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Children and Young Persons Bill [Lords]

Unlike my right hon. Friend, I am not so much impressed by the contributions from Members on the Committee as fearful about whether they will accept some comments from a complete novice in this regard. I come to the matter after having my ears firmly bashed by Merton Mencap only last week about guidance and legislation from Government that is not fully implemented, or not implemented in the spirit intended, by local authorities. Like many hon. Members, I spent a long time as a councillor—in the London borough of Merton—before becoming an MP. London boroughs are particularly hard-pressed with regard to accommodation. My experience is that there is generally war between social services and housing about who gets access to what. Although new clause 19 rightly argues that every local authority"““shall make provision for such services as they consider appropriate to be available””," the devil is in the word ““appropriate””. What is appropriate to social services is often not appropriate to housing. My experience as a local MP is that those who wish to be foster carers, who might be friends or family members of the children concerned, are often prevented from doing so because their accommodation is not large enough to take on a number of siblings together, although, as a layperson, one would imagine that that might be the most appropriate option. In my local authority, the criteria for housing register and transfer applications do not take fostering issues into account at all, but are based only on current accommodation with current family and medical needs. A person's desire to become a foster carer does not therefore raise them up the list, making it less likely that social services will consider that they might provide good foster care. In spite of the pleadings of social services to that end, most housing departments, because of the pressure on them, are unwilling to concede to further demands. I am also struck by the significance of the word ““appropriate”” in relation to housing for young people who have been in care, and the suggestion that most young people leave their foster homes at 16 or 17 to go into independent accommodation. I would argue that few 16 or 17-year-olds, whether they have been in foster care and had a difficult childhood and adolescence or whether they have had the most fantastic family background, would take well to independent accommodation on their own, especially on some of the large estates in which young people are housed in London. As for the one-bedroomed flats available in my borough where such young people are likely to be housed, one would not want to see them housed there at 30 or 40, let alone at 16 or 17. While I quite understand that most 16 or 17-year-olds would love flats of their own, that is not necessarily the ““appropriate”” or the right route. It is, however, the answer that local authority housing departments often come up with, because it is easier than providing more spacious accommodation to enable young people to stay with their foster carers. I should like Ministers to establish, in the guidance that will be provided if the new clauses are passed, how we can beef up the word ““appropriate”” and ensure that young people are not given the least attractive and least wanted accommodation. I should also like to know how we will finance that. All the foster carers I have known have been amazed at the amount of cash that is available to young people and not available to their own children. That too motivates the desire of young people who are being fostered to seek independent or separate accommodation, against their own long-term interests. I think that, when viewing local authorities as a corporate whole, we should appreciate that the departments that make up a local authority often have very different drivers and very different problems.