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Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

I support Amendment No. 26, to which my name is attached, and the general principle behind these amendments. It reminds me of the joint chief inspector’s report on safeguarding children published two years ago now. One of its most troubling and important findings was that the thresholds for interventions with families were too often too low to ensure that children were protected from harm and were also often too low when a child was being abused to enable social services to intervene to get them out of that situation. That is very important and the resources, particularly social workers, must be available to deliver early support to families. Perhaps the Minister can confirm that when a child is fostered by his or her extended family in such circumstances, the outcome is likely to be better, which is a very good reason to support them. There also will be amendments concerning the importance of grandparents and the need to give them more support. Last year, I attended a seminar sponsored by Family Law UK, with representation from the Family Rights Group, which looked at family group conferencing, in particular. Evidence strongly points to the success of this approach, but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, said, there seems to be some reluctance by local authorities to implement it. The noble Baroness said that this approach is used in only 4 per cent of circumstances. Can the Minister confirm whether there is such apparent reluctance on the part of local authorities? Perhaps he would write to me. What might be the reason? Perhaps it is the cost of setting up a meeting in the first instance. What does the Minister consider to be the problem? I welcome the measures to prioritise placement with a family. I look forward to the Minister’s response.