Vulnerable Children

Lord Flight Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight (Con)]

I draw to the Minister’s attention a charity in Birmingham called Malachi, run by the man who set it up more than 20 years ago, Gordon Lee. It has had terrific success in sorting out children from broken homes where schools have been excluding them but has not received adequate support from the Birmingham local authority.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I thank my noble friend for that information.

My noble friend Lord Balfe made important comments around the definition of vulnerability—we heard also from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt—with which I agreed.

The noble Lord, Lord Warner, was concerned about unregistered settings and home education. The powers of local authorities are the same for all children, irrespective of the setting that they are in: if the local authority has a safeguarding concern, it should not hesitate to use its powers under the Children Acts. We have provided additional resources to Ofsted to root out illegal schools, and the DfE is taking further action to work with local authorities on this.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked about Ofsted’s role in inspecting schools with vulnerable children. The guidance was adapted in March 2017 to take into account the medical needs of children in such schools. As the noble Lord, Lord Warner, will be aware, we have announced a consultation on the strengthening of guidance for local authorities and parents in the area of home education.

The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asked about resources being made available for affordable housing. The Government have recently announced a further £2 billion for housing associations. This will increase the 2016 to 2021 affordable housing programme in England to more than £9 billion.

Despite the progress being made, we need to be engaged in an ongoing effort to search out children’s needs which have been overlooked and to identify where problems are being stored up for the future. We continue to work with the Children’s Commissioner, and the department is working to strengthen this engagement and support through the development of a new framework agreement planned for 2018.

I thank all noble Lords who have made contributions to this debate. If I have not been able to address specific questions I will write separately to noble Lords. Supporting vulnerable children and reducing the opportunity gap sits at the heart of all we are trying to achieve, in education and beyond.