Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Allan Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that, shortly, the Government will announce the winning applicants to their social impact bond to provide funding for local authorities to improve outcomes in education, training and employment for care leavers.

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

I, too, welcome the Minister to his position, and I know that he will be excellent in his role. Does he agree that no child should be taken into care if family support would allow them to stay safely at home? What will he do to provide more support to struggling families to prevent children from being taken into care?

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank my hon. Friend for her warm words and wholeheartedly agree that, where possible, children are of course looked after best by their own families. That is why the troubled families programme, in which we are investing £1 billion through to 2020, is working with those families to reduce the need for children to go into care. I am delighted to tell her that the results in December show a decrease in the number of children in need in that programme.