Children’s Social Care: Enduring Relationships Strategy

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Josh MacAlister]

My hon. Friend and neighbour is right to highlight the leadership of Councillor Emma Williamson, who is herself care-experienced. She has brought that experience to political office in a way that is making real change happen across Cumberland. One of the things I was proudest to attend as a Member of Parliament, and as the Minister for Children and Families, was the launch of the enrichment event in my constituency last year. It is what Emma refers to as the bank of mam and dad. It is a fund that Emma and the team at Cumberland have set up to create an account with money that can go to young people who have something happening in their life. It could be to buy them a vehicle or to put down a deposit on a house. It is about having that flexibility through family finances that many of us benefit from but take for granted. Those who are care leavers often do not have it.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister so much for his positive statement—I do so not in the salubrious way that the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) did, but with the same sincerity. I also thank the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) for all that she has done in this House for children. It is perhaps not always recognised, but it should be, because her contribution has been significant.

This is a massive issue back home in Strangford and across Northern Ireland. The Minister will know that Northern Ireland heavily outpaces England in keeping children within their wider family circle, with kinship and friends care at more than 50%. It is clear that children are happier if kept with siblings and in familiar circumstances, so how will the Minister and the Government further support those who would consider kinship care but are hampered in their ability to access appropriate housing for family care and need bigger houses? How can the Minister ensure that larger family homes are available UK-wide for those truly in need?

[Josh MacAlister]

That is a great question, because it gets to the heart of how the system behaves when it finds a parent who is perhaps struggling with a substance misuse problem, or is in a violent relationship, or has mental health needs and cannot continue to look after the child by themselves, but could be an important part of that child’s life for the foreseeable future, and when there are relatives saying, “We can help. We can be part of the solution. We do not need this child to go into the care system.” There needs to be a mechanism to fund those solutions, and that is what family network support packages do. The £2.4 billion that I referred to is available to fund those family network support packages. In the kinship zones, we are expecting much higher use of those FNSPs so that we can properly evaluate things. When I looked at the differences in the care population around the UK in the review, it was striking that the strength of civil society in Northern Ireland was one of the reasons, perhaps—this is just an idea—why communities were better able to come together around those children who might be at risk of going into care.