Children in Need: Adulthood

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered supporting children in need into adulthood.

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Buck. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate on a subject that should matter to us all and definitely needs more attention.

The discussions that resulted in the Staying Put initiative for those in foster care—a decision for which I commend the previous coalition Government—have inevitably opened up a much wider debate about our responsibilities for all children in need and their transition to adulthood. Are the existing obligations placed on local authorities, the NHS and other safeguarding bodies sufficient, or is it time for a rethink? That is the purpose of the debate.

I know that the Government are concerned about mental health and have announced additional resources for that area. Of course we should all be worried about the growing numbers of children and young people needing help with eating disorders, self-harm and a host of other problems. When we raise these matters, we tend to be talking about young people where a problem has been acknowledged and the real issue is waiting times or access to treatment. However, what about all those young people who are being missed? The Children’s Society suggests that there may be as many as 240,000 vulnerable 16 and 17-year-olds in England and Wales, but only about 58,000 have been identified as needing support by local authorities. In fact, 46% of children referred to children’s services are turned away without any form of intervention, and 30% do not even reach the threshold for an assessment.

Where young people are in receipt of support, that often changes on the day they reach 18 as there is no legal obligation to provide continuing assistance and no requirement to help with a transition to adult services. In many forces, even the police marker or flag used to identify youngsters at risk or vulnerable to exploitation automatically expires as soon as a young person reaches 18. Disabled children face particular challenges in moving into adulthood when responsibility for continuing support switches from children’s to adult services.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman shares my concern about a gap on the part of Ofsted, which I think is discriminatory. I understand from Bedfordshire police that there is no Ofsted inspection of children’s homes for 16 and 17-year-olds. The schools of children in mainstream education are inspected by Ofsted. Does he agree that there is a gap, and that we need proper regulation in this area, particularly as bad things are happening?

[Steve McCabe]

I am sure the Minister heard the hon. Gentleman’s point. I certainly agree that any provision of that nature should be subject to proper inspection.

Today there are more than 1 million disabled children in the UK, yet fewer than ever are getting the support they need. We also need to give some thought to healthcare improvements and just how scary it can be for a young person to wake up after surgery on an adult ward for the first time. We have an acute shortage of community paediatricians and much more work is required in the health sector in planning the transition for young people from children’s to adult services.

The Children Act 1989 requires every local authority to take reasonable steps to identify children in need in its area and to publish information on the services available. It places a particular stress on the health and development of children and the needs of the disabled, but cash-strapped local authorities are struggling to provide even the most basic services. The reality is that 15, 16 and 17-year-olds often have to be at crisis point before there is any intervention.

I acknowledge that there has been a big focus on, and in some cases a switch of resources to, child protection issues, yet while child exploitation scandals such as those in Rochdale and Rotherham serve to demonstrate that many teenage children suffer even greater risk outside the home than inside it, support is limited for the vast majority, even if their need involves neglect, abuse or exploitation. The Department for Education’s figures for 2015-16 suggest that perhaps 13,500 16 and 17-year-olds are in need because of “going missing”, and about 1,500 are in need because of trafficking.

It is estimated that each year some 12,000 16 and 17-year-olds approach local authorities because they are homeless, often as a result of a breakdown in relations with a parent or carer, violence in the home or other problems at home. Homelessness is not currently recognised as a risk factor in identifying children in need, and consequently there are no reliable statistics about the scale of the problem. However, most agencies working with teenagers identify it as a real risk factor, likely also to expose young people to a risk of drugs, alcohol problems, violence and sexual abuse.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this important debate. I know he received much support from the Children’s Society and its “Crumbling Futures” report, which is essentially what the debate is all about. I and every other MP has had to deal with the harrowing reality of parents coming to us with teenage children who are aged 18 or 19, for whom there is no support at all. That is why I am so glad he has secured the debate. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that one of the anomalies resulting from a change to the law a few years ago is that people have to be in education or training up to the age of 18, but—even if a person is disabled and cannot get to school or training on their own—there is no statutory obligation on a local authority to provide transport for 16 to 18-year-olds?

[Steve McCabe]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Quite a lot of problems result from both extending the school leaving age and creating notional rights for children with disabilities if we do not provide the resources to make it possible to deliver on those advances.

Thanks to some work undertaken by the DFE and other organisations, we know a bit about the common characteristics of children in need: around 13% of them achieve no GCSE passes; they are much more likely to be NEETs—not in education, employment or training—and they are three times more likely than children from the care system to end up homeless. The time has come for a fundamental rethink on what is happening to these young people. We must move away from a model of rationing that allows us to deny help to those who do not reach some arbitrary risk threshold or simply to drop them on their 18th birthday. We must develop an approach that recognises the continuing needs of those vulnerable children and young people who are already in a very disadvantaged position. Of course, that will cost more, but we must not forget that funding for children’s services has fallen by £2.4 billion in real terms since 2010, with an additional £1.5 billion gap for services needed for disabled children. The Chancellor will have to be pressed to address those issues in the 2019 spending review.

I believe there are things the Minister can do. He might look again at the assessment threshold, which many Departments use to thin out the number of young people who even make it to first base, and offer some guidance on the factors that must be considered before an assessment is ruled out. Ideally, every referral by any responsible agency should merit at least a first-stage assessment. I particularly urge him to look at the issue of homelessness among teenagers, to make sure that we do begin to collect reliable data and to instruct local authorities to identify it as a risk factor when assessing children in need. He might also bring wise heads together and demand that they establish proper transition procedures for all those turning 18, so that we put an end to the lottery of assistance and support for vulnerable young people that confronts them as they reach their 18th birthday.

I urge the Minister, in the existing education review, to advocate extending the existing higher-rate pupil premium to all children in need, not just those in care. That would be a real opportunity to help children at an earlier stage. I ask him to consider making it easier for the same children to qualify for discretionary bursaries to help them attend further education or other forms of training. Disabled children and young people would particularly benefit from improved provision of short breaks for them and their carers, and we should at least contemplate the suggestion by the Disabled Children’s Partnership of an early intervention and family resilience fund. In time, such an approach might even be extended to all children in need.

I am not expecting miracles. I know that some things take time and everything costs money, but above all these children need a champion—someone who can lead a real cross-departmental effort to raise the quality of help and support to some of the most vulnerable and deprived young people in our society. I believe the Minister could be that person. We must raise interest in how much we are prepared to do before young people reach crisis point, rather than focusing on making claims about increased funding for services that only become available after youngsters have suffered a major crisis. It is both a moral and an economic issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Karen Buck (in the Chair)]

I think that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak is indicating that he may not wish to speak.

[Steve McCabe]

I am happy not to respond to the debate.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

If the hon. Gentleman is happy not to speak again, I am happy to give way to the hon. Member for South Shields.