Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, to provide a breakdown of (i) the total number (ii) the age of children taken into care in each of the last ten years.

The latest figures on the number of children taken into care for reasons of court orders or police protection, emergency or child assessment orders in England by age are shown in the attached table.

The latest figures on all children starting to be looked after in England by legal status and separately by age is published in the statistical release: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoptions/2025#explore-data-and-files.

The table can be located at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/a70a7aef-adc9-46be-b94b-08de28d609b2.