Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Fifth sitting)

Neil O'Brien Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th January 2025 Public Bill Committees

Provision of advice and other support

[Neil O'Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)]

I beg to move amendment 23, in clause 7, page 12, line 13, at end insert —

“(3A) Where staying close support is provided, it must be provided with due regard to the wishes of the relevant person and a record must be kept of that person’s wishes.”

This amendment would require local authorities to take account of the wishes of the relevant young person when providing staying close support, and keep a record of those wishes.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 40, in clause 7, page 12, line 22, at end insert—

“(vi) financial support;

(vii) financial literacy”

Amendment 41, in clause 7, page 12, line 28, at end insert—

“(c) the provision of supported lodgings, where the young person and local authority deem appropriate.”

Clause stand part.

[Neil O'Brien]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. As we return to our work on the Bill with clause 7, I want to say that it is still a bit disappointing that we have been through Second Reading, and here we are on the third day of Committee, and we still do not have the impact assessment for the Bill, which could potentially answer some of the questions that we will be raising today. I know the Ministers want to do the right thing in trying to get it out of the relevant committee and published, and I hope they can succeed in doing that pretty soon.

On clause 7, no reasonable person would argue that a young person leaving care does not require some support to live independently. Young people who have not been in care often require years of support to live independently, and they are less likely to be doing so away from home and will be in less difficult circumstances. Again, the Opposition support the Government’s objectives in this clause to provide staying close support, but we have some questions about how it is to work in practice.

First, the Bill gives discretion to the local authority on whether this support is in the best interests of a young person’s welfare. Surely the assumption should be that the support is offered, and it should be the exception to withhold it. One advantage in having the onus turned round would be that the local authority would have to record and explain decisions not to offer that kind of support. What sort of criteria are the local authorities supposed to use to make those choices, and will that be consistent across the country?

Secondly, there is also a question about the process for identifying the person who is to help the young person. The Department’s policy summary quite rightly talks about identifying a “trusted person”, which is obviously very important to this kind of young person. By definition, some young people in care have pretty good reasons not to trust adults around them, so how are local authorities to go about identifying such a “trusted person”? Thirdly, and this is a small point, will there be digital options to support young people? These days, that is clearly the most frequent method that young people use to get information, particularly sensitive information. It gives young people a choice of how they find their information, and there is potentially an opportunity for some good practice here in setting up a good way of communicating with their trusted person.

That leads me to a wider point. As we have gone through this Bill, and we will continue to make this point, there is a risk that local authorities, when confronted with these new duties, will obey the letter of the law, but will they really fulfil the spirit and good intent of Ministers in passing the Bill? Can the Minister be clear that this is not supposed to be just another signposting service? As young people leave care, they need personal advocates who can help them articulate their needs with other agencies, not a phone number or email address to contact. They do not really need more leaflets; they need a human being who can be trustworthy and provide practical help and advice. Signposting can quickly turn into a doom-loop dead end and no help. How does the Minister also envisage the involvement of local charities, some of whom will have had quite long-term links with the young person in care, and how will that be funded?

I will come on to this point on other amendment, but I ask here what the Minister makes of the call from the Our Wellbeing, Our Voice coalition for a national wellbeing measurement of care leavers. That would obviously support some of those points.

Does the Government plan to accept the recommendation of the Family Rights Group to offer lifelong links to all care leavers to help them have better relationships with those that they care about? Again, is there an opportunity here? Many constituency MPs will know people who have been in care and then become carers. There is this cycle—I know several people like this, and I will talk about one of them later on today. If we are getting into the business of continuing relationships after leaving care, which is a good thing, I wonder whether that can become something bigger—a lifelong connection, for those who want it, obviously, as a way of getting much-needed carers to stay in the system.

There is a risk that these measures are all very local authority-focused rather than focused on the needs of the young person. Amendment 23 would ensure that the voice of the child is heard and that we have the information that we need to allow for continuous improvement. It is very light touch. Keeping a record of the person’s wishes would help to protect against the loss of knowledge when personnel change. If things are written down, it is easier for a new person to come in and pick up and understand a bit about what that young person has said they want. In the longer term, it also provides a resource for learning and performance improvement. I talked in the previous session about kaizen and continuous improvement. The amendment is designed to support that, to improve continuity and to make sure that the voice of the young people for whom this very sensible form of care is to be provided is heard.

[Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I rise to support clause 8 stand part. [Interruption.] Sorry, my mistake.

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[Catherine McKinnell]

I appreciate the hon. Lady’s interest in this matter. We will produce the statutory guidance to make all this absolutely clear.

Before I come to clause 7 stand part, I want to respond to an additional question from the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston that I did not answer earlier. He asked about digital options and, as someone standing here using an iPad, I recognise the importance of that, particularly for young people. The local authorities already work with a range of digital options to connect with their care leavers, and we would certainly expect that to continue, and expect good practice to continue being developed and to be set out in the statutory guidance.

Turning to clause stand part, clause 7 requires each local authority to consider whether the welfare of former relevant children up to the age of 25 requires staying close support. Where this support is identified as being required, the authority must provide staying close support of whatever kind the authority considers appropriate, having regard to the extent to which that person’s welfare requires it.

Staying close support is to be provided for the purpose of helping the young person to find and keep suitable accommodation and to access services relating to health and wellbeing, relationships, education and training, employment and participating in society. This support can take the form of the provision of advice, information and representation, and aims to help to build the confidence and skills that care leavers need to be able to live independently.

The new duties placed on local authorities by this clause will not operate in isolation. They will be part of the existing legislative framework, which sets out the duties that every local authority already owes to its former children in care aged 18 to 25. This clause enhances and expands the arrangements for those children by supporting them to find long-term stable accommodation and access to essential wraparound services. The new statutory guidance will set out what the new requirements mean for local authorities and will draw on established good practice—for example, the role of a trusted person to offer practical and emotional support to care leavers.

On that basis, I hope I can rely on the Committee’s support for clause 7.

[Neil O’Brien]

I would like to push amendment 23 to a vote.

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[Catherine McKinnell]

There will be a Minister from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. That area will form part of the discussions, I am sure, as the purpose of the group is to give the best chance to care leavers—this very vulnerable group of young people—and ensure that we as a Government are working collaboratively to make that effective.

We recognise how important it is that care leavers have clear information about the help and support they are entitled to, both from their local authority and central Government Department. We are therefore reviewing our published information to ensure that it is accessible and clear and that care leavers can quickly and easily understand and access all the support they are entitled to. Once that review has concluded, we will consider how best to publish this information. Therefore, I ask for the new clause to be withdrawn and urge the Committee to support clause 8.

[Neil O’Brien]

This is a good and sensible clause, and the Opposition support its inclusion in the Bill. I would note that although all these clauses are good, they come with an administrative cost.

We have already discussed the importance of ensuring that the measures are properly funded, but I want to press the Minister for a few more insights on clause 8. There is a list of details about the local offer—that it must be published, must anticipate the needs of care leavers—and it refers to how they will co-operate with housing authorities and provide accommodation for those under 25. This is all good stuff.

The discussion that we have just had prefigured the question that I wanted to ask, which is about co-operation with national bodies. The clause is quite focused on co-operation between local bodies and drawing up a clear offer. That is a good thing—although, obviously, some of those housing associations are quite national bodies these days.

In the “Keeping children safe, helping families thrive” policy paper published a while back, the Government set out an intention to extend corporate parenting responsibilities to Government Departments and other public bodies, with a list of corporate parents named in legislation following agreement from other Government Departments. When we were in government, we also said that we intended to legislate to extend corporate parenting responsibilities more broadly, so I wondered about that connection up to the national level. We have already had one excellent and very canny policy idea from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire about setting the default for care leavers when it comes to how their housing payments are made. The Minister raised a good point about bursaries and making sure that care leavers are clear about what is available to them on that front. However, there is a whole host of other opportunities to write in to some of these—

[Damian Hinds]

Will my hon. Friend also comment on the particular situation of those young people from care who go on to university? Of course, come the holidays the vast majority of people in higher education go home, but the situation is very different for those who have been in care. Some enlightened universities—including the University of Winchester, in my own county—do very good work in this regard, but will he expand a little on how those young people in higher education can be supported with the offer?

