Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Peter Kyle Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2021 General Committees

[The Chair]

Before we begin I would like to remind Members that Mr Speaker has stated that the wearing of face masks is encouraged. Hansard colleagues would be grateful if Members sent their speaking notes to [e-mail]. As people can see, there is no need to wear a jacket in this inclement, for a Yorkshire man, weather.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 (S.I. 2021, No. 161).

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. For record, the shadow children’s Minister is very sad not to be here. She was pinged last night, and has become part of the ping epidemic that is crossing the country. It is a pleasure for me to stand in her place.

Labour do not oppose the regulations, and I am happy to tell the Minister that we will not seek to divide the Committee. We are simply here to scrutinise the proposals, and I hope that the Minister can do us the courtesy of answering our many questions about them.

The Opposition support the principle of the regulations, as we believe that a ban on unregulated accommodation for children under 16 is right. We are talking about some of the most vulnerable children in our society. From my time as shadow youth justice Minister, I know that many of those children are known to local authorities, children’s services and youth offending teams. They are often the victims of crime and exploitation themselves. They deserve a guarantee that when they are in, or near, the care of the state, that care will be of the highest quality, meet their needs and support them as they grow, learn and prepare for adulthood.

The Government’s policy to end the use of independent and semi-independent care settings for under-16s is not just welcome, but long overdue, but I am concerned that that policy does not go far enough. By not reaching the thousands of 16 and 17-year-olds in the care system, the regulations risk creating an unfair, two-tier system of care that is arbitrary and not built around the needs of the child. Under the current proposals, a vulnerable child could suddenly find themselves in or moved to a new unregulated care setting on their 16^th birthday; a setting that, according to the Government’s own policy, would not have been judged appropriate for them even a day beforehand. That seems highly reckless given the well known risks posed by child criminal exploitation in unregulated care settings. To use the age of 16 as the point at which a child’s entitlements change so dramatically seems to entirely arbitrary. There is nothing that fundamentally changes about a young person enough on the day that they turn 16 to suggest that unregulated care would suddenly become appropriate.

I would like the Minister to explain that decision in some detail. Can she tell me why the Government chose not to extend the regulations to all children under 18, as Labour believes should be the case? Can she explain why the cut-off of 16 is appropriate for a significant change in the care that a child could receive? Does she accept that that change would certainly appear to be entirely arbitrary to a child? Does she not believe that the care system should be built around the needs of vulnerable children, rather than an arbitrary age or date selected for the convenience of the regulations? In short, can she give me a credible explanation for the decision not to extend the welcome content of the regulations to all children under the age of 18?

Charities supporting vulnerable children, the Labour party and the Children’s Commissioner are all clear that extending the scope of the regulations to all children under the age of 18 would improve the care that children receive and make the system fairer and more consistent. Why does the Minister not act on that unjustifiable inconsistency? Perhaps she will argue that for some young people an independent setting is right when they are older, or that the quality of care could be just as good in an unregulated setting. However, it seems to me that her own policies show that that is unlikely to be the case, because the national standards for semi-independent and independent accommodation are significantly narrower than the quality standards to which regulated children’s homes are currently subject. For instance, the proposed standards for semi-independent and independent settings do not include the quality and purpose care, educational standards and health and wellbeing standards. Although I am sure that we all want unregulated accommodation to deliver on those standards, the reality is that under the current regulations such accommodation would not be required to do so. Such settings would still be part of the care sector, but subject to much lighter-touch regulation, with no clear justification for that.

Will the Minister take the opportunity to clarify why she believes that there should be a two-track system of regulation of children’s homes and accommodation, with a much lighter touch for some providers? Does she not see that this two-tier system risks some young people finding themselves in accommodation not suitable to their needs, which does not deliver the care and educational support that they so desperately deserve?

The Minister could address those shortcomings by establishing a fair and consistent regulatory framework, either by holding independent and semi-independent providers to the same standards as others, or by extending the ban in the legislation to cover all under-18s. Will she commit to doing that?

The Minister must also address questions about the implementation of the regulations, in particular regarding the support available to local government to provide appropriate placements for children. From early September, children under 16 will no longer be housed in independent or semi-independent settings. What additional support will local authorities receive to find appropriate care and accommodation for those children? We know that funding for local placements is already incredibly stretched, so has the Minister made an assessment of the costs local authorities will face in funding regulated placements for those children? Will her Department provide any additional funding to support them to do so?

The care that we provide to the most vulnerable children in our society speaks volumes about the priorities and principles of the Government of the day. And it affects the economy and safety of tomorrow. Today’s regulations do the right thing for some children, but leave others out in the cold. They create a two-tiered system of regulation that could be deeply unfair and create arbitrary outcomes based on the age rather than the needs of children in the care of the state. I hope that the Minister will listen seriously to the concerns raised by the Opposition, and acknowledges the substantial risks facing 16 to 18-year-olds in unregulated care settings. I hope that she will outline a plan to ensure that every child, whatever their age, receives the care needed to keep them safe and to realise their potential.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Kyle]

This is one of those moments when the Opposition are put in a tricky position. We welcome the increased provision and regulatory safeguards for children under the age of 16, but we are frustrated that those same protections are not available to older young people.

We live in an age where young people are exposed to additional harms that simply did not exist in the past with the incredible rise of criminal exploitation of children—adults who exploit young people and bring them into criminal enterprise through endeavours such as county lines. The people who perpetrate those crimes are smart; they know the settings that house vulnerable children and they target them. That is why the Opposition are so keen that the maximum regulatory support and protection is in place for all young people who, by definition in these settings, are some of the most vulnerable in our society.

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields for bringing the voice of the most vulnerable to our deliberations in Committee. We will not push the motion to a vote because we believe that any move forward and any additional protection for any number of young people is something that we should never ever block, but we will push hard in the coming months of this Parliament to make sure that those same protections are extended to children of an older age.

Question put and agreed to.