Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential (a) implications for her policies of the (i) financial and (ii) housing pressures experienced by kinship carers and (b) impact of those pressures on the sustainability of Special Guardianship placements.

The government recognises the significant financial, and wider, pressures faced by kinship carers and their impact on the sustainability of special guardianship placements.

That is why the government announced £40 million investment in a Kinship Allowance Pilot, which will test the impact of providing an allowance to kinship carers. The Expression of Interest for this pilot launched on 17 June 2025 and more information can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/apply-to-become-a-kinship-allowance-pilot-provider. The programme is expected to begin in autumn 2025 and will support approximately 5,000 kinship children.

Through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, we are enshrining the first definition of kinship care in law and mandating local authorities to publish their kinship local offer, increasing their accountability for ensuring all kinship families are getting the information they need about the support available to them.

The department also funds the charity ‘Kinship’ to provide over 140 peer support groups and a free training package for kinship carers across England.