Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)

My Lords, I would like to speak to Amendment 134B in my name and to support a number of amendments in this group. I make it clear that this is a probing amendment. I appreciate that the Government have a wider agenda in relation to planning—so it may be that this Bill is not the right vehicle—but I did want to pick up on a proposal from the Government’s policy statement Green Paper, Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive, which the Minister has already mentioned. It states that the Government will look at “options to reform the planning process to enable providers to more easily set up homes where they are most needed”. Specifically, it says that they will “consider potential legislative options or further changes to support the delivery of small children’s homes”. We know that we have seen a move away from the larger homes, with the most recent government statistics showing that homes registered within the previous year were for three places on average, and four places was the average for all active or suspended children’s homes as of March 2024. We also know—and it has been quite clearly demonstrated—that we need more capacity and that children are being placed in unsuitable accommodation. On this point, I very much support my noble friend Lord Lucas’s Amendment 118, as well as Amendment 114, which attempts to deal with the problem of unregulated homes. As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, have said, it is quite hard to believe that these homes exist, but exist they do. That is a capacity issue and something that, frankly, we are just going to have to do deal with. I appreciate that the Government announced investment into the children’s homes estate last week; that is, of course, welcome and a good thing. However, there are additional measures that could deal with capacity, and these relate to planning regulations. The CMA’s 2022 study, which has already been mentioned, found that one of the main barriers to opening new homes is planning permission. The study’s authors heard repeated concerns about failed planning applications, often due to local opposition, which, in its words, “appears to be based on outmoded or inaccurate assumptions about children’s homes and looked-after children”. Given that we have now moved towards smaller children’s homes, the issue is further complicated by the fact that these are the exact same type of properties that families are searching for. As a result, when providers face delays due to the planning process, even if they have been successful in getting permission, very often they can lose the property to a rival bidder for whom planning is not a consideration. Consequently, the CMA suggested that the Government should review the planning requirements and consider whether smaller children’s homes, which can accommodate fewer than a specified number of residents at any one time, should be required to go through the planning system. It believes that that could be a helpful corrective to the market by increasing the number of children’s homes being opened. My straightforward question to the Minister is: is that something the Government are still considering, as suggested by their policy statement of last year? If so, would it be possible to give any guidance as to which other legislation they think might be more suitable?