Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Farmer Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 1st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I will focus my comments on Part 1, particularly on areas recommended or inspired by Josh MacAlister MP’s independent review of children’s social care. I was on his design group, and Josh’s emphasis throughout was on relationships and prevention: preventing children going into local authority care in the first place or being further damaged in the care process. Enabling them to maintain or develop good relationships while in care is a key protective factor to that end.

I welcome Clause 1 on family group decision-making, but will the Government strengthen it? The Family Rights Group points to the impact of the 2016 Scottish legislation mandating every local authority to offer family group decision-making. Its lack of clarity and precision meant that a third of local authorities in Scotland still do not offer FGDM.

The requirement to offer this is based on evidence from family group conferencing, so reproducing its benefits requires implementation fidelity to this model. For example, older children and their families must be in the driving seat when determining who is involved. Neighbours and family friends can be fictive kin, referred to as aunties and uncles. Others in the support web around them are vital for children’s welfare. Their voices should be heard when the family says so.

Also, legislation needs to ensure that FGDM represents a process, rather than a one-off meeting, to avoid this becoming a mere formality that local authorities go through. This process does not always mean that a child goes into kinship care, but it does increase the likelihood of it. Where they end up in local authority care, FGDM should lead on to and facilitate another highly beneficial process referred to as Lifelong Links. Lifelong Links builds rather than breaks relationships and enables children in the care system to have a lasting support network of relatives and others who care about them.

All those involved in the FGDM and others important to a child should not simply disappear from their life when they go into care. Capturing contact details of former foster carers, youth leaders, teachers and others in the community who have been kind or caring towards them means that they have a wealth of family and other connections when they leave care. Knowing that they matter to people, being invited to Sunday lunch, and having a family to spend Christmas Day with and a source of advice throughout the year all makes a massive difference to their sense of identity and stability. Lifelong Links runs in more than 40 local authorities, in 22 of which it is currently funded by the DfE. Will the Government consider referring to it in the Bill and including it in regulation or guidance?

Next, Clause 11 ensures that children deprived of their liberty are housed in “relevant accommodation”. Even in good surroundings, they are often far from their families and communities, which can further dent already fragile mental health. Will the Minister ensure that improving the experience of children deprived of their liberty will include concrete steps currently missing from the Bill to help them maintain key relationships?

Finally, I have concerns about a single unique identifier. The Bill is concerningly vague about how it would operate and whether it would need a new computer system at major public expense. Using the NHS number would overlook those children, often at higher risk, who were born outside the country and have no NHS or state education involvement. They would escape the system. More generally, can the Minister assure us that the SUI will not reinvent the failed contact point database abolished in 2010?

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, here we go in Committee and here we have had, probably, our first Second Reading speech from a colleague. I will not make a Second Reading speech; I will address this amendment, which I think is unnecessary. We have a perfectly sensible, comprehensive description of what this Bill seeks to do. We do not need another list in the Bill.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity that the purpose clause from my noble friend Lady Barran has given us to range far more freely than the tightly timed Second Reading allowed. I could only comment on what was in the Bill and pay scant attention to what I sensed was lacking. Part 1, and therefore the first half of the purpose clause, is where my sights are set in this Bill: improving the safety and well-being of children and improving the regulation of children’s homes, fostering agencies and other settings where looked-after children are accommodated. We heard from my noble friend about Professor Eileen Munro’s letter to the Times yesterday. She robustly supports the expansion of early help. It is in the provision of this where the Bill needs strengthening and greater specificity: for example, about the role of family hubs, which are not even mentioned.

A complex system of professionals and safeguarding arrangements is being restructured and key processes changed or removed, without it being clear what functions they are already performing or their place in the bigger picture. I was on the design group of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care—I mentioned that at Second Reading—and my most detailed offline discussions with the review team were on this restructuring, which I can see might be perceived to be finicky and potentially unnecessary. I am hearing concerns from directors of children’s services, and now from Professor Munro, that these reforms could weaken child protection, at a time when we are trying to batten down the hatches with, for example, the single unique identifier. As I will keep saying during Committee, I am concerned, as I was during the independent care review, that we are trying to do by process what we should be doing through relationships between professionals.

Does the Minister agree with the Department for Education spokeswoman, also quoted in the Times, who said that Munro’s criticisms

“demonstrate a lack of understanding of the proposed reforms, which have been widely supported and rebalance the system away from crisis intervention and towards earlier help”?

In other words, does she think that this eminent professor has not grasped her Government’s plans? Can she name current directors of children’s services who are enthusiastic about this restructure?

Child protection is the business of everyone who is involved with families and children, hence my amendments later in the Bill for family hubs to be included in safe- guarding arrangements. Of course, not all local authorities have family hubs yet, but an audit of the family hubs network carried out for Nesta earlier this year found 973 family hub networks in 133 out of 151 upper-tier councils, so the vast majority now have family hubs.

I and other Members in this Committee, particularly the noble Baronesses, Lady Armstrong and Lady Longfield —whom I welcome somewhat belatedly, but no less warmly—have been urging all Governments to commit wholesale to family hub rollout across the country. Their propagation is unfinished business from both the founding of the welfare state and the full implementation of paragraph 9 of Schedule 2 to the Children Act 1989, as I have said many times before. Hence I support the proposed new clause from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, which would require local authorities to provide family support.

Health, education, social work and other arms of the state all have to pick up the pieces when families falter. The concept of family support needs presence in a community, so that parents in danger of splitting up have somewhere to turn; ex-partners going through a separation that is beginning to look messy can get early intervention in the form of mediation, after careful triage; and parents losing control of their teenagers can get support before they get drawn into gangs. The support that families need in myriad ways is co-ordinated and accessed through family hubs and their network of buildings and organisations, through a respectful, relational approach.

Of course, there is variability, and only 75 local authorities’ hub networks are funded. They are also tightly managed by the Department for Education’s family hubs and Start for Life programme. Since 2007, I have been working with Dr Callan to implement a hallmark of the family hubs network: its responsiveness to local needs. Many local authorities have a great track record in opening successful family hubs; they have told the family hubs network that they have had to slow down the rollout of services to older children, so that they could dot the i’s and cross the t’s required by the Start for Life programme.