[Neil O’Brien]

That excellent point is another example of exactly what we are talking about. In one sense, I regret not having an amendment that would insert a specific paragraph about the local offer from national organisations. On the other hand, it is pretty clear that the Minister is very interested in this question and is pursuing it. Anyway, there may even be scope to write that into the Bill as it goes through the Lords.

The DFE’s explanatory notes for the Bill say that, although the housing and children’s services departments are encouraged in guidance—in part 7 of the Children Act 1989, I think—to work together to achieve the common aim of planning and providing appropriate accommodation and support for care leavers, that is not happening consistently in practice; the Minister alluded to that.

My question to the Minister is: what do we know from current practice about where that does not happen and why not? It seems obvious, and something that every well-intentioned social worker—every person who works with care leavers—would want to do. What does the good model of effective provision of that support look like? Are there local authorities that are the best cases of that?

Other than providing the administrative and legislative hook for better gripping of this issue, I do not know whether the Minister has a specific plan to do anything else to try to achieve it more consistently—given that, of all the different things that one wants to join up for the care leaver, the provision of a safe place to live and a stable housing arrangements is probably No.1. Is anything more being done? Does the Minister have thoughts about how that can be done best and where it is done best? Where it has not been done as well as we would hope, why is that?

[Darren Paffey]

I appreciate your patience, Mr Stringer—this is not the first time I have stumbled over Committee procedure and no doubt it will not be the last. I welcome the Minister’s comments and the inclusion of clause 8, which I strongly support. I want to address the sentiment of new clause 40 as well.

The extension of the requirements around accommodation, extending the Children and Social Work Act 2017, requires councils to publish that local offer. That is crucial. Many of us have served in local government; it is at that local level that these crucial services, which can often make or break opportunities for care leavers, are delivered. The clause also takes steps towards making good on the Prime Minister’s commitment to guarantee care leavers a place to live.

We would all recognise, from the context of our own constituencies, that the barriers faced by care-experienced young people are numerous. The likelihood that good outcomes in life will be harder for them to achieve is simply a fact. It is absolutely right to bolster the local offer, as clause 8 seeks to do. The new provisions will further strengthen what many local authorities, including my own in Southampton, have begun to do over a number of years. As the right hon. Member for East Hampshire suggested, there are measures of good practice under local councils that we now ought to be bringing into this standardisation of the offer.

In terms of a national offer, the new clause certainly has its merits and it is something good to aim for. I had the opportunity to speak to the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby), who is responsible for children and families and whose remit this issue comes under. She has agreed to meet me to explore it further, but as my hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards has already said, there is a cross-ministerial group. I really welcome the work that it is doing to take these measures forward, because building on the existing measures, which strengthen that national focus, is crucial. It says to young people with care experience that they matter.

I have worked very closely with young people in care over the years, and I know that too many of them feel let down by the systems there to protect them. This is about showing that the Government get what it is like for them, are focused on acting for their good and doing so from the very top. Having that national focus goes a long way towards making those people’s journey to adulthood stronger and as smooth as possible and towards ensuring that they are fully supported to thrive.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Stephen Morgan)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I look forward to working through the measures in this landmark Bill with all Members, as has been the spirit so far.

The children’s social care market is not working effectively. The Competition and Markets Authority and the independent review of children’s social care recommended a regional approach to planning and commissioning children’s care places. My Department will support local authorities to increase the number of regional care co-operatives over time. As Members will have noted, the clause refers to those as “regional co-operation arrangements”. As a last resort, the legislation will give the Secretary of State the power to direct local authorities to establish regional co-operation arrangements.

Where a direction is in place, regions will be required to analyse future accommodation needs for children, publish sufficiency strategies, commission care places for children, recruit and support foster parents, and develop or facilitate the development of new provision to accommodate children. We expect regional care co-operatives to gain economies of scale and to harness the collective buying power of individual local authorities. I hope that the Committee will agree that this clause should stand part of the Bill.

[Neil O’Brien]

Regional co-operation is something that the previous Government were extremely enthusiastic about and worked to build up, so the Minister will not be surprised to hear that we support the clause. The previous Government’s “Stable Homes, Built on Love” policy paper said that the Government would work with local authorities to test the use of regional care co-operatives—regional groupings of authorities to plan, commission and deliver care places—in two areas. Those two pathfinders would trial an approach within the legal framework, with a view to rolling it out nationally following evaluation as soon as parliamentary time allowed. Were we in office, I suspect that we would be very much considering the same clause. This Government have announced that those two pathfinders are going ahead, in Greater Manchester and the south-east, from this summer.

