for the Government to deliver financial and educational support to children in kinship care that will be truly transformative. Kinship carers cannot wait for another spending review or a different colour of Government.

My Kinship Care Bill, introduced last year, had four main asks, and I hope that the strategy will make significant progress towards implementing each one. First, all kinship carers should have a weekly allowance at the same level as the national minimum fostering allowance. Many experience severe financial hardship. Kinship’s survey last year found that two in five kinship carers had avoided putting the heating on, one in five skipped meals and more than one in eight used food banks. A national, non-means-tested allowance would end the system of patchy, means-tested allowances that reflect a postcode lottery in the support that councils can afford to provide.