I am a firm believer that family support has to start in maternity, and ideally earlier. That early intervention is far more easily achieved when local family support professionals have built relationships with parents, carers and children from the earliest days. I have amendments later in the Bill that would ensure that parents know where to get that help and support in their local area, by requiring local authorities to publish a Start for Life offer. That support should continue when a mother has, tragically, had a newborn, or often older children, removed from her care. Case files from the family courts show that history repeats itself and that judges can take as many as 14 or 15 children away from the same mother. Our care for the mother should not end when a child is safe, given the likelihood that the safety of future children will also have to be secured.

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[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, as one of the many qualified teachers in your Lordships’ House, I will speak to Amendment 14 in the names of my noble friend Lady Tyler—who cannot be with us today—me and others. Before I do so, I warmly welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, to this Committee. I know that as the Children’s Commissioner she was so very committed to all these issues, and I know she is supporting the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, today.

I was involved with the legislation that set up the UK Children’s Commissioner in the first place and was involved in making sure that the commissioner “must” have regard to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, not “may”, as was in the original version. That is relevant to what I will say about Amendment 14.

The intention of Amendment 14 is very simple: to ensure that those making decisions affecting children and young people seek and take into account their wishes and feelings, if they wish to give them, and to support them to do so. I welcome the Government’s ambition to be a child-centred Government and support the important steps taken in the Bill to strengthen the systems intended to keep children safe, yet there is more that the Bill could do to be truly child-centred. Specifically, it currently fails to embed meaningful consideration of the child’s wishes and feelings. I would like to strengthen it, hence this amendment.

As noble Lords will be aware, more than 30 years ago, in 1991, the UK ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. In doing so, we recognised that children have a distinct set of rights that uniquely value all that it means to be a child. Article 12 of that convention sets out the right of every child to express their views freely and to have those views given due weight in all matters affecting them, including the family conferences we are talking about. They must be afforded that chance to express their views, wishes and feelings. The word “should” in Amendment 13 is not quite good enough in that respect.

In short, it recognises that children are experts in their own lives. I believe that children under 16 are perfectly capable of this, so I do not support the bit of Amendment 12 that limits this to over-16s. As long as they have appropriate support and understanding, many young children can be very articulate about what they think.

The amendment seeks to ensure that the systems designed to protect and support children and those who work with them are founded on the basis that we can hope to truly understand what is in a child’s best interests only by hearing and giving heed to their experiences and unique perspectives—the voice of the child, as we often call it.

As we know, in cases of abuse and neglect, giving children the opportunity to express their views is a critical factor in building trust and keeping children safe. Children themselves tell us that they are not routinely heard when decisions are made that affect them. Indeed, research undertaken with children and young people for the Children’s Charities Coalition’s 2024 Children at the Table campaign found that 62% of UK children think that politicians do not understand the issues that affect them, and almost three-quarters feel that children are not listened to by politicians. Let us listen and hear them today.

That is why I consider Amendment 14 to be so important. It would ensure that local authorities, in offering family group decision-making, are required to ascertain children’s wishes and feelings and give them due weight when making decisions related to that decision-making. It would also provide for a clear entitlement for the child to be supported to participate in the family group decision-making meeting. Where this is not in the child’s best interests, it would provide for the local authority to ensure that the child’s wishes and feelings are appropriately represented, for example by an independent advocate. Some effort will have to be made by somebody who really understands these things to ascertain those wishes.

The Bill currently requires local authorities to seek the child’s views. I welcome the Government’s recognition of the importance of listening to children in the context of family group decision-making, including by the Minister in response to a similar amendment in the other place. But this duty falls short of the gold standard of the Children Act to seek and—importantly—give due weight to the wishes and feelings of the child in different contexts, including children in need assessments, child protection and any decisions relating to a child in care, or possibly going into care. We know from serious case reviews and inquiries that where children are not listened to, it can have devasting consequences.

Wishes and feelings are broader than views. Amending the Bill in this way would mean that those children who choose not to express their views—perhaps they are younger or shyer, are non-verbal or lack capacity—will still have their feelings taken into account when decisions are being made about their safety and where they might live. Passing Amendment 14 would do all that.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 18 in my name and to Amendments 7 and 14, which have just been ably spoken to by the noble Baronesses, Lady Armstrong and Lady Walmsley. Amendment 7 is also supported by the noble Baronesses, Lady Longfield and Lady Drake, and Amendment 14 by the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle and Lady Tyler of Enfield, who is not in her place.

This group is primarily about family group decision-making, so I will speak to Amendments 7 and 14 first. The Government have avoided referring to family group conferencing per se, presumably because they want to allow for evolution of good practice of the family group decision-making model. But as I said at Second Reading, the evidence base on which they are relying for this legislation assumes faithful implementation of what we know makes a difference.

One key aspect of family group decision-making is that it is not a one-off meeting. If it were, this could become a token effort to bring together all those with family or other close relationships to the child. Currently, however, the Bill makes provision only for the offer of a family group decision-making meeting.

Rather, family group decision-making involves a process with careful preparation that typically goes way beyond a single meeting, as Amendment 7 would require. When the child is supported to be involved in an initial meeting, as Amendment 14 specifies, they might flag that key people are missing, or their input might throw up previously unforeseen issues that need attending to before important decisions are made concerning their future.

Support is required because many children will be daunted by being involved in a family group decision-making meeting. They might even say that they do not want to be there but regret not being involved later on. When there have been long-standing difficulties in a family, they might be concerned about revealing secrets, getting into trouble or making things worse.

Safety planning—a key aspect of any process involved in rehoming a child—can also be delicate and difficult and should certainly not be rushed. The pressures on local authorities are unlikely to ease anytime soon, and the legislation should not be written in such a way that short cuts are taken and the family’s involvement is marginalised to speed things up. That cuts across the spirit of the whole approach, which is the coming together —and, we hope, the strengthening and developing— of a relational network for the good of the child at the centre.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to speak to Amendment 5 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, who has considerable experience in this subject. It is similar in purpose to Amendments 7, 8, 9 and 11, and we need to follow key principles to make sure that the family group decision-making model is implemented effectively. The LGA said in its written evidence to the Bill Committee in the other place:

“It would be helpful to make clear in guidance the elements of the model that make it particularly effective so that these can be built on locally”.


As we have heard from other noble Lords, the Family Rights Group is very experienced in this area, and there is considerable evaluation and evidence which needs to be followed, so that the meetings are seen as safe and trusted by families and do not inadvertently become seen as heavy-handed state intervention. I would be grateful if the Minister reassured the Committee about how cases involving domestic abuse will be handled, since there is clearly the potential for coercion of the adult victim and other family members.