When we consulted about the idea—it is a good idea —there was a lot of support, but there were also a lot of concerns and questions about the size of the groups, the risk that they would be too removed from the child, and the loss of relationships with small providers in particular. As the Minister said, this is a recommendation from previous work, including from the independent review of children’s social care, which we commissioned. Obviously, we hope that such groups will be useful in providing local authorities with greater purchasing power and more options when they are securing accommodation for children in care, but we think it is important to be clear about the objectives to avoid any unintended consequences. I have come to think that, often, it is when we all agree that we are doing a good thing that we should ask ourselves the difficult questions to ensure that we are not making a mistake.

The key issue in the “children’s home market”—I put that in scare quotes, because I hesitate to use the phrase in the current context—is a lack of supply, which leads to children being placed far away from their roots and support networks in accommodation that does not always match their care plan. We then see children going missing and having repeated placement moves. I wonder whether the Minister will put on record in Committee the aims for the regional care co-operatives, other than purchasing power, and how they will address the other issues.

Will the Minister respond to some specific issues raised in our consultation? One issue is that it is harder for smaller providers and specialist charities, which are obviously part of the offer for children in care at the moment, to engage with regional care co-operatives. What does he think about that risk and what does he plan to do about it?

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[Damian Hinds]

Again, as hon. Members have said, we support this approach and it is the approach that we were taking. It is also true that when everybody agrees on something, it is usually the point of most danger for making bad law. It is important to have these Committee proceedings and proper scrutiny.

I was personally never keen on the name of regional co-operatives, although I do not think the word “co-operative” actually appears in the Bill. We can, of course, have co-operation without having a co-operative. This legislation is actually about regional co-operation arrangements.

There are three different types of potential co-operation arrangement: first, for strategic accommodation functions to be carried out jointly between two different local authorities; secondly, for one to carry out the duties on behalf of all; and thirdly, for a corporate body, effectively a separate organisation, to be created to do that. I imagine that Government Members will have different views depending on which of those three forms the arrangements take. Will the Minister say which of those he expects to be most common? As well as the pilots, there have no doubt already been formal and informal conversations with local authority leaders in children’s services in many different areas.

I am keen to know how this arrangement is different from some arrangements that may already take place. For example, the tri-borough children’s services arrangement in London—I will try and get this right—between Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, and Hammersmith and Fulham. Presumably, some of those functions are administered in common there, so how will this be different?

[Neil O’Brien]

I probably should have asked the Minister about scale. In the two pilots, we have Greater Manchester, which is just under 3 million people, and the south-east, which is roughly 3 million people. I do not know what the Government’s expectations about scale are and whether they would continue to support something like the tri-borough arrangement, which is obviously much smaller.

[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend, as ever, makes a very apt point. Where we end up on that continuum of scale depends on what we are going after most. Of course, we want all those things. For purchasing power, a bigger scale is better, but for close and easy working relationships, a smaller scale is sometimes better. When we are talking about children, and the placement of vulnerable children, that may well push us towards the smaller end of the scale.

Perhaps it is possible to perform different functions at different levels, with some functions still being performed by the individual local authority. Even then, as my hon. Friend often rightly says, there is an enormous difference in scale between London local authorities, which are actually quite small even though they are in our largest city, and Birmingham, which is one enormous authority. It might be argued that doing some things at a sub-local authority level makes sense in a very large local authority area, but as I say, it might be possible to do some things as the single local authority, some things at a larger level, and some things—presumably principally in terms of purchasing leverage—on a wider scale again.

If regional co-operation arrangements are not materially different in practice from something that already exists in co-operation between local authorities, even if that is on a smaller scale than what is envisaged, is legislation actually necessary? If it is not, we probably should not legislate. I would like to understand a bit more about the legislative basis that is currently missing.

Finally, the Bill sets out that the Secretary of State may add to the definition of the strategic accommodation functions that we have listed in proposed new section 22J(3) of Children Act 1989. What type of additional functions does the Minister have in mind?

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[Stephen Morgan]

My apologies. I did know that, but I was trying to be impressive by remembering the hon. Lady’s constituency and I got it badly wrong.

