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Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

I fully take on board the point made by my noble friend. I shall certainly look into the issues that she raised and report back to her and other noble Lords on the current arrangements and on any plans that we have to improve the efficiency of transfers of payments between those who have responsibility for looking after children. I entirely agree that it is vital that those who have the real responsibility should be able to access as speedily as possible the resources to which they are entitled and which they need for that job. I hope that, as ever, my noble friend thinks that we are going some way towards meeting her concerns. She is always keen for us to go further and I take to heart the points that she made about the promotion of a better and wider range of support services. I believe that we are moving in the direction that she wishes. We may not be moving as fast as she would have wished but we are at least going in the right direction.