The other issues have been picked up by the noble Baronesses, Lady Armstrong and Lady Longfield, such as the importance of having an independent co-ordinator who receives proper training. We should not underestimate how skilful a job this is.

The Family Rights Group has been clear that there needs to be private family time, and the meetings must avoid introducing any ambiguity into the local authority role. They need clarity to help families make decisions to provide care and support.

We look forward to the contributions from all noble Lords. I beg to move.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I added my name to this amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran because I am also deeply concerned that children benefit from the right level of expertise in the family group decision-making process. I have already mentioned Eileen Munro’s commentary on the Government’s reforms in the Times yesterday, where she warns against the shifting

“of child protection responsibilities to less-qualified family help workers. Although they offer support, many are not trained to detect hidden abuse such as psychological harm or coercive control. Supervision by overstretched social workers is no substitute for expertise, especially with workforce shortages and rising caseloads”.

These comments, although focused on a different part of the child safeguarding system, also seem highly relevant here. Bringing together family members and others who are important in the life of a child means engaging with a family system that can be highly complex.

Many here will remember the case of Shannon Matthews from West Yorkshire, a few months after the huge publicity following the tragic disappearance of Madeleine McCann. In February 2008, nine year-old Shannon was reported missing. She was eventually found in a house belonging to an uncle of the boyfriend of the kidnapped girl’s mother. The kidnapping was planned by Shannon’s mother and her boyfriend to generate money from the publicity and the sizeable reward, which her mother planned to split with the uncle when he “found” Shannon and took her to a police station.

Perhaps noble Lords are already very confused about these family arrangements, and there is no doubt that the protagonists at the centre of this case were highly unusual. I am not sure whether Shannon’s mother would have been offered a family group conference, not least because of the involvement of other family members in the crime.

When the police initially investigated Shannon’s disappearance, they had to look first at the extended family. What they found was such a complex web of interrelationships, such as children of different fathers in the same family and the same fathers in different families, that they described Shannon’s extended family tree as a bramble genealogy.

To reiterate, this was a highly unusual case, but it illustrates that kin altruism cannot be assumed. Those with a biological relationship to a child may not be committed to a child or be best placed to discuss the sensitive issues inherent in family group decision-making. The Bill already and quite rightly gives the local authority discretion not to offer family group decision-making in extreme cases, but even in dark family situations, very often there will be responsible, kind, dedicated family members who want to act in the child’s best interests. However, there will also surely be many times when it is not clear where family dysfunction begins and ends.

Those involved as family group decision-making co-ordinators must, as my noble friend’s amendment says, be independent, trained and experienced. They need to be able to spot signs of potential psychological harm or coercive control. They are a key last line of defence against future harm coming to vulnerable and traumatised children.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 5 in the names of my noble friends Lady Barran and Lord Farmer. I hope the Minister will agree that this is a sensible amendment aimed at ensuring that all families who need it have access to a family group decision-making meeting that is underpinned by strong evidence that it works, without being overly prescriptive.

Family group decision-making is a broad, generic term without clear principles and standards about what families can expect, and there is concern among charities and organisations supporting vulnerable children on the ground that approaches unsupported by evidence may proliferate at a local level as a result of the current drafting of the Bill.

In its briefing on the Bill, the Family Rights Group says that it is

“already seeing evidence of local authorities claiming to use such approaches, including reference to ‘family-led decision making’ to describe meetings which are led by professionals and where family involvement is minimal”.

It also points to the experience of Scotland, where a failure to be more specific and clearer in legislation about what FGDM should be offered has resulted, 10 years after it was enacted, in a third of local authorities still having no actual offer. Obviously, none of us wants to see that, and it is clearly not the intention of the Government in bringing forward this new duty on local authorities.

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[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to my Amendments, 21, 22 and 23. First, because these three amendments are explicitly focused on family hubs, I declare my interest as a guarantor of FHN Holding, the not-for-profit owner of the Family Hubs Network Ltd.

These amendments are probing because, as I have said previously today, I am interested in hearing how committed this Government are to local preventive family support in every community. More importantly, dedicated teams in local authorities and their partnership organisations up and down the country also need to know what they can expect. Including this infrastructure in safeguarding arrangements makes complete sense because, as I said in my explanatory statement, family hubs support families as the primary means by which children are safeguarded. This can easily be forgotten when we talk about who has responsibility to keep children safe.

This is also important in the wider discussion of the Government’s social care reforms: how do the Government see the role of family hubs in the landscape of the more preventive, early-intervention approach which I support? Families need to experience non-stigmatising and seamless support. Family support staff, perinatal clinicians, mental health professionals, even mediators around the time of couple separation: any professional based in the hub can spot problems early that might need bringing to the attention of social services. This is presumably how schools and childcare agencies will function in their safeguarding arrangements.

Families’ engagement with social workers, even in quite complex interventions, can take place in family hubs or in the wider family support network of buildings and organisations connected to those hubs. When social workers begin to see progress in these families, it is vital that there is ongoing support and lower-level input, including from volunteers in the community, and that they are not just left to flounder.

Active prevention of cycles repeating themselves can also happen by stepping the family back down into what I will loosely call family help. This was how the Isle of Wight came to pioneer family hubs. Its social services were taken into special measures because so many children were not receiving the assessments that they needed, because social workers were so deluged by actual cases. Hampshire County Council, the overseeing council drawn in to help it reform, was very impressed by this solution. Early intervention hubs, also known as family hubs, were set up within existing budgets to help hold families waiting for social services assessments, so risk was managed. They also prevented many families coming to the point when an assessment was deemed necessary: when a child was returned to a family or the parents had received social work help so that their child dropped below the threshold of need, they were stepped down into family hubs. None of this could have happened unless these family hubs were operating skilfully in safeguarding.

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, we should pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, in his promotion of family hubs. They are places where families can be offered a range of services and integrated support and information. In my assessment, they have transformed the picture of family law and family practice. They are increasingly widespread and have an important role in the modern functioning of childcare. To that extent, I support the noble Lord’s amendments.

I have a boring technical legal point. A hub is a place, not a person, which uses volunteers and community workers, as well as professionals. If the noble Lord’s Amendment 21 were to be accepted, we would need some clarity on who exactly, under the legislation, would have responsibility on behalf of the hub.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 9th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, any parent will tell you that raising children is a difficult job. It is important that all families have access to the support they need to help parents be the best they can. That is why early intervention matters; yet, too often, family support services, such as family hubs or centres, are the first things to be closed when funding is tight.

