Looked After Children (Distance Placements) Bill
Debate between Jake Richards and Caroline Nokes(3 days, 10 hours ago)
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Fred Thomas (Plymouth Moor View) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend not just for his passion in bringing forward this Bill, but for his service as a lawyer before entering this place. He brings that expertise from his previous profession here. Will he join me in acknowledging that in places such as Plymouth this problem can be even more acute? Plymouth is not particularly near other large cities, so the tendency is for children to be placed in care very far away—sometimes 50 or even 100 miles away, as he highlights. As he gets to the part of his speech where he highlights some statistics, will he just acknowledge—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. May I just point out to Members that interventions, while always welcome, do need to be briefer than that?
Jake Richards
My hon. Friend is right. There is a particular problem in the south-west—his part of the country—and in his constituency, which he represents so ably. In fact, there are some care leavers with that experience in the Public Gallery who are from that part of the world. There are particular issues there.
My Bill does not seek to overhaul the care system or burden already stretched local authorities. It sets out three clear practical measures. First, it would place a statutory duty on local authorities to collect and publish data on distant placements—specifically, how many children are placed more than 20 miles from home, and how many have been moved in the past year due to a lack of suitable local provision. Secondly, it would require every local authority in England to produce an annual local sufficiency plan, which is a clear, forward-looking strategy setting out how they will meet their duty under section 22G of the Children Act 1989 to secure sufficient accommodation in their area. Thirdly, it would introduce a duty on the Secretary of State for Education to publish a national sufficiency plan after each financial year. That strategy must bring together the data collected from local authorities, and set out what action the Government are taking to support councils in meeting their duties.
That, in my mind, is a sensible, common-sense approach. This Government clearly take their responsibilities in this area seriously, but future Governments may not. This initiative will keep their feet to the fire. Together, those three provisions introduce something that our current system clearly lacks: clarity, co-ordination and accountability. The Bill does not ban distant placements. It rightly makes space for cases where distance is necessary, whether for safety, for therapeutic care or for stability. There needs to be flexibility in the system.
I am pleased to be joined in the Gallery today by Georgia and Kane, two care-experienced young people whose courage and insight continues to shape this debate. In fact, this Bill would not be before the House if it were not for them and many of their friends and colleagues who have campaigned so passionately on this issue. Their stories are vital, because behind every placement statistic, every sufficiency plan and every consultation document, there are real lives shaped by the decisions that the Government make and that we make in this place.
Kane, at just 16 years old, was moved from his foster home near Kingsteignton to supported accommodation far away in Exmouth. The move separated him from his twin sister and left him feeling alone and invisible. Georgia’s journey meant that she moved multiple times while in care and spent extended periods in mental health hospitals as a teenager, often far from home. She recently told the Education Committee how she had to be declared homeless in order to access the support she needed near to her networks. She described a kinship placement that offered love, stability and safety, but that broke down because her carers received no formal support. She was left navigating high-risk supported accommodation alone, often living alongside people experiencing exploitation and with serious mental health needs, all while trying to complete her A-levels.
Jake Richards
Absolutely. Care should always be the last resort, and later in my speech I will speak about the false economy of spending billions of pounds on a care system that is failing children—most importantly—but also the taxpayer and everyone else. Early intervention is absolutely critical, so I completely agree with the hon. Member’s point.
How have we got to this stage where, as I have just touched on, the system is failing in so many different aspects? The reasons are complex. Too often, distant placements simply reflect a chronic lack of local provision, with a market-driven care system unable or unwilling to provide safe, nurturing homes close to where children live. As we have heard, the result is thousands of children being let down by a failing system.
One of the most significant contributions to the Government’s Bill, and indeed to our understanding of the whole system, was the independent review of children’s social care led by my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister). That review laid bare a system that is under immense strain, one in which the needs of children are too often shaped by market forces and a postcode lottery rather than what is in the best interests of those children, which is what the Protection of Children Act 1978 requires and should shape all Government policy.
My hon. Friend’s review could not have been clearer: too many children are being placed far from home. It called for a fundamental reset—a shift from a reactive, fragmented care system to one grounded in early intervention, as the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) has advocated for, with strong relationships and homes that are local, loving and stable. It warned of a dangerous reliance on large private providers, many of which operate with little accountability and at high cost. We could have a whole separate debate about the extortionate costs of private companies in the care system and the profits they are making on the backs of desperate local authorities. That review also made a powerful case for rethinking the way in which we plan for care, arguing that the absence of a joined-up national approach has left too many children at risk of instability, isolation and, in some cases, real harm.
We know from councils that the crisis in placement sufficiency is leaving them with little choice. They face a dire shortage of foster carers, especially those trained to provide therapeutic support, and they are locked in bidding wars with other local authorities, or priced out by private providers demanding fees that would make even a well-resourced system buckle. If the state is going to remove a child from their family and their community —an enormous, draconian power and responsibility—the least it can do is ensure that every child does not lose everything else in the process. We must not only protect children, but nurture them; we must provide not just safety, but stability. I hope that the Bill lays the groundwork for that ambition. It would ensure that we do not just talk about sufficiency but plan for it. It would ensure that we treated data not as a bureaucratic requirement, but as the foundation of good care, and it would ensure that Parliament played a role in scrutinising the system, rather than simply reacting to its failures.
The Bill would not ban distance placements, because, as I have touched on, there will always be cases where a child must be moved, but it says firmly that they should never be the default. Placements should never be driven by gaps in provision, lack of planning or market dysfunction, and the Government must take a leading role in changing the care system.
As I have said, I welcome the legislation going through Parliament, and I applaud the Education Secretary, and in particular the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby), who is in her place, for putting children in care front and centre of the Government’s agenda. That has not happened for many decades; many Governments of different colours have failed to properly grasp the issue, but I am pleased that the Government are doing so. However, I urge them to go further. I fear that some measures and ambitions will be lost if we do not ensure that the care estate in every locality improves its capacity.
The Department has a wide array of challenges, and this is a particularly difficult one, but the Bill, which would be essentially cost-neutral, would keep the focus on the agenda without placing too much responsibility on local authorities. The Government know that, yes, they must work in partnership with local authorities, but they must also take strategic decisions about where provision is needed, how it is funded and how we ensure that market dynamics do not dictate children’s futures.
I want to be clear that none of this speech is about blaming councils or local authorities, many of which are doing their level best under enormous financial constraints, and are firefighting in a system in which the odds are stacked against them. I hope that this modest Bill can give them the tools that they need to plan, build and provide, rather than simply outsourcing and hoping for the best.
The Bill would change expectations by restoring proximity as the norm, and placing the burden of justification on those who propose to go against that norm. If it were our children, we would expect them to stay close to home and their community, where they feel safe. We would expect a proper plan. Ultimately, that is all the Bill asks of the Government. The children in our care system deserve nothing less. For that reason, I commend the Bill to the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
As there are no further Back-Bench speakers, I call the shadow Minister.
Employer National Insurance Contributions
Debate between Jake Richards and Caroline Nokes(3 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman rightly points out the need to invest in the NHS. Does he recognise that imposing NICs on primary healthcare providers such as my constituency’s Weldmar Hospicecare, which provides vital end of life care to residents and must raise £26,000 a day to fund its service, will result—
Jake Richards
That point has been made over and over again in interventions, and the Health Secretary has been very clear that funding allocations for primary care services and other services will be set out in due course. As a result of this Labour Government’s actions, there will be more money available than there would have been.
This debate shows the Opposition to be mere opportunists who are incapable, or perhaps unwilling, to face up to the difficult decisions that we face as a country. We have seen the path that takes us down, and we cannot do that again.