Independent Review of Children’s Social Care

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who has again shown the breadth and depth of his knowledge of all the issues we cover in this House. I thank the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) and my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) for securing this debate.

I associate myself with the remarks of the hon. Member for York Central about acknowledging that there are very many families who do an absolutely fantastic job of caring for their children, without underestimating how difficult that is. We are talking in this Chamber about families who are struggling, and I do not by any means underestimate that. As someone who does not have children myself, I give words of advice with caution and I understand that the challenge is really enormous, but surely the size of that challenge puts a bigger onus on us to support people to do it effectively.

I thank Josh MacAlister and all of the team who helped him deliver such an authoritative and important report. In particular, I thank not just the people who wrote the report, but the very large number of people, including very many people in care or who have left care, who contributed to the report. I think that that is what has given it its strength and authority, because he has done such a good job of giving people who have experienced the system a voice.

For me, child welfare is or should be the biggest priority for everyone in society. It is a really good example of an issue where it is not just the state that has a role to play, but families, society and individuals. All of us have to do something to make sure that children in our country get a good start in life. One of the main reasons why I got involved in politics was that I want everyone to benefit from the secure, warm, loving environment that I experienced as a young person growing up. We know what an important foundation that is for young people because we understand the different outcomes that people get if they do not receive that warm, loving start in life. Poor attachment to care givers leads to higher rates of delinquency, crime, offending, poor mental health and wellbeing, and unemployment.

Similarly, if we look at not just attachment but adverse events, which the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) spoke about, from all those things early on in life we can predict someone’s future outcomes, and their outcomes are much worse than those of their peers. As we have heard, that is not just a moral failure but a financial failure for the state because all these things cost money across the breadth and depth of Government spending. Those costs skyrocket when young people cross the threshold to care involvement, where the gap in outcomes compared with peers gets even bigger. Sadly, their outcomes are still distant from those who have benefited from a loving start in life.

We have 80,000 children in care and many more subject to some kind of intervention. If we do not get better at supporting people, those markers and failures will get worse. The report talks about how we are heading towards 100,000 children being in care and, for each of those additional children in care, there will be an even bigger number unfortunately likely to be subject to some kind of proceedings or intervention and not getting the start in life that we would want for them.

The report lays out authoritatively what we can do. I pay tribute to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson), who did a fantastic job of going through all the elements of the report, including what we could do better. I will not seek to replicate that as I am sure that I could not do as good a job. The report makes it clear that we need short-term funding to deliver the £2 billion that it identifies. The Minister will not need convincing that we cannot look at the costs in a narrow way—there is short-term additional spending on extra children we might see in care as well as spending across all areas of Government that pile up but which the Department itself does not see—but we must ensure that the Treasury understands the full breadth and depth of that expense when it comes to weighing up what we should be investing in children’s social care.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Does the hon. Member agree that this really affects everything—we have prisons full of people with mental health disorders, who often carry childhood traumas with them—so investing at the beginning will help us save so much money in the end?

[Dr Mullan]

I completely agree. It would probably be fair to say that there is not an area of Government spending in which we could not make a saving if we did better at getting children a warm, stable start in life. As I said, I hope that the Department is clear about the breadth in spending.

I turn to one short-term area. Again, I pay tribute to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Eddisbury and the work that his family did, as well as that done by many families who choose to be foster carers. Fostering and adopting are probably among the most powerful, special and important things that someone in our society can do for another person. Taking on that responsibility of caring for someone else’s children in the short term—not permanently—is the most noble thing that anybody can do, and I pay enormous tribute to every single person who does that.

Every child who ends up in a loving home instead of a care setting—of course, care settings can produce good outcomes—is being given the best shot at life. Again, that saves a financial cost, and the wellbeing of that young person is enormously improved. Sadly, we could do better. It is a good example of the fact that, no matter how good the Government get at doing things, individuals must step up and be willing to do it. It is not just about the state fixing the problem; we all have a role to play.