Recent analysis by Pro Bono Economics, on behalf of Barnardo’s and other leading children’s charities, shows that spending on Sure Start centres has been reduced by £1.4 billion since 2010, resulting in the closure of over 1,000 centres. This is why I support Amendment 68, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, to which I have added my name. It would place a duty on local authorities to provide sufficient family support services, including family hubs, for all children and families. This has been recommended by Barnardo’s and Action for Children, but these charities believe that such a change in the law must be backed by sufficient funding. Otherwise, we will be letting down a whole generation of children and their families, and any hope for their well-being.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 68, 68A, 68B, 169 and 171 in this group. I added my name to Amendment 68 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, because it has been my long-standing position that every community in this country needs preventive family support for social flourishing, in the same way that they need GP surgeries and schools.

When the welfare state was founded in the late 1940s, there was a recognition that health and education would not be able to defeat disadvantage without it. Some 80% of children’s educational attainment is determined by pupil-level factors such as family and community, and only 20% by school-level factors. Health-wise, in 2015, Citizens Advice published a report called A Very General Practice, which found that 92% of GPs said that patients raised personal—often family relationship—problems during consultations. This was the top non-health issue they dealt with, and only 31% of GPs felt able to advise at all adequately in this area.

In 1949, one of the architects of the welfare state, Michael Young, called for child welfare centres to fulfil Beveridge’s principle of the preservation of parental responsibility and deal with the emotional cost to children of high post-war levels of family breakdown. These costs persist today. Compared to those who do not experience family breakdown, children who do are at least twice as likely to be homeless as adults, to be in trouble with the police or spend time in prison, and to underachieve at school.

Young’s child welfare centres began to emerge as family centres in the 1980s. These helped parents of all-aged children, mainly in disadvantaged areas, to prevent the need for social services, or they worked collaboratively with those services. Many were run by voluntary organisations such as National Children’s Home, now Action for Children, and many had significant involvement from local authority social services departments.

Promising beginnings led to the requirement in the Children Act 1989 that local authorities should provide family centres. These would have been a base for local authorities to work from in delivering family support. Buildings on their own are not enough but, even in this digital age, there needs to be a focal point in a community where people can find out about the full range of services and support available.

Family centres paved the way for the national programme of Sure Start and children’s centres, which began in the late 1990s and focused on the pre-school years. Although children’s centres were immensely helpful to many parents at this life stage, the cut-off at the age of five became increasingly contested, with a greater emphasis on early intervention throughout childhood. Finally, in 2020, family hubs became official government policy. After 70 years, the family support infrastructure envisaged by Michael Young as being so important for families of children of all ages seems to be emerging. I declare here my interest as a guarantor of FHN Holding, the not-for-profit owner of the Family Hubs Network Ltd.

I have given this potted history to show that good and well-reasoned intentions several decades ago have been frequently revisited but family support still seems to be on a precarious footing, as we have basically heard already. We await the granularity of the spending review later this week. Moreover, a proper family support system in a local authority is so much bigger than the family hub and the network of buildings, people and services around it. The hub has to sit in a bigger web of relational practice that guides how all support for families, including children’s social care, is run.

The Government have made promising progress in implementing the independent review of children’s social care, with the Families First Partnership programme of preventive family support. The programme aims to transform the whole system of help and protection for families so that the right help is there for every family when needed, and it has a strong emphasis on early intervention to prevent crisis. The Families First (FFP) Partnership Programme Guide gives family hubs a good profile as a place where universal services and community-based early help are delivered, and where emerging problems can be identified at an early stage. My aim in supporting the amendment is to get more information from the Government about how they will ensure a rebalancing away from crisis spending towards early intervention across the age range nought to 19, and nought to 25 for those with special needs, and how they will ensure that prevention becomes embedded, cannot be unravelled and is further developed.

I turn to Amendments 68A and 68B in my name. In the Family Hubs Network’s work with local authorities, we talk to many people who are locally leading the family hubs and Start for Life programme who say they have been somewhat held up by having to implement Start for Life instead of being able to press on with integrating services across the age ranges nought to 19 and nought to 25, as I have said. One council said the family hub part of the programme gets overlooked as the focus has been on Start for Life and on delivering its tight specifications. Some told us that prior to this programme they were doing well on the early years as a legacy of their children’s centres, many of which are still running, albeit that Start for Life funding has enabled them to strengthen this further.

Due to how the funding is structured, some LAs have been in danger of only really shoring up provision in the early years. For family hubs, the greater goal is the provision of family support from pregnancy to 18, 19 or 25 if SEND—as I have said—or care leavers. Boosting family support beyond the early years, vital though these are, must be a key goal, delivered through a range of settings and organisations, the public sector and VCS, with some private sector too, and personal professionals backed by well-trained volunteers.

Amendments 68A and 68B would mean that local authorities with a proven track record were granted more flexibility in how they used central government funding to deliver in their family hubs. Implemented well, family hubs involve a transformation in family support through system change, yet the requirements of the current programme do not adequately prompt local authorities receiving funding to implement system change. They put the focus on funding a minimum offer rather than on a system changed to embed new ways of working using an integrated approach. Collocating services, while beneficial, is not the same as system integration. Without system change, what happens when the funding stops? Mainstreaming any of the funded programmes requires system change.

Another key aspect of family hubs is using funding more effectively, particularly by combining funding pots. Westminster City Council, a pioneer of the first family hubs prior to central government funding, was able to deploy troubled families programme money to develop family hubs because it had earned autonomy from the tight strictures of that programme’s payment-by-results model. If the Government extend funding for family support to the rest of the country beyond the 75 in the family hubs and Start for Life programme, which I very much hope they will, good learning from the original programme suggests that an earned-autonomy approach would greatly help facilitate the desired transformation.

I also support Amendments 169 and 171, already mentioned, as post-removal support for parents to prevent future removals and bereavement support services for children need to be key elements of family support, but they are either vanishingly rare, hard to find or both.

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[Lord Farmer (Con)]

I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 68A (to Amendment 68) withdrawn.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 17th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, before speaking to my Amendment 129, to which the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and my noble friend Lord Storey have added their names, I first add my very strong support for Amendment 144 by the noble Lord, Lord Watson. I am sorry that I did not manage to add my name to it; it deals with such an important issue.

