Children and Social Work Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Michael Tomlinson Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 13th December 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

That is a question that the Minister might answer. I hope that the Bill will be changed again after our deliberations in Committee—so there may well be a sixth or seventh version.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady acknowledge that part of the reason for a Bill Committee, whether in the Lords or the Commons, is scrutiny, and that if that results in change it shows the strength of the system, rather than weakness?

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[Steve McCabe]

If the hon. Member for North Dorset is right, perhaps he can tell us how it is that some Tory-controlled authorities up and down the country have seen an 8% increase in their funding, while other parts of the country have seen an 8% reduction.

[Michael Tomlinson]

That’s not true.

[Steve McCabe]

It is true.

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[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I think we should all have the highest possible standards for all our children, whether they are care leavers or not. That is something we should always strive towards.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for highlighting the unemployment statistics. I am chairman of the all-party group for youth employment. Each month we look at the statistics; we will have a new set of figures tomorrow. She is right to say that the figures are too high. In fact, they are too high across the board at just under 14%. Does she recognise that, under the clause, the local plan that points towards education and employment will help in that regard?

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I think that only time will tell.

[Michael Tomlinson]

That is a yes, then.

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

No, it is not; it is a “time will tell.”

I will not spend much longer on this new clause; it is quite straightforward. It asks that the Secretary of State carries out an annual review on access to apprenticeships and further and higher education, and takes into account some of the barriers that care leavers face around fees, grants and accommodation. We know that such problems have existed for care leavers for a very long time, so it is about time we got on, looked at that, and made policies around it.

New clause 16 seeks to improve care leavers’ transition to independence by proposing various changes to welfare and benefits that would offer much needed financial support at a critical juncture. Without financial support, it is likely that a lot of the Government’s intentions towards care leavers will not amount to any real tangible changes for children leaving care. The national offer for care leavers that I am proposing will ensure that the maximum sanction for care leavers under the age of 25 will be four weeks, in line with the current sanction regime for 16 and 17-year-olds. It will allow working care leavers under the age of 25 to claim working tax credit. It will extend the higher rate of the local housing allowance single room rate to care leavers up to the age of 25, delaying the transition to the lower shared accommodation rate that applies at 22 years. It will also amend the council tax regulations to exempt care leavers from that tax until the age of 25.

The Government’s document, “Keep On Caring”, which was published in July, states:

“Most care leavers who spoke to us talked about the problems they had making ends meet. Paying rent, Council Tax, household bills and transport costs meant that many care leavers had difficulty managing their finances and they had often experienced debt and arrears.”

Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has shown that more than half of young people leaving care have difficulty managing their budgets and avoiding debt. Yet almost half of local authorities in England fail to offer adequate financial support and advice for care leavers. If local authorities are not able to help when a young care leaver needs help, where on earth are they supposed to go? Unlike many of us in this room, they have never had the option of turning to their parents, wider family, or family friends. Often, if the local authority does not help them, nobody does.

The way that the Government have applied sanctions has had a devastating effect on not only the sick and disabled, but care leavers. Between October 2013 and September 2015, 4,000 sanctions were imposed on care leavers. They are more likely to receive sanctions, and less likely to know where to go or how to appeal a decision made against them.

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I am pleased that several local authorities, such as Birmingham City Council, City of Wolverhampton Council and others have introduced a council tax exemption for care leavers. I hope that other local authorities will follow their lead, but it is no good the Government asking local authorities to consider or explore the possibility of exempting care leavers from council tax when those authorities face further cuts from central Government.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I have the privilege of serving on the Homelessness Reduction Bill Committee, which meets for the fourth time tomorrow. That measure is a private Member’s Bill, as the hon. Lady will know, but it has Government backing. Care leavers are a prescribed group within that Bill, and will be specifically looked after in relation to homelessness advice. The Bill states:

“The service must be designed to meet the needs of persons in the authority’s district including…care leavers.”

Surely the hon. Lady welcomes that, and the fact that the Government are supporting that Bill?

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support for my amendment. I hope that he will vote with us. I am proposing a comprehensive package of support for care leavers, and this Bill is exactly the right measure for that. We should not have piecemeal legislation for care leavers; the package should be in this Bill.

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[Stella Creasy]

It was on the tip of my tongue. The hon. Lady put it very well when she argued that our benefits system, especially when dealing with young people, is designed on the principle that even if they do not live at home, they probably have a home relationship on which they are able to draw; that they can draw not only on financial support, but on support to be able to budget and to manage at that point in life when we start to get our own rent and bills. That group of young people do not have such support as a background, so we have to make specific arrangements for them. That is what the amendment would do.

As I said to the hon. Member for North Dorset, in places we do not do that, which costs us more as a result, so again I ask the Minister to do something, even if not in this legislation. I completely take the point of the other hon. Gentleman for—I am doing terribly this morning at remembering constituency names—

[Michael Tomlinson]

Mid Dorset and North Poole.

[Stella Creasy]

How could I forget Mid Dorset! What a wonderful community. The hon. Gentleman will have seen even in Mid Dorset, as I see in Walthamstow, young people struggling to make sense of what rights and entitlements they have as they take that first step. They struggle even when they have their mum and dad with them to help, yet we are talking about young people who do not have that support. He is right to point to the Homelessness Reduction Bill as having such provision, but his case is to marry that with what we do in this Bill—that is exactly what the amendment would do. It simply states that we have to continue thinking about that group of young people needing a particular level of support because we can see their problems. The two are not contradictory; in fact, they are complementary.

I ask the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole to think about that. Perhaps in the lunch break he will make the case to the Minister that we should be looking at the financial support we give to our young people. The evidence tells us that our benefits system is not working for them, which is costing us money, and it is not joining up with other pieces of legislation. As a result, very vulnerable young people are being left at risk.

There are ways in which we can save money in the system and get a better outcome. The amendments are trying to get us there. I think that Government Members share the same objective. The question is this: if they will not accept the amendments on those three core principles, what would the standards be beyond which we will never let a young person fall? If we accept that a younger person is vulnerable, how do we ensure that we do not discriminate against them on the basis of nationality? How are we addressing the clear and obvious problems that our young people in care have with financial management, which manifests in how they deal with the benefits system, and comes from not having the safety net of mum and dad?