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Children and Young Persons Bill [Lords]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In Committee we discussed the appropriateness of certain placements, particularly in the case of children with complex needs, where it is absolutely essential to maintain the stability of a placement so that it has a good chance of succeeding. For the placement to stand any chance of getting off the ground, there should be a full transparent declaration of a child's needs. That is what the charter is all about: ensuring that foster carers can expect to receive all the relevant information that they need. It would ensure that local authorities provided that information. It would also include references to items such as a living wage, respect for foster carer opinions and support from education, social care and mental health professionals. In return, foster carers would be clearly shown what was expected of them, such as their training obligations. I believe that our proposal would help to reverse the postcode lottery in the treatment of foster carers, and it would encourage a better quality of relationship between foster carers and local councils, thus improving recruitment and retention. This is not something we are trying to impose nationally, from the centre—it will be up to local authorities to decide on what their charters would contain for their local foster carers' needs. It is a fair deal for foster carers, who do an excellent and very important job in this country. We need to make their job easier and give them far more support. They need to know what support they can expect, and we hope that by doing that, we might attract more foster carers.