I was shocked to read a report by the Children’s Commissioner, which said that last September, there were 775 children in unregistered homes, including children under the age of 10, children who had spent over two years in those homes and children in entirely inappropriate unregistered settings such as caravans. Staggeringly, the average cost was over £1,500 a day, with an estimated total annual cost to local authorities of over £400 million. As the Children’s Commissioner said, and I very much agree with her, the use of these homes is a national scandal. Vulnerable children are being failed. We would not allow it for our own children, and we simply should not allow it for those for whom the state is corporate parent. Therefore, I very strongly support phasing out unregistered accommodation.

My Amendment 129 is closely linked to the discussion we had on the first group about children being placed far from home. It would amend

“the sufficiency duty to prevent children being moved far away from home”

when that is not in their best interests. We heard a lot of the arguments in the previous group, and I will pull out a few specifics.

In recent years, there has been a marked and shocking rise in the number of children in care who are moved far away from their support networks and communities. Last year, more than a fifth of all children in care were living more than 20 miles away from home. That might not sound far but, frankly, that is a long way from family and local support networks. In addition, more than 3,000 children were living more than 100 miles from home—that is 4% of all children in care—and more than 800 children under the care of English local authorities were living in Scotland and Wales. Although I accept that there may be legitimate reasons why children in care are moved far from home—safeguarding, preventing them being exploited or harmed, or their being moved to wider family networks—far too often it is simply because of a lack of appropriate local options.

As highlighted by the charity Become in its Gone Too Far campaign, being moved far from their family, friends and schools can have a significant and long-term adverse impact on children’s relationships, mental health, well-being, sense of identity et cetera—the sort of things we discussed in our last session on relationships.

Clearly, local authorities across the country have faced a number of challenges recently—that is why we have just had the discussion about regional care co-operatives —particularly in ensuring that there are the right number and type of homes in their local area to meet the needs of children under their care. The current sufficiency duty is not fit for purpose, and there is a lack of accountability and oversight regarding the extent to which sufficiency is being fulfilled.

That is the reason for tabling this important amendment, which seeks to strengthen the sufficiency duty by requiring local authorities to plan, commission and deliver provision and to take “all reasonable steps” to ensure that children in care remain living within or near to the local authority. The amendment builds on recent reforms by the Welsh Government, and we would very much benefit from taking it forward.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 119 tabled by my noble friend Lord Agnew, to which I have added my name. He spoke very persuasively for it.

I did read the Minister’s response to the debate last Thursday on Amendment 82, which would similarly have made it compulsory for children in kinship care to be offered such a place. I agree with her answer in pretty much all respects. She recognised the positive impact that boarding schools can have, but they should not be the default for all children living in kinship care. She cited the importance of stability in education and friendships to well-being and educational outcomes. Moving schools would, of course, be potentially highly detrimental.

I ask the Minister: could she work with me and my noble friend Lord Agnew to word this legislation to remove any sense of default? My aim is simply to make this option available to all, as this is currently not the case. The arguments and evidence—for making the boarding school option available to both children in kinship care and children in local authority care—overlap significantly in these amendments. My noble friend Lady Berridge eloquently made the case for Amendment 82 when I was unable to be here, so I will not repeat it.

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to speak to Amendment 134B in my name and to support a number of amendments in this group. I make it clear that this is a probing amendment. I appreciate that the Government have a wider agenda in relation to planning—so it may be that this Bill is not the right vehicle—but I did want to pick up on a proposal from the Government’s policy statement Green Paper, Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive, which the Minister has already mentioned. It states that the Government will look at

“options to reform the planning process to enable providers to more easily set up homes where they are most needed”.

Specifically, it says that they will

“consider potential legislative options or further changes to support the delivery of small children’s homes”.

We know that we have seen a move away from the larger homes, with the most recent government statistics showing that homes registered within the previous year were for three places on average, and four places was the average for all active or suspended children’s homes as of March 2024. We also know—and it has been quite clearly demonstrated—that we need more capacity and that children are being placed in unsuitable accommodation.

On this point, I very much support my noble friend Lord Lucas’s Amendment 118, as well as Amendment 114, which attempts to deal with the problem of unregulated homes. As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, have said, it is quite hard to believe that these homes exist, but exist they do. That is a capacity issue and something that, frankly, we are just going to have to do deal with. I appreciate that the Government announced investment into the children’s homes estate last week; that is, of course, welcome and a good thing. However, there are additional measures that could deal with capacity, and these relate to planning regulations.

The CMA’s 2022 study, which has already been mentioned, found that one of the main barriers to opening new homes is planning permission. The study’s authors heard repeated concerns about failed planning applications, often due to local opposition, which, in its words,

“appears to be based on outmoded or inaccurate assumptions about children’s homes and looked-after children”.

Given that we have now moved towards smaller children’s homes, the issue is further complicated by the fact that these are the exact same type of properties that families are searching for. As a result, when providers face delays due to the planning process, even if they have been successful in getting permission, very often they can lose the property to a rival bidder for whom planning is not a consideration.

Consequently, the CMA suggested that the Government should review the planning requirements and consider whether smaller children’s homes, which can accommodate fewer than a specified number of residents at any one time, should be required to go through the planning system. It believes that that could be a helpful corrective to the market by increasing the number of children’s homes being opened. My straightforward question to the Minister is: is that something the Government are still considering, as suggested by their policy statement of last year? If so, would it be possible to give any guidance as to which other legislation they think might be more suitable?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, I speak as someone who has had to make these orders, and in doing so I recognise that these amendments are of great importance, shining light on the deprivation of liberty jurisdiction which has persisted in England and Wales for perhaps too long. In an article in the Observer just a year ago, there was trenchant criticism from the former President of the Family Division, Sir James Munby. He wrote:

“When a system is routinely locking up vulnerable children in highly inappropriate settings because they are too difficult to look after, something is clearly going very, very wrong”.


He described this as a

“moral failure – by the state and by society”.

As has been explained, the existing statutory provision for secure accommodation orders made under Section 25 of the Children Act now covers only a few of those with complex needs and those requiring accommodation because they have to be protected from exploitation or present a risk to others. That is because “secure accommodation” is a term which describes only registered children’s homes specifically approved by the Secretary of State, of which, as we have heard, there are only a limited and increasingly insufficient number available.