On the hon. Lady’s point about where placements should be, local authorities will continue to have the same statutory duties to find the most appropriate place for looked-after children, including that they should live near home, so far as is reasonably applicable. Regional care co-operatives will assist local authorities with these duties. Placement shortage is a key driver of children being placed in homes far from where they live; regional care co-operatives should improve that by increasing local and regional sufficiency, making more places available locally for children who need them.

[Neil O’Brien]

Will the Minister confirm that—as I think is the case—the Government would use their powers under the clause to impose regional co-operation agreements only as a last resort, and that we would not push this on everybody who does not want it?

[Stephen Morgan]

The shadow Minister is absolutely correct. We want to work collaboratively with local authorities in rolling this out. We will not force local authorities to do so. I thank him for enabling me to make that clear.

Question put.

[The Chair]

I have put the Question. I am sorry, but you have missed the opportunity.

Question agreed to.

Clause 9 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 10

Use of accommodation for deprivation of liberty

[Neil O’Brien]

I beg to move amendment 24, in clause 10, page 16, line 39, at end insert —

“(8A) After subsection (9) insert —

‘(10) Where a child is kept in secure accommodation under this section, the relevant local authority has a duty to provide therapeutic treatment for the child.’”

This amendment would place a duty on local authorities to provide treatment for children in secure accommodation.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss clause stand part.

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[Neil O’Brien]

We have come to a particularly serious clause—not that the other clauses are not serious, but the use of deprivation of liberty orders for children is always deeply troubling, as is the rise in the number of children who are subject to them. I share the wish of the Children’s Commissioner to see an end to this practice and an end to the use of unregistered provision.

We have seen an increase in the number of young children—including two aged seven last year and 200 under 13—given deprivation of liberty orders. There is nothing in the Bill to differentiate by the child’s age or stage. What consideration has the Minister given to that point? There is something about the use of the orders on very young children that is particularly striking.

When a young child goes into secure accommodation, the Secretary of State has to sign it off, but no sign-off is required from the Secretary of State on deprivation of liberty orders. Why not? The Government are keen on consistency elsewhere in the Bill. Will they bring the same consistency to this clause?

More broadly, do we not need greater clarity on the mechanism for restricting children’s liberty outside a secure institution? I am sure that Members of the other place will be very interested in that question. As the Children’s Commissioner has written, some of the children concerned have physical and learning disabilities, and many are at risk of criminal or sexual exploitation or both. Will the Minister act on the Children’s Commissioner’s recommendation and introduce a proper legal framework and guidance? We believe that much more clarity is needed in the Bill on therapeutic care for those who are under a deprivation of liberty order. Historically, there has been a lot of focus on containment. This amendment is, I suppose, our legislative prod to take the opportunity to think about what therapeutic help a child needs and how to deliver it.

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We anticipate that this measure will reduce the use of deprivation of liberty orders applied for under the High Court’s inherent jurisdiction and ensure that children benefit from the protections afforded by a statutory scheme, with a framework of clear safeguards and mandatory review points, to ensure that no child is deprived of their liberty longer than necessary. Additionally, this change will signal to local authorities, other key sector partners and providers of children’s residential provision Parliament’s endorsement of and commitment to these placement options, supporting them to grow and reducing dependency on poor-quality, expensive, unregistered placements. This will ensure that some of the most vulnerable children are kept safe and given the support to get on well in life, improving their lived experience by ensuring that there is appropriate support, including community links, health access and so on, to assist them to develop to their full potential.

[Neil O’Brien]

I am grateful to the Minister for his informative speech, but can I press him to respond to the specific points made by CAFCASS and the Children’s Commissioner? The Minister is alluding to some of them as he goes along. The first is about requiring explicit Secretary of State approval beforehand. The second is about specifying the frequency of review, particularly for younger children. The third is about having an automatic requirement for children’s protection plans as the child comes out. The fourth, which the Minister has alluded to, is about them being put into illegal settings, and whether something legislative should be done at this point to stop that from happening at all.

[Stephen Morgan]

I am coming to the end of my speech and hope to answer the points that the Opposition spokesperson made. I will certainly take away the issues that he raised.

