Sexual Exploitation: Protection of 16 and 17-year-olds

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friends who have been involved in securing the debate on this excellent topic.

I want to lend a little of my experience as someone who has been involved in thinking about how to do things better in Somerset. Somerset has had its challenges recently and has tried to improve the standards of care that it provides to children in its care and to children in the county generally. It is right that the Government have raised the Ofsted standards with which councils must comply to ensure that that improvement happens correctly. Although we know of no serious cases in Somerset, the Ofsted inspection found that because of some of the structural arrangements and the way things were happening there, some of what had been happening in other parts of the country could in theory happen somewhere like Somerset.

I am interested in the issue both as the father of young daughters and as a Somerset councillor who has that corporate duty of care to children in care—the council is the corporate parent to them. I have talked to children in that age group about some of the challenges they face and some they could face as they move out of care at that vulnerable age. The risk comes in different ways. In a rural area such as Somerset, young people are very dependent on friends and family for lifts in cars—I am not talking about children in care because there are stricter rules. The problem is hidden in all sorts of ways.

It is right that we are trying to raise standards and to do some of the things that hon. Members have mentioned. In Somerset, there is a potential devolution deal. One aspect proposed in the draft devolution bid is more local control of mental health budgets and services. Somerset is currently under-served by child and adolescent mental health services. The thought is that, if we can control those budgets better and apply them in the local environment, we might be able to help children who currently do not have as much help as we might like.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

My hon. Friend refers to the devolution deal that will cover both Devon and Somerset, including Torbay. One bonus of such a deal would be that it allowed more co-ordinated work across different areas. However, there is still a need to ensure that those budgets are well monitored and accounted for to local people.

[Marcus Fysh]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. That is one of the things that I am keen to work on with him through the devolution process—ensuring that there are clear lines of accountability and that the governance aspects work well. As MPs, we can be involved in those things in future.

The recommendations in the excellent report—I congratulate the Children’s Society on it—do a good job of making it clear that the fact that children are aged 16 to 18 and have some element of personal responsibility does not absolve the authorities of their responsibility to look after them. One key problem we have seen in what has gone wrong in other parts of the country is that agencies did not talk to one another—the police, healthcare and social services did not always talk to one another—and it will be good to put the onus on them to do so.

We should always be mindful of the people involved—the children. We do not want them to feel like they are young offenders. Given the scale of the problem, it is obvious that young people are victims as often as they are young offenders. We need to be much more sensitive to the realities of the life that some of those young people face and the circumstances they unfortunately find themselves in.