With the severe shortage of places and the rising need for accommodation for those whose welfare requires some restriction of liberty, that need has had to be met by applications to the High Court for authorisation under the court’s inherent jurisdiction. As places cannot be found in suitable registered homes which are Section 25 compliant, the High Court then has to consider whether an unregistered placement is in the child’s best interests. All too often, the local authority, the child’s guardian in the proceedings and the court have to struggle when considering what is available. The court is faced usually with a short-term crisis, planned for in the short term, and limited services available, and is battling to keep the child safe. In doing so, one is usually presented with only one unsatisfactory option. As the MacAlister report put it,

“Courts do not take such decisions lightly. Deprivation of liberty orders are often made following a nationwide search for homes, and often after the child has experienced multiple home breakdowns … the harrowing circumstances set out in these High Court judgements are a window into the dysfunction of the care system”.


In practice, if a DoLS is justified, the court has to look at the distance from home, the adequacy of education provision, if any, the adequacy of staffing and the nature and level of any workable restrictions required.

I take one slight issue with something the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, said. In my experience, children do participate, at least in some hearings. They sometimes attend in person, but, as we all know, they are often placed far too far away—certainly from the court dealing with it—and sometimes they attend remotely. In my experience, one hears children who are depressed, agitated, traumatised and often very worried. In those circumstances, the court is looking not for what is best but for what is available and what is least worst, trying to keep that child safe.

The shortage of provision and the resultant use of deprivation of liberty authorisations have been known about for a long time and have been the subject of strong criticism from the higher judiciary, which has seen what was meant to be only a last resort become the norm, described by the Supreme Court as an “imperfect stopgap”. The judiciary has felt dismayed that its concerns appeared to be unheeded by Governments and Parliament. It has also been concerned that the courts were having to do what the state really should have been doing without recourse to the court in most cases.

The scale of the problem has been repeatedly highlighted by the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, whose excellent work has been referred to during this debate, but also by others, including the BBC and responsible journalists elsewhere. I recognise that Clause 11 creates a new statutory regime and the concept of relevant accommodation, extending the places in which children can be confined. Much of what I have heard from Ministers on the Government Front Bench today has been very reassuring, and a recognition that the Government are getting to grips. Of course, it remains to be seen whether what can be achieved will be a sufficient response to the difficulties created by these orders, and to the independent review’s call for more flexible and innovative types of provision of care for children.

I support the amendments to improve what the Bill intends to achieve, in particular Amendment 124, which would require it to be stated that a deprivation of liberty has to be a last resort. Amendments 120A and 127 expressly provide for education and for therapy. Amendment 123 provides for regular reviews—not by the court, which is what happens at the moment, but by the authorities responsible for that deprivation of liberty. There is much to be said also for Amendment 132 on the involvement of the independent reviewing officer. I will also support Amendment 506B, providing for the availability of legal aid.

I questioned what in reality Amendment 122 would achieve, simply because we are where we are because of the severe shortage of registered children’s homes, of which there were 29 in 2002 and there are now only 13, which has, of course, forced reliance on unregistered placements that are often expensive. I think the answer to my question is that the expectation is that there will be improved registration of homes and an extension of the availability of homes to address what the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, called the underlying need to increase capacity.

Finally, in respect of government Amendment 128, I ask what this will all mean for cross-border placements. There are awful stories of children from Devon and Cornwall having to be placed in Scotland.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Meston, whose wisdom and experience of the court processes in this area are, I am sure, very valuable to the Committee.

I will speak to Amendment 133 in my name. I have also added my name to that of my noble friend Lady Barran on Amendment 120. Amendment 133 states:

“Information required to be published by a local authority includes information about the authority’s arrangements for enabling children subject to deprivation of liberty orders to maintain, strengthen and build family and social relationships”.


This Bill picks up much of the intent of Josh MacAlister’s Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, but one of its key emphases, the importance of relationships, could feature more prominently throughout. Josh’s review drew on an experts by experience board informing his recommendations: young people and adults who had been through the care system. They said in the foreword that this review was their chance

“to reshape the system by placing relationships front and centre”.

I was on the design group on that review, and this emphasis came through again and again in evidence—hence the first paragraph of the report, which states:

“What we need is a system that … puts lifelong loving relationships at the heart of the care system”.


It calls for a reset that

“starts with recognising that it is loving relationships that hold the solutions for children and families overcoming adversity”.

On an earlier group of amendments focusing on care leavers, my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott said we need to make sure that the loving, committed relationships that come to the fore in the family group decision-making process do not fall through the cracks in a child’s care pathway as they walk along it. If the local authority intentionally helps a child or young person to maintain them from day one, these relationships will not only be there when the child leaves but have the potential to transform the whole experience of being in care.

My noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott talks very effectively about the lifelong links model imported from California and thoroughly adapted and tested by the Department for Education for British children, families and friends. Lifelong links ensures that children have a lasting support network of relatives and others who care about them throughout their time in the care system. In my work with the Ministry of Justice, I have recommended it for children in the youth custody and wider youth justice system, with whom children deprived of their liberty are an overlapping cohort.

We can underestimate the strength of the pull towards blood connections. Without the corporate parent’s gentle hand on the tiller in this area, many young people in or leaving care go looking on the internet and social media for family members, and not all of them will be beneficial relationships. While I would like lifelong links to be included in regulations and guidance as an offer to all children in care, care leavers and those deprived of their liberty, as the Minister said, this programme is being evaluated. Whatever its future, local authorities should be required to be intentional and systematic about relationships. Children in care, especially when they are in trouble in care, desperately need to feel that they belong somewhere.

Mark Riddell MBE, the Government’s national adviser for care leavers—at least, I think he still is; he certainly has been for some time—tells how his turnaround moment came when he was about 14 years old in the Scottish care system and had just trashed the children’s home where he lived after several failed placements. He had been called to the manager’s office, so he packed his black bag, expecting to be moved on again. The first thing the manager said to him was, “What’s that bag for?”. Mark said, “It’s all my stuff; you’re going to kick me out”. The manager told him, “We can sort out the damage, but you’re not leaving: this is your home”. Knowing that he belonged somewhere and that people were committed to him, regardless of his behaviour, finally settled him down, and he is now a voice for government.

Young people deprived of their liberty need a profound sense of belonging. Relationships with dedicated and compassionate staff are essential, but they also need to know that they have not been abandoned by their families, friends and other trusted adults. They belong in a relational web. We must not let this be torn apart by the already very traumatic experience of being deprived of their liberty.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I will make a couple of points and ask a question. Like others, I have found this both a very humbling and a very disturbing group, which, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Meston, has shone a light on a little-understood area and highlighted some disturbing details. It is an area that I now realise I knew far too little about and that has not received anything like the transparency that it should.