My understanding is that, of the 160,000 people who registered an interest in fostering last year, just 2,000 were registered to be foster carers. That is an absolute tragedy. Given the process of becoming a foster carer, we should expect a big drop-off once people come to realise everything involved, but that kind of drop-off is very sad. It says to me that at least tens of thousands of people who could and wanted to be foster carers did not become them. What does the Minister think we can do in the short term to get to the target of 3,000? Can we not be more ambitious than that, get to at least 10,000 and convert that huge moral willingness to help our fellow man in society and see the money that comes in savings from that?

[Jim Shannon]

I have a number of friends who are foster carers and I understand the work they undertake. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that those who take on foster caring—caring not just for their biological families, but for other families who are challenged—are special people? That is my impression of them.

[Dr Mullan]

People who foster and adopt are the best of our society; there is no two ways about it.

Similarly, on kinship carers, the report does a great job of explaining how a wider family network can help. As a Conservative, the idea of giving more financial support for kinship carers causes me questions. I believe in families and normal family structures. I think it is the natural thing for family members to take care of each other potentially outside the immediate family. But when it comes to the very, very difficult financial decisions that grandparents on pensions, in particular, have to make, we have to be practical and recognise that, yes, I would want people to do that for their family members regardless of the support available to them. If that is a genuine practical barrier, it could make a huge difference for the children and the state, and we should be doing more. I support the idea that the model of support should match that of foster carers.

[Mr Robin Walker]

My hon. Friend makes a fair point on kinship care. I note that the report also calls for greater recognition of kinship carers. Not all the support they need is financial. I have been approached by a local kinship care group in my constituency with concerns about the challenges that grandparents sometimes face in accessing healthcare. He knows a lot about that. Does he agree that it would be good to see the Department for Education working with colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that we have greater support and recognition for kinship carers, so that they do not face those challenges?

[Dr Mullan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to identify that it is not just about money; it is about recognition in Government agencies and society of the role that kinship carers play. I pay tribute to kinship carers in my constituency, who I have been supporting to access financial support from the local authority, and to some great charities that support kinship carers. They deserve to be on the same footing as those who foster and adopt.

I want to finish by paying tribute to a couple of charities working in my constituency on areas similar to some of the work recommended by the MacAlister review. One of the many things that the Motherwell Cheshire charity for young women and girls, founded by Kate Blakemore, does in my constituency is the Believe project, which provides support, mentoring and counselling to any mother, young or not so young, who has a child who is, or is at risk of being, subject to some kind of child protection plan. What the charity has learnt is that, rightly, the authorities and those involved in child protection are focused on the child. They need to do that, but support for the parent can also make a huge difference. I have spoken to mentors, such as Donna, who support people in my constituency and they have made a difference. The latest figures are that they have saved something like £1.6 million in our local area, helped five children to return home from care and helped to prevent 21 children from going into care. If that sort of model can be rolled out, there could be huge moral and financial savings.

Another charity, Pure Insight, provides mentors, counselling and psychological support for care leavers. The mentors and support workers help them to close the gap with their peers who have not experienced care. It is largely volunteer-driven and they make a huge difference. Similarly, the charity also provides support to help parents become the best possible parents they can be. Ultimately, the ideal scenario is that we can keep families together. Of course, sometimes families cannot stay together and it is right that we intervene, but if we can keep families together, we know the outcomes are much better for the children concerned. I want to put my thanks on the record to the local Helvellyn Foundation for providing a grant to Pure Insight to support a family I was in contact with who did not quite fit the normal criteria but who were a fantastic candidate for that type of support. There are so many other charities, such as the Wishing Well charity and My Cheshire Without Abuse, that are playing their role, supported by volunteers.

For all those reasons, I hope that the Government will grip this issue, take on board the fantastic work that has been done in the MacAlister review and make a difference to these children’s lives. That is the right thing for us to do not just as moral individuals, but as taxpayers. There is always a great case to be made for what the Government can do, too, when we are talking about doing the right thing for the right reasons.