I thank all Members for their contributions and questions on this very important matter. On consistency, the views of the Children’s Commissioner and age, I know that this point was raised in the other place only yesterday by a former Minister, and I am grateful for that. It is worth saying here, too, that the child rights impact assessment is informing our work on the Bill. I give the shadow Minister the assurance today that I will take on board these comments.

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[Neil O’Brien]

Is the child rights impact assessment for the Bill published so that we can see it?

[Stephen Morgan]

There is no legal obligation for England to publish that assessment, but we are certainly using it to inform our work on the Bill.

[Neil O’Brien]

I think Ministers have said in previous sittings that it will be published during the process of scrutiny, along with the impact assessment. Is that still the case?

[Stephen Morgan]

I am referring to the conducted children’s rights impact assessment, where children are directly impacted by the policies and/or particular groups of children and young people are more likely to be affected by others. As I mentioned, there is no requirement to publish these documents in England. However, the documents are currently under review and we will advise on our next steps shortly. More broadly, with regards to the impact assessments, these will be published in due course.

[Neil O’Brien]

I thought I had heard Ministers say previously that they were planning to publish this for our benefit—that we would get both the impact assessment and the children’s rights assessment. Perhaps it is me who is sowing confusion and the Minister may still intend to publish this document. I cannot see any reason why the Government would not publish it, so can I get an assurance that that is going to be published?

[Stephen Morgan]

To state this clearly, the impact assessment has not yet been published but is obviously informing our work. Obviously, various different assessments are undertaken and I will certainly get back to the hon. Member on those points.

[Stephen Morgan]

To be clear, we will be publishing the regulatory impact assessments. We will certainly be using the evidence from the children’s rights impact assessments to inform our work.

I turn to the points raised by the Opposition spokesperson on placements of children under the age of 13. Depriving a child of their liberty must always be a last resort, but it is sometimes necessary to keep that child and others safe. These children are some of the most vulnerable in our society. We must do all that we can to keep them safe and help them get on well in life. When a child under the age of 13 is deprived of their liberty and placed in a secure children’s home, the local authority must obtain approval from the Secretary of State before applying to the court. That requirement is set out in regulations that reflect the added seriousness of depriving children so young of their liberty.

The Opposition spokesperson and the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) also made a number of broader points about child protection plans and deprivation of liberty. Local authorities’ care-planning duties are clear that when there are looked-after children, they must have a long-term plan for a child’s upbringing, including arrangements to support their health, education, emotional and behavioural development, and their self-care skills.

The statutory guidance “Working together to safeguard children 2023” is clear about the actions that local authorities and their partners should take, under section 47 of the Children’s Act 1989, if a child is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm, as well as the support that should be provided under section 17. If there is a concern about a child’s suffering, or if a child is likely to suffer significant harm, the local authority has a duty to make an inquiry under that Act. “Working together to safeguard children” sets out the actions that the local authority and their partners must take when there are child protection concerns. That includes putting in place child protection plans when concerns are submitted. I hope that the Committee agrees that the clause should stand part.

[Neil O’Brien]

I hope that we can clear up the confusion about whether we will see the children’s rights assessment. I cannot see any good reason why we would not be able to see that perfectly routine assessment. None of these things is the end of the world, but not having the impact assessment of the thing that we are quite deep into line-by-line scrutiny of seems to further compound this problem. Obviously, no one can defend that; it is not good practice.

I slightly pre-empted what the Minister said—he had scribbled some last remarks—but I was glad that he came to some of the points raised by CAFCASS and the Children’s Commissioner. I raised them partly because I know that their lordships will be extremely interested in these specific questions. There probably is scope for improvement of this clause to do some of those other good things, because this is such a serious issue for those very young children.

We will not vote against clause stand part, but I will press our amendment to a vote. I heard what the Minister said, but I just make the point that there is scope for improvement in the clause, and I suspect that their lordships will provide it.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

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[Stephen Morgan]

Clauses 11 and 12 will strengthen Ofsted’s regulatory powers to allow it to act at pace and scale when that is in the best interests of children. Specifically, clause 11 strengthens Ofsted’s powers to hold provider groups—parent undertakings, in legislation—to account for the quality of the settings that they own and control. This ensures that Ofsted can take the quickest and most effective action to safeguard vulnerable children, without adding duplication within the existing regime. It will allow Ofsted to look across provider group settings as a whole and take action at provider group level, rather than being limited to doing so setting by setting as it is now. It will also ensure that a provider group is accountable for the quality of the settings that it owns.