The two points I want to make are on Amendment 127 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, about placing a duty on local authorities to provide therapeutic treatment for children who are subject to a deprivation of liberty order. It reminds me of all the detailed scrutiny that I and other noble Lords gave to the Mental Health Bill during its passage in the first few months of the year.

One of the things that was particularly in my mind was that that Bill included four core principles for making decisions about detaining people under the Mental Health Act, and one of those was that it would be of “therapeutic benefit”. I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, who told us that for quite a few of the children who would be subject to these deprivation of liberty orders, it would be because of their severe mental health problems. It struck me that there are parallels between the two Bills; and in the same way that we have said in the Mental Health Bill that detention must be of therapeutic benefit, Amendment 127, which is about providing therapeutic treatment for children subject to a deprivation of liberty order, is particularly important.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 23rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Farmer]

179: After Clause 26, insert the following new Clause—
“English local authorities: duties relating to Start for Life offer(1) An English local authority must publish a Start for Life offer for its area on its website under the heading “Start for Life”.(2) A “Start for Life offer” for an English local authority’s area is information about the following services that the authority is aware are available in its area for infants, parents, or carers of infants—(a) health visiting services provided by or on behalf of a public authority;(b) services promoting positive relationships between infants and their parents or carers provided by or on behalf of a public authority;(c) breastfeeding and other infant feeding services provided by or on behalf of a public authority;(d) mental health services provided by or on behalf of a public authority;(e) such other kinds of services that are—(i) likely to support infants, parents, or carers of infants, and(ii) provided by or on behalf of a public authority, as the Secretary of State may specify by regulations made by statutory instrument;(f) such services that are likely to support infants, parents, or carers of infants being—(i) services of a kind mentioned in paragraphs (a) to (e) provided other than by or on behalf of a public authority, or(ii) other services, whether or not provided by or on behalf of a public authority, as the local authority considers it appropriate to include information about in the Start for Life offer for its area. (4) An English local authority must also—(a) publish a Start for Life offer for its area by any other means it considers appropriate,(b) take such steps as it considers appropriate to bring the Start for Life offer to the attention of parents and carers of infants in its area, and(c) take such steps as are reasonably practicable to ensure that the Start for Life offer is kept up to date.(5) An English local authority must have regard to guidance published by the Secretary of State under section (Guidance) when complying with its duties under this section.(6) A statutory instrument containing regulations under subsection (2)(e) may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This and the following four clauses require local authorities to make information available about support for infants, parents and carers of infants and include reporting requirements relating to such support, to help ensure children’s safety and well-being in the critical first two years of life.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 179 and 183 in my name. It might be a lighter-weight and shorter debate than the important debate we have just had. I should disclose that, taken together, these amendments are a slightly cut-down version of my Support for Infants and Parents etc (Information) Bill, my Private Member’s Bill, which secured top place in our ballot. I am, in effect, reintroducing it here given the reasons why the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, the Minister for Health and Social Care, was unable to support it when it was debated in September 2024. In those early weeks of the new Government, she said:

“We need the time and we need to be able to roll out our own cross-government package of support for infants, children and families, as noble Lords have today asked us to do. This needs to be comprehensive, rather than piecemeal … the Bill … does not align with how this Government intend to deliver the comprehensive change that our children need”.—[Official Report, 6/9/24; col. 1369.]


One year on from their election victory, I and many other noble Lords who spoke in that debate or who championed better, more systematic support in the first two years of children’s lives, and beyond that point, are keen to hear more about what the Government’s comprehensive package will look like, so these five amendments are probing amendments intended to encourage the Government to share their plans for both the Start for Life programme and the family hubs programme that is integral to its delivery and wider family support.

It is also a second opportunity to reiterate the intention of that Bill then and these amendments now, which is not to specify what a service offer should look like but simply to require local authorities to publish information on that offer. A large body of evidence points to how critical the first 1,001 days of life, from conception to age two, are to children’s future well-being and the opportunities that they can take advantage of. These days are also filled with stress and worry, alongside much joy, for parents and carers, who often do not know what to expect, what is normal, how best to cope or where to turn for help. The Start for Life programme, based in DHSC, included universal support through the named services in Amendment 179. Again, the Start for Life offer is not the services themselves but rather the information that is published about what is available in terms of health visiting services, promoting positive relationships between infants and their parents or carers, mental health, and breastfeeding and other infant feeding services.

Local authorities should also provide additional information on other services as appropriate, particularly maternity, which was not deemed to be in the scope of this Bill, as maternity is primarily about mothers’ health. As an aside, I argued good-naturedly with the legislation clerks that while the baby is inside and connected to the mother, its well-being is practically indivisible from maternal health, but legally that does not hold. I am not rearguing that now, simply explaining why maternity is not specified in the list.

In the mess and the muddle of new babies, all families need to know what support is available and to be able to access it easily. Funding was specifically provided in the family hubs and Start for Life programme running in 75 local authority areas for expectant parents to receive a physical copy of their local Start for Life offer and to be able to find it online. However, without Amendment 179, future funding to provide that information is not guaranteed in whichever form is best once the very welcome 2025-26 settlement of £57 million provided for Start for Life by the new Government runs out. I will return to this subject in a moment.

Amendment 180 would introduce a duty on the Secretary of State to publish guidance to local authorities relating to their duties under the clause that Amendment 179 would insert. Current guidance is non-statutory. Amendment 183 gives accompanying interpretation for the terms used in these new clauses, and Amendment 182 makes provision for data protection. Finally, Amendment 181 requires the Government to publish an annual report that gives a national overview about the support provided in England for infants and their parents and carers, and the outcomes it is delivering.

I turn back to my intent in tabling these five amendments. My Private Member’s Bill, which they are based on, was leftover business from the previous Parliament. An earlier Support for Infants and Parents etc (Information) Bill was poised to go through with much cross-party support in the other place but was pipped at the post by the snap election. I adopted this Bill because knowing what help is available for families in the early years is essential if they are to access and be connected with all that family hubs and the networks of support that they are at the heart of provide. Access, connection and relationships are the three guiding principles of the Government’s approach to family hubs. Here I declare again my interest as a guarantor of FHN Holding, the not-for-profit owner of the Family Hubs Network Ltd.

These amendments do not specify that these services must be provided, so this is not tying the Government’s hands with previous policy detail or incurring a large recurring annual cost. They simply require local authorities to publish what is available and make that information readily available, and the Government to publish that aggregated national information picture.

