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Children and Young Persons Bill [Lords]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about focusing attention on reducing the need for children to be placed a long way from home and on the importance of keeping contact between children and their relatives. Distance could become a serious obstacle to maintaining that relationship. My hon. Friend is quite right: we should try to ensure that there is an even spread of specialist provision around the country, so that the nearest site is not too far away. The amendments and new clauses in the group are about some special placements in a residential school, a residential health facility or a residential care home. The Govt amendments suggest that perhaps in the past there has not been enough attention on ensuring that the relationship between the child and his or her family is maintained strongly. The Government amendments are welcome in being so bold; they say that there shall be services for families to make sure those relationships are maintained. As I said, the amendments say that there should be help in keeping families in contact, including physical visits. Going further, there may be a case for holidays together, perhaps paid for or arranged by the local authority. Another, technical, point—it is more related to the amendments at the end of the group rather than the new clause—is that quite often, as my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mrs. James) has just said, the placement is in another part of the country within the area of a completely different local authority. Perhaps another weakness in the care system in the past has been the lack of engagement between two local authorities when one is the child's home authority and the other is where the child is currently placed. In my area there is a well-known specialist psychiatric hospital with residential care for children and young persons. Children come from all over the country to be treated there. They will have come from homes in many local authorities around the country, and their families will be some considerable distance away. The Government amendment is welcome, because it stresses that the home authority is not able to wash its hands of a child because it has moved the child to a completely different part of the country and placed the child in the care of a specialist provider of treatment. It also stresses that there should be a good relationship between the home authority and the authority within which the child is currently placed. It will be to the benefit of families and children for there to be that acceptance by the two authorities that they must work together. For those reasons, I am a strong supporter of the Government amendments. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) mentioned my new clause 26, and I am pleased to urge the Government to do more to provide assistance to children and their families when a child is on the edge of coming into the care of a local authority. We know that, historically, the outcomes for children in care can be catastrophically bad in many situations. Therefore, if there is a prospect of maintaining a child within loving caring relationships with blood relatives or friends who have known the child for many years, common sense tells us that in most cases that would be of benefit, and better than the alternative of care. In answer to this debate, I want the Government at least to say that it is their intention that the greatest possible effort will be made to ensure that children have the benefit of every possible alternative to care, when it involves family, friends and relatives, being considered, so that they can avoid the possible outcome of a poor experience in care. The Bill, of course, strengthens the requirement of local authorities to consider the importance of family and friends as possible alternative carers before considering a decision to take into care, and that is very welcome. There is a briefing in support of new clause 26 from the Family Rights Group, within which there is a case study about a grandmother who was bereaved and therefore living on her own, and who took responsibility for a young grandson because both parents were incapacitated by drugs and drink problems and unable to be the carers. That grandparent found there was an extraordinary lack of support in terms of finances, practical help, respite care, support groups and therapy for the child in her care, and she was left literally holding the baby. That struck a chord with me in respect of a case in my constituency I have been involved with for most of the last 11 years, involving a grandmother in a very similar situation who often had to contact me because she did not have the money or the breaks for herself, or the support for her grandson, for whom she had accepted responsibility because neither parent could manage. She did not have access to the right mental health services for the benefit of her grandson until her Member of Parliament weighed in on her side. It should not be the case that an acceptable service will be provided for a relative who steps in in such a way only if a Member of Parliament gets involved. By putting my name to new clause 26, I am seeking to underline the fact that it should be routine for local authorities to look for relatives who might be able to save the child from having to go into care at all, and to assess what kind of support will be needed for such relatives to be able to cope and make sure there are happy outcomes for that child, not unhappy ones.