Where Ofsted reasonably suspects that requirements are not being met in two or more settings owned by the same provider group, it will be able to require senior people in the provider group to ensure improvements in multiple settings. The requirement applies both to settings operated by a single provider and to multiple providers owned by the same group. Ofsted will be able to request that the provider group develops and implements an implementation and improvement plan to ensure that quality improves. The plan will need to address the issues identified by Ofsted and be approved by Ofsted if it is satisfied that the plan will be effective in addressing the issues.

The clause gives the Secretary of State the power to make regulations to provide that non-compliance by the provider group means that the providers that it owns are not fit and proper persons to carry on a setting. That will prevent a person from being registered in relation to new settings if their owner has failed to comply with the relevant requirements under these provisions. That should act as a deterrent and ensure compliance with the requirements.

Clause 12 gives Ofsted the power to issue monetary penalties to providers that have committed breaches of requirements, set out in or under the Care Standards Act 2000, that could also be prosecuted as criminal offences, including operating a children’s home without registering with Ofsted. Ofsted will also be able to issue a provider group with a fine for non-compliance with the requirements set out in clause 11. The fine will be at Ofsted’s discretion and is unlimited in legislation. That will act as a significant deterrent, so that provider groups comply with these requirements. Clause 12 ensures that Ofsted has an alternative to prosecution where that is currently the only enforcement option against those seeking to run a children’s home without registration. Ofsted will not be able to impose a monetary penalty on a person for the same conduct where criminal proceedings have been brought against them in relation to that conduct.

To act as a deterrent and to ensure transparency for the public, the clause gives the Secretary of State the power, by regulations, to require Ofsted to publish details about the monetary penalties that it has issued. Ofsted must also notify local authorities when a monetary penalty has been issued, as it is currently required to in relation to other enforcement actions that it takes. Finally, the clause provides that the issue of a monetary penalty could be used as grounds for cancellation of registration.

[Neil O’Brien]

We are entering a whole new section of the Bill. I will make a number of points now that we could come back to when we debate future clauses, but I hope we will not have to. I hope that we can have discussions about the principle and philosophy now and we might be able to move faster later, but we can come back to them if necessary.

As we turn to the clauses dealing with children’s homes, I want to start by checking that the Minister has the same basic understanding of the situation, and the same philosophical take on what we are trying to do, as I do. First and most importantly, there is a question about the underlying structural problems that have driven high costs for local authorities in the provision of residential care for children and young people, and there is a second question about the best approach to tackling that, both legislatively and non-legislatively.

On the first, does the Minister agree with me, at least in principle, that the main issue driving the high costs is a shortage of foster care, which is driving local authorities to send children into expensive children’s homes at best, or into unregistered provision at worst? Research by Ofsted in 2022 suggested that residential care was part of the care plan for just over half of the children whose cases it reviewed. To put that the other way round, almost half of children who ended up in residential care should ideally not have been there. Crucially, the research shows that the original plan was for over one third of children to go into foster care.

Although the Bill makes changes to the provision of information about kinship care, which is good, there is nothing that will produce the step change that we need to increase the number of foster carers, which is the thing that would really take down the demand and the high costs. That point is common to the discussions that we will have about cost-capping social workers, cost-capping individual care homes and reviewing whole entities. I do not think that those measures are bad; I just do not think that they are ultimately the underlying solution. That is a point that the Committee will hear me make several times today.

In his independent report commissioned by the previous Government, the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) highlighted that in the year ending March 2021,

“160,635 families came forward to express an interest in becoming a foster carer, and yet just 2,165 were approved”.

That is just 1.3% making it through. It might be that some of those were just initial approaches and not all of those people were deadly serious, but that is still a very small share. He continued:

“Local authorities perform a wide range of roles and appear to be struggling to provide specialist and skilled marketing, recruitment, training and support for such an important group of carers. In 2020/21 recruitment and retention among independent fostering agency services led to a net increase in capacity of 525 additional households and 765 additional foster care places. In contrast, there has been a decrease in capacity of 35 households and 325 places in local authorities over the same period”.