I was heartened by the Government’s recent spending review, which committed to continuing investment in and expansion of the family hubs programme and to

“working with parents to help give children the best start in life”.

This wording is a little tantalising, though. How far up the age range does the best start in life go? Why has “Start for Life” been dropped from the programme name? I am looking at this optimistically. My hope is that there will no longer be what has proven to be a somewhat problematic divide between early years services for all and early intervention for families with older children. The Family Hubs Network organisation has become aware that some local authorities were forced to deprioritise the family hubs part of the family hubs and Start for Life programme because so much of the focus has been on Start for Life.

--- Later in debate ---

I will at this point draw my comments to a conclusion and ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords—there were many of them—who richly contributed to this debate; it was an important debate. Their contributions have very much made it clear that there is robust support for a transparent early years offer here in this House and that it will remain.

We should not neglect the support that families with older children need. I will go into a lay-by here and reveal that I went to the Labour Party conference in 2018 or 2019, on a windswept day in Brighton. We had a family hubs event going on there, where the noble Baroness, Lady Longfield, was one of our speakers. As I was going along the Brighton front, all of a sudden I heard a voice behind me saying, “Lord Farmer, what are you doing in enemy territory?” I looked around and saw the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. I said to him, “Lord Ponsonby, family hubs are building on Labour’s Sure Start centres”—and that is what I hope that family hubs are doing.

However, it is not just the nought to five, it is the nought to 19. I know the importance of early years intervention—it is important to get that in place—but currently there is a big cohort of teenagers who need help. Some 44% of our children are growing up in a single-parent family. So family hubs are needed for nought to 19—nought to 25 for special needs. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. As I said, Amendments 179 and 183 should be taken together—they are probing amendments—and I will not press them to a vote.

I also very much appreciate the information that the Minister has been able to share and look forward to this correspondence, or maybe a meeting. Family support and the early years workforce up and down the country are very keen to learn from the full unveiling of this new Government’s comprehensive plans. In the interest of moving on, I say that I am sure that other noble Lords would like her to keep us—and them—closely informed on the developing detail on family hubs and the early years policy. I beg to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 179 withdrawn.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 19th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendment 51 seeks to highlight the need to include health agencies in the RCC arrangement.

As I mentioned in my speech in Committee back in June, integrated care boards now have a pivotal role to play in the NHS. The main argument advanced when they were proposed that they should replace the clinical care commissioning groups was that they could unite health, social care and all the voluntary partners that are involved. A lot of discussion took place about health inequalities, delivering holistic care and co-ordinating GP services. The regional care co-operatives are at the heart of the MacAlister proposals and have received widespread welcome and endorsement. Indeed, across parties, the view is that they are a pragmatic initiative and absolutely deserve all-party support.

I will not repeat the arguments that I made in Committee—we have been urged not to go over ground that has been trodden on already—and I certainly will not talk for very long, but I feel that it would be unusual and, indeed, illogical for the new RCCs not to be built on a strong and proactive relationship with the existing integrated care boards. This would indeed be the professional outcome that most people would desire. I say to the Minister: why rely on good will when what I am suggesting could be put in the Bill?

In her response to my amendment in Committee, the Minister fully agreed that it was vital that the sort of co-operation and collaboration I am talking about, between the two bodies, does indeed take place. However, she said that

“Section 10 of the Children Act 2004 specifies that local authorities must make arrangements to promote co-operation with relevant partners, including local integrated care boards, to improve the well-being of children”.—[Official Report, 17/6/25; col. 1925.]

in care. She went on to say that the statutory guidance, Working Together to Safeguard Children, provides the necessary clarity. In other words, the Minister said that my amendment was not necessary and was surplus to requirements.

However, I would argue that this is a flagship Bill. Indeed, throughout the entire Bill, there is a lot of talk about consolidation, clarification and updating existing legislation, so why not accept that rationale here? I obviously accept that my amendment has an element of “safety first” to it. But surely, we should not be relying on good will among professionals both in local authorities and in the local NHS.

I want to make one final point on the feedback that has come through from the National Network of Designated Healthcare Professionals, which has commented on this particular clause. I will quote very briefly:

“Children in care are our collective responsibility. As a society, we cannot continue to fail those most in need of our support and protection. … Those who are not able to be cared for by their birth family and do not settle into fostering families or children’s homes often have multiple placements and experience nowhere that they feel accepted and cherished. Many end up in crisis in our acute hospitals, not meeting the criteria for child and adolescent mental health services and not having a home to be discharged back to”.


It goes on to say that the RCCs will now be

“a cornerstone of the governments children’s social care reforms, and a golden opportunity to address the failures of our care system”.

It also points out that

“Two pathfinders are currently testing the models to address the significant difficulties with finding the right homes, with the right care for our most vulnerable children with complex lives”.

It goes on to say that not having, on the face of the Bill, the need for co-operation and integration between these two bodies

“is a strategic omission of significant importance, and runs counter to the inclusion of health as a statutory, and strategic, issue in safeguarding partnerships”.

Finally, it says that the Bill therefore needs to name integrated care boards as partners in the RCCs to

“enable health to take greater direct responsibility for the health outcomes and the life chances of this most vulnerable group of children and young people.”

That is not me; that is the National Network of Designated Healthcare Professionals.

I just say to the Minister that this is quite a simple amendment, but it is an important one. If the Government do not accept it, I suggest to the Minister that we are missing a very important opportunity, because if we do not put it in the Bill, we will be relying on the good will of hard-pressed professionals up and down the country.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I rise in support of Amendments 43 and 49 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, to which I have added my name.

In Committee, the Minister clearly understood the basic principle of this group was to ensure that young people leave care with supportive and, hopefully, lifelong loving relationships. She assured the Committee that the Government

“are funding a number of family-finding, befriending and mentoring programmes. These help looked-after children and care leavers to identify and connect with important people in their lives and create safe, stable, loving relationships”,

which last. She said:

“The family-finding, befriending and mentoring programme is being evaluated, and this will help to inform decisions about the future of the programme”.—[Official Report, 12/6/25; col. 1607.]


However, I understand funding runs out in March this year for these family-finding, befriending and mentoring programmes, and there is no decision yet on continuation. I am concerned that the good work to date will be wasted, but perhaps she has encouraging news on funding and the results of the evaluation. I particularly want to flag again lifelong links and how this picks up the vital relationships identified by family group conferencing, which is in the Bill.