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Looked-after Children

It is a pleasure to open this debate on the recent report of the Children, Schools and Families Committee following an inquiry that took us a long time. I should like to take the House briefly through why we decided to spend many months investigating looked-after children. We adopted the phrase "looked-after children", but as the evidence sittings went on, we realised to our embarrassment that what we had thought was the up-to-date phrase had reverted to "children in care". However, we all know the children about whom we are talking: those whose family situation is such that they are deemed to be better off in the care of the state than in the care of their own parents. We chose the topic because those of us who had been in the Education and Skills Committee and transferred to the Children, Schools and Families Committee wanted to make it clear to everyone that we took the new Department and our new responsibilities very seriously. After serious discussion, we decided that the best way to start was to show that we wanted to understand the situation of the most vulnerable children in our society—looked-after children. We proceeded. Not many people outside this place know how we work, but I should say that we had a seminar in which we decided that we should investigate the issue and could add value to it. Colleagues should remember that in Select Committees we do not try to think of high-profile issues that get a lot of publicity—we genuinely look to where we can add value. We may feel that the Government are not paying much attention to a particular part of the Department for Children, Schools and Families remit or are spending an awful lot of money that we are not sure is being spent wisely. That is the central scrutinising role of a Select Committee, and we take it seriously. So we decided to conduct a thorough inquiry into looked-after children because we believed that it would add value. There is another thing that those who have never been members of a Select Committee do not realise: we operate by listening. We take evidence, read and publicly announce the terms of the inquiry. We then get a great deal of evidence. I remember that when the Education and Skills Committee considered special educational needs, there were 300 written evidence submissions. There were even 30 such submissions for a short one-day report last week on allegations against teachers. The world, of course, is divided into the 50 per cent. who are desperate to give evidence to our Committee and the 50 per cent. who would rather leave the country. We have to choose carefully who we need to appear before us so that they can be interrogated and so that we can find out the situation in their area of expertise. That skill has developed over time, and those of us who have served on Select Committees know that that is an apprenticeship that we have to get through and develop. I emphasise how important the listening part of the Select Committee's job is. When we were examining the issue of looked-after children, we made visits to look at good practice in various places. We went to Denmark to look at the system there; many people believe that the Danes do things differently and, in some ways, better than we do. In any other field of human activity, we would take it for granted that one should listen to the people most affected, so we spent a considerable time ensuring that we met looked-after children—children who had been in care, were in care and had the experience of care—so that they could tell us first hand what being in care was like in the 21st century in our country.