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Looked-after Children

I congratulate the Opposition, but I also congratulate the Government on eventually finding time for this debate. Of course, it builds on the significant improvement in Government policy in recent years, which has moved the interests of looked-after children much further up the political agenda. These children are often the poorest of the poor. They and their families are at the bottom of the pile. In contrast with most children, whose interests, welfare, health and education are universally popular among the population at large, looked-after children, especially when they reach their teenage years, are frequently reviled, stigmatised, discriminated against and scapegoated by the adult population. That is the fact of the matter. It shows the difficulty that we have—as local authorities, health authorities and Governments—in re-establishing this group as victims. The figures are quite stark. Other Members have mentioned some of the statistics, and still only 14 per cent. of looked-after children gain five A to Cs at GCSE. Among the population as a whole, that figure is 65 per cent. Only 46 per cent. of looked-after children get past key stage 2 level 4 in English, compared with 81 per cent. of the population. The most striking figure, of which I was only reminded earlier today, is that whereas in the population as a whole 3 per cent. of children have statements, 28 per cent. of looked-after children have statements; the figure is nine times higher in that group of young people. Let me mention two brief anecdotes that seem to me to encapsulate some of the difficulties experienced by these young people, and perhaps how the state's approach has changed. One of my earliest and most enjoyable experiences as an MP in my constituency was an awards evening for looked-after children in Bury. The children and their families were invited to the town hall for a wonderful party and celebration of their achievements organised by the then director of education. Every child received recognition in some shape or form, whether they were on their way to university and celebrating their A-level results or whether they had very modest achievements. The evening culminated in music, dance, a disco and plenty of food and drink for the children, their families and the teachers and support workers who had worked with them. I vividly remember one of the most outgoing of those children, a young woman, partly Afro-Caribbean, who came to talk to me about Members of Parliament, Prime Minister's questions and Tony Blair. She had watched Prime Minister's questions on the television and wanted to know what it was like. I thought, "What an amazing young woman. She's come through the most difficult experiences—moved around from foster family to foster family—yet she still has, at the age of 14 or 15, this high degree of optimism. She will probably survive and have an interesting future." Four or five years later, that young woman came to my advice surgery, heavily pregnant, dressed in a way that could only be described as eccentric, clearly under the influence of some substance and clearly with mental health problems. She came to ask me for assistance, but did not quite know what assistance she needed. She came also to complain about social workers, but was not quite able to put her finger on the source of the complaint. She wanted to complain about the national health service, but was not able to explain where it was not dealing with her needs. Her experience over the four or five years between the age of 14 and the age of 18 or 19 seemed to me to be almost a metaphor for the way in which the state had failed so many young people in care. My second brief anecdote concerns an experience the Committee had when we were compiling the report. We met, in the Jubilee Room, a group of young people in care who had come to tell us about their experiences. They provided informal evidence to our Committee and they were incredibly resilient, confident and outgoing young people. They were older; they were aged 18, 19, 20 and 21. We listened carefully to what they had to say. There was one thing that I occurred to me as we spoke to them—and I reiterate the comments made by the hon. Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin) about the importance of listening to children. I found it remarkable how astute they were about how their experience had gone wrong, pointing out the awfulness of the instability of not having a regular social worker and of frequent moves from one foster family or care home to another. They demonstrated that, in spite of that, with the right kind of support—they had all had significant support from voluntary organisations and charities, and particularly from committed individuals—children in care can come through and can survive. In their late teens and early 20s, those young people seemed to be getting their lives together. The message of that second experience was positive, because attitudes and policies have changed in the past few years. The result is that young people in care get a slightly higher priority and a slightly better share of the cake. One reflection of that is the document published in May by the Department for Children, Schools and Families which tackled head-on the need to improve educational attainment in schools. I very much welcome the proposals that every local authority should have a virtual head for looked-after children, and that every school should have a designated teacher for them. Other proposals include ensuring that all looked-after children have a personal education plan and get the one-two-one and small-group tuition that are so important for those who are vulnerable and uncertain about their relationships, and who find it difficult to cope in larger numbers. I welcome the fact that the Government have already introduced the £500 educational allowance pledge. It is not yet clear how that is working or exactly who is responsible for allocating the money, but it is crucial if we are to give looked-after young people the benefits, advantages and extra-curricular activities that are taken as read by most average families in this country. Above all, I welcome the changes in the most recent code on school admissions, which prioritise the needs of looked-after children and are central to giving their schooling greater stability. The Government's track record, in recent times and in that latest document, shows that they are moving very much in the right direction. However, education is only part of the issue. As I and other hon. Members have noted, the stability of placements and the continuity of social workers are crucial. In this country, we have had problems with both foster and residential care. As often happens in public policy, the pendulum swings from side to side according to fashion. The Committee looked at what happens in other countries, and at the variable experience in different