Children’s Social Care: Enduring Relationships Strategy
Debate between Josh MacAlister and Jack Rankin(1 week, 2 days ago)
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Jack Rankin (Windsor) (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister for advance sight of his statement. It is an honour to respond on behalf of His Britannic Majesty’s most loyal Opposition, particularly as we welcome much in the direction that the Minister has outlined in his statement on behalf of the Government today.
Too often, children’s social care is discussed only when tragedy strikes, yet for thousands of children, foster carers, kinship carers and care-experienced adults, these issues are daily realities. They deserve serious and sustained attention from those in all parts of the House. As Conservatives, we believe that strong families, strong communities and strong relationships are the foundation of a flourishing society. The Government have a duty to protect vulnerable children, but we must recognise a simple truth: the state can never replace the love, commitment and sense of belonging that family provides.
One of the most powerful conclusions of the independent review of children’s social care was that every young person should leave care with at least one loving, enduring relationship in their life. That is not a party political aspiration; it is a profoundly human one. It should concern us all that so many care-experienced adults report having felt lonely and isolated during their childhood.
Many of the themes in today’s statement build on reforms that have enjoyed cross-party support for some time, such as greater recognition of kinship care, stronger family networks, increased placement stability and better outcomes for care leavers. Those are objectives that Members across the House can unite behind. I particularly welcome the focus on kinship care. Having recently met kinship carers in my constituency, I have seen at first hand the remarkable role that they play. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings and family friends step forward in difficult circumstances to provide not only a home, but continuity, identity and belonging.
I am proud that the last Conservative Government launched England’s first kinship care strategy. Kinship carers make extraordinary sacrifices to ensure that children receive the love and support they need, and they deserve recognition for that contribution. May I ask the Minister about the adoption and special guardianship support fund? Families rely on it and worry about its future. Will we see the results of that consultation? How will it interact with today’s announcements?
We also welcome the focus on foster care. For too long, we have relied on the dedication of foster carers while asking them to navigate systems that can be fragmented and bureaucratic. If fostering hubs can improve recruitment, strengthen support and increase placement stability, they deserve serious consideration. Perhaps the Minister could comment on how those hubs will be distributed across the country.
Likewise, the ambition to reduce the number of children placed far from communities is one that we strongly support. Every unnecessary move risks disrupting education, friendships and family connections. Stability matters. Almost half of foster carers say that they have had an unfilled space for a child in care in the past two years, often because they are waiting for a suitable match. What will today’s strategy do to improve matching and make the system easier to navigate for carers who are ready to provide a home?
Conservatives have long understood the importance of society’s little platoons—the families, communities, faith groups and voluntary organisations that sit between individuals and the state. Many charities and community groups already provide extraordinary support to vulnerable children and care leavers, and their contribution should never be underestimated.
We on the Conservative Benches also welcome the Minister’s determination to improve outcomes for care leavers. Too many still face a cliff edge when they leave care, with disproportionately poor outcomes in housing, employment and mental health. I would welcome further detail on the new metric to track the quality of the enduring relationships built by children in care. How will the Government measure such relationships? How will that be reflected in Ofsted inspections?
Ultimately, the success of these reforms will be judged not by strategies or structures, but by outcomes. Will more children experience stable placements? Will fewer children be moved repeatedly? Will more young people leave care with secure housing, employment opportunities and strong relationships? Will local authorities have the workforce capacity to deliver these aspirations?
Children who enter care have often experienced circumstances that most of us would struggle to imagine. They deserve not just safety, but hope; not just protection, but belonging. Where the Government act to strengthen families, support kinship carers, improve foster care and build lasting relationships, they will find us to be willing partners.
Josh MacAlister
I thank the hon. Member for the spirit in which he shared his remarks and the questions that he put to me. He is right to say that this issue requires serious and sustained attention from the House and from parties across every corner of the Chamber.
It is worth highlighting to people the disparity between what care-experienced people tell us about their experience and the experiences of the general population. Some 22% of care leavers are always or often lonely, and 15% of care leavers do not have a really good friend. Compared with the general population, those numbers are so much higher, which illustrates why this issue is so important.
Let me turn to the questions asked by the hon. Member. The adoption and special guardianship support fund is hugely important, which is why we have increased the fund by 10% this year to ensure that we can reach more families and young people with that support. The consultation response will come later this year. At the moment, the Department is focused on implementing the changes and improvements that we set out in the consultation a few months ago.
The fostering hubs will be allocated in the next few weeks, and I hope to make an announcement next month on the fostering hubs and RCCs that will be rolled out and extended further. In terms of improving matching, regional care co-operatives will play an important role in the future system in enabling us to get a much better sense, looking ahead at the years to come, of the actual sufficiency required for children in their areas.
Finally, let me turn to the new metric. The Department has worked with foundations to set out a shortlist of options of standardised measures that are valid and can be used at a practitioner and young person level but do not create undue bureaucracy or distract from the important relationships that are needed in those conversations. I am confident that we can find and roll out a measure this year that will achieve that goal.
Education
Debate between Josh MacAlister and Jack Rankin(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Josh MacAlister
The Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education system in place at the moment allows for students to complain about breaches of freedom of speech. The written statement laid this morning by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is all about introducing a new scheme for staff, visiting lecturers and other speakers, as well as ensuring we have a system under which the OfS can go back to institutions and hold them to account.
Jack Rankin
…Why can academics and visiting speakers complain under this proposal, but not students? It is called the Office for Students, or is the Minister planning to rename it “the office for everybody on campus except students”?
Josh MacAlister
As I have said, at the moment students have a route of redress through the Office for Students. The Government have been focused on pulling together an enforceable regime, and it is welcome that both Labour and Conservative Members, across the House, are supportive of action to protect freedom of speech at our universities.
[Official Report, 20 April 2026; Vol. 784, c. 17.]
Written correction submitted by the Under-Secretary of State for Education:
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Josh MacAlister and Jack Rankin(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Jack Rankin (Windsor) (Con)
My hon. Friend the Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) is absolutely right. Whether it is Zionist views, gender critical perspectives, climate scepticism, or challenging the perceived wisdom that diversity is our strength with the need to put terrorism barriers around Christmas markets, there is a clear two-tier approach to free speech on our campuses, and students are the nub of it, which is exactly why the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act gave students the right to go to the Office for Students. Why can academics and visiting speakers complain under this proposal, but not students? It is called the Office for Students, or is the Minister planning to rename it “the office for everybody on campus except students”?
Josh MacAlister
As I have said, at the moment students have a route of redress through the Office for Students. The Government have been focused on pulling together an enforceable regime, and it is welcome that both Labour and Conservative Members, across the House, are supportive of action to protect freedom of speech at our universities.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Josh MacAlister and Jack Rankin(3 months, 1 week ago)
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Jack Rankin (Windsor) (Con)
On “Newsnight” on 23 February, the Minister for School Standards acknowledged that the student loan system is not perfect, but justified no change by saying the Government face huge pressure and must make tough choices. Given spending choices made since this Government came to power, is not the truth that the political choices that the Minister’s colleagues are talking about include balancing their “Benefits Street” Budget on the back of aspirational graduates?
Josh MacAlister
I would like to think there is cross-party agreement that tackling educational inequality is one of the most important things that we can do. It is a shame on our country that we are one of the most unequal when it comes to the relationship between how well a child can do at school and how much money is in their parents’ pockets. The Labour party is all about addressing such inequalities, and that is what this Government are doing. That is in no way at odds with finding ways to make our student loan system fairer and fixing it after the 10 years of freezes on thresholds by the Conservatives that hit working graduates.