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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I want to speak briefly in support of these amendments, partly from my experience as a local councillor. You become, in effect, a corporate parent for all of the children in local authority care. If one of those children was to die in your care, of course you would consider that you had failed substantially as a corporate parent, but I am not sure that the same feelings arise when a child in the care of a councillor as a corporate parent is sent to prison. However, in fact it is the same sort of substantial failure. In particular, the statutory requirement for a local authority to list the services it has provided to meet the needs of the child or young person would be a tool for corporate parents. I must say that as a councillor you are one step removed from these children. Obviously you cannot have the same level of involvement as a real parent would have, and you need to know that all the policies have been implemented and the paper trail is in place in order to ensure that failure is a remote possibility. Of course, excellent authorities do have this sort of thing in place, but not all authorities are excellent. Quite apart from all the reasons so powerfully put by other noble Lords, this provision would be an additional tool for local authorities to use.