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Young People in Care

I join my hon. Friend in congratulating my right hon. Friend the Minister for Children and Families on her commitment to this issue. Continuity is part of the stability argument, because continuity leads to stability. I therefore agree with the need to ensure continuity and I welcome my hon. Friend’s comments about the voice of the child. The voices of children not in care, expressed through school councils and the like, are becoming an increasingly important way to instil citizenship and impart ideas about how democracy works at classroom level. That is even more important for children in care. My hon. Friend has a long background in this issue and he will have heard many heartbreaking stories about teachers telling the whole class that a child is in care. The teacher thinks that they are doing a good thing for the child, but it can be embarrassing or stigmatising for them. We need to listen to the child and what they think that the state and local authorities should do, because that is crucial to the whole exercise. The Green Paper will involve our talking to children in care now, and going into prisons—I say that in front of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who is in his place—and talking to prisoners who were in care to find out what went wrong. We have an enormous job to do in listening to the voice of those who have been in care and those who are in care at present.