Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I beg your pardon; I am getting ahead of myself. I call Neil Coyle.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

6. What recent assessment he has made of the ability of local authorities to discharge their statutory responsibilities to vulnerable children.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rishi Sunak)]

Local authorities have been given access to more than £46 billion for the forthcoming year. That funding is largely unring-fenced, so councils can spend it on children’s services as they see fit. I am pleased that the number of local authorities whose children’s services are ranked good or outstanding is continuing to increase.

[Neil Coyle]

More than 50,000 British-born children with parents legally in the UK are denied access to central Government support under pernicious Home Office rules. Councils are then forced to step in to provide emergency support through children’s social services. London councils spend £53 million on that, and there is no recourse to public funds. Last year, my council spent £6.5 million. When will Ministers end their wilful blindness to the penury that the policy causes and stand up for councils in the face of this blatant Home Office cost-shunt?

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. We engage with the Home Office regularly to deal with the funds for unaccompanied asylum seekers and other such people. I am happy to realise that issue in the next of my regular meetings with the Immigration Minister.