parts of the UK. It seemed to us that there is no perfect or agreed model for what goes on, and that there should be no targets for the numbers of children to be placed in or removed from residential care. Both foster and residential care can be provided in a way that is absolutely suitable to children's needs, so we need to look at the matter as a spectrum rather than as an either/or problem. In our inquiry, the Committee saw some very good examples of residential care, although not in the UK. Sadly, we had to go to Denmark to see them, but that does not mean that we cannot reach the same standards here. I know that there has been dramatic change in the UK in recent years; the old large and impersonal children's homes have been dismantled, while smaller units with a more family-oriented atmosphere and approach have been developed. That is all for the good, but let us not say that there is a unique model that must be applied in all circumstances. We need a continuum of care as well as flexibility, so we should not try rigidly to impose any particular model according to the fashion of the day. Underlying many of the criticisms of some aspects of foster care—and certainly of residential care—is the question of how we recruit people to the wider children's work force. We know that, as a nation, we have a problem with the low status allocated to staff working in pre-school settings, residential homes or children's social work. The only conclusion to be drawn is that, if we give such jobs low status—as a profession, or in respect of the opportunities for progression, the qualifications required for entry or pay and remuneration—it is because we as a nation do not recognise sufficiently the importance of the health, care and welfare of children. Other countries in Europe are, frankly, light years ahead of us. Until we can put the interests of children absolutely at the heart of public policy and reflect that by ensuring that some of the brightest, best qualified and most highly motivated young adults want to work with children, we will never bring about the cultural change that we need. The Chairman of the Committee has already pointed out that we felt that that was such an important part of our inquiry that it has led to a further inquiry specifically on the training of social workers that will also produce some interesting recommendations. The selection of not just children's social workers but people who work in residential care settings should be considered. My recollection is that our inquiry was quite specific: we felt that anyone working in a residential care setting should require a level 3 national vocational qualification. There is much work to do, perhaps more formally, in improving the training and support available to those who take on the role of foster carer. I want to make two further comments, the first of which is about the whole question of leaving care, on which hon. Members have commented. One of the biggest gaps in our provision even now is that so many children leave their care setting too early. They finish up on the streets. They finish up sucked into crime, drugs and prostitution. They finish up becoming disoriented and living in inappropriate housing, next to inappropriate neighbours. The Government are greatly interested in that at the moment. Many of the charities that work in the field are calling for a national housing standard for care leavers. I want to compare—I do not think that this comparison has been made before—the way in which we as a nation consider housing for young people in care with how we consider housing for undergraduates. Every young person who goes to university has the opportunity to stay in a university hall of residence—not absolute luxury, but basic, clean, comfortable, sheltered, protected and regulated accommodation. If we can look after the interests of the 43 per cent. of young people who go to university by offering them appropriate housing with regulated standards, why cannot we support the interests of the much smaller group of young people who are in care with the same kind of standards for their housing when they move to adulthood? So the contrast between the accommodation that many 16, 17 and 18-year-olds live in, often by themselves and next door to some pretty unpleasant adults, and the environment in which our university undergraduates live, in their halls of residence, is absolutely striking. With the Every Child Matters agenda and the proposals made in the "Care Matters" White Paper two years ago, we have brought about impressive integration in children's services. Certainly, social care and schools are working far more closely together than ever before, but there are two gaps. I am deeply concerned about whether the health service fully recognises the difficulties of looked-after children as a category. I am not absolutely convinced that GPs—obviously, GPs are enormously variable—are fully locked into the Every Child Matters agenda. It seems to me from my experience and from listening to some of the evidence given to the Select Committee that GPs are still protecting their professional practices and less willing than other professionals to co-operate with regard to the interests of children. I was interested in the very important point about child trafficking made by the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee. I also flag up the importance of policing. I had the interesting experience two years ago of spending some time with Greater Manchester police, touring the various towns of Greater Manchester at different times of the day and seeing a remarkable number of young people—it was impossible to say whether or not they were looked-after children—drifting and hanging around in the most unusual places and getting up to the most appalling activities at all hours of the day and night. Many of them would have been children who had been in care, but I do not think that the police have yet understood the importance of having a slightly different response where that is the case. To reiterate a point on the important issue of children who are trafficked, I point out that if there is to be a joint inquiry by the Children, Schools and Families Committee and the Home Affairs Committee, it would be fruitful to explore the relationship between the criminal justice system and looked-after children. Finally, I hope that the report will lead to more than just short-term improvements. So much of our history of responding to issues related to looked-after children, child abuse and the murder of children has been a history of knee-jerk responses. An incident happens, the public are outraged, the Government respond and then we forget about it. I hope that we have moved on from those days, and that the report's influence on Government policy can be much longer-lasting. Our Government are starting to take the issues far more seriously than any Government have done for many years. I welcome the progress made in recent years.