By definition it is quicker, and in quite a lot of cases better, to provide foster care than to build a new children’s home. I want to press the Minister on what he thinks is the explanation for that 99% gap between those expressing an interest in fostering and final approvals. What is he doing to close that gap? He will be aware that there is a perception that it is almost impossible to become approved as a foster carer. We looked at this in my family some years ago. We started in on it through my work as a constituency MP; I have met many constituents who are foster carers. They are incredible people and I pay tribute to them. A woman I know well has fostered 70 children as well as adopting. I honestly think these people are amazing.

The Government really need to use the Bill—this rare legislative slot, as one of the Ministers said—to increase the number of foster and kinship carers. Publishing information is good, but it will not change much unless it is accompanied by a radical attitude to approvals by local authority social work teams. When the alternative—which we are getting to in this clause—is children being sent miles from home, placements breaking down, children going missing and high costs to local authorities, there is obviously a burning platform for change.

If I were the Minister—he is free to take this suggestion or not—I would commission a month-long desktop review to look at the pipeline and all the decisions to reject applications to be foster carers that got fairly far down the track, and understand what can be learned from them. That could shape amendments either here or in the other place and be a huge benefit to him. I can think of a senior official in a Government Department—someone the Government trust to run a major public service—who has two kids, provides a loving home and wanted to foster but was turned down. There are many such cases. Everyone knows the phrase “too many books in the house”, but I strongly encourage Ministers to dig into the underlying question of why we lose so many opportunities to get the foster carers that would take off the pressure that we are trying to take off with these clauses.

A key recommendation of the independent review of children’s social care led by the hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington was to introduce mixed models combining residential and foster care, particularly for older children, who are the fastest growing part of this cohort. That was part of our brief for the initial pathfinder sites for the regional care co-operatives, which I mentioned in the debate on a previous clause. What assessment has the Minister made of that approach? What impact does he think its adoption might have? Is there any interesting early data from the pilots in Greater Manchester and the south-east?

Speaking of mixed models, I encourage the Minister to look at the incredible work of the Royal National Children’s SpringBoard Foundation, which, as he knows, does amazing work looking after care-experienced and edge-of-care children in a network of state and independent schools. It has been working with the DFE since 2020—something I am very proud that we brought in—and has provided incredible, transformative opportunities for disadvantaged young people. I encourage the Minister to build on that and go further.

On the specifics of clause 11, after the terrible abuse of children supposedly in the care of the Hesley Group, it is absolutely right that the Government are trying to identify systemic safeguarding problems in organisations that manage multiple children’s homes, independent fostering agencies and residential special schools. Our only concern, which is quite serious, is that we should allow for rapid action, not something that drags on and becomes a time and resource-consuming process.

I heard what the Minister said in introducing the clause about providing an alternative to prosecution, but I do not want to lose sight of the importance of prosecution. My noble Friend Baroness Barran told me that when she was a Minister in the Department for Education, she was already able to request inspections of every home in a group where one was judged to be failing, and did so on at least one occasion. Ultimately, we need experienced people to go into a home quickly and see what is actually happening. I think this is within the spirit of what the Minister said, but I hope he would agree that there is often no better alternative to actual inspection and actual prosecutions.

To use an example from a very similar area, the Department can also request an “improvement plan”, which is the main vehicle proposed in these clauses, in the case of independent schools, but that does not always work well in practice. The reasons for that are instructive for the kinds of issues that I hope Ministers will think about here. What ends up happening is that plans are sent in varying degrees of adequacy, and time—in some cases literally years—can be wasted with a lot of letter writing back and forth. I urge the Minister to think about the action he wants in those kinds of cases. Imagine being in the middle of a drawn-out improvement plan process in another case like the Hesley Group case—and that is before the inevitable appeals, which the clauses provide for, kick in.

We have not tabled an amendment to do this—I wonder, though, about the other place—but we think that the Minister needs to confine the improvement plan idea to more minor administrative cases or lower-level concerns. That is where it might be more appropriate. We worry that we might get similar processes to those that we have seen in independent schools, where we have a resource-intensive, rather bureaucratic and slow process that goes on for a long time with a lot of back and forth and appeals. Ultimately, we sometimes just need to get to the point. That is our broad concern.