Baroness Cash (Con)

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 170 and lend my support to the other eminently sensible amendments in this group. They all, individually, beg the question: why would we not? I implore the Government to consider these gaps, which have been so carefully thought through and proposed before the Committee today. If Committee serves any purpose, it must be to collaborate and work for the benefit of the children we are talking about. I will not rehearse the points I made on the first group today. The data point, under Amendment 170, drives at the same point. I ask the Minister to think carefully, because I had almost anticipated that her previous answer would address the data required already under the Children Act. So I carefully focused this amendment on the gaps where the data is not already required—that is to address sufficiency in care homes overall. A body of science around attachment and trauma now emphatically supports the case for providing secure and stable environments for young people—including young adults, because the brain is not fully developed until well into the 20s. This debate is very timely, in the wake of the grooming gangs story and the Casey report, which has just been published. When children have not been securely attached and have been moved into and out of care, they are at their most vulnerable. They are the most susceptible to risk, the most vulnerable to being preyed on and the most easily seduced by any kindness whatever, so the wolf in sheep’s clothing is a particularly dangerous scenario. It is time that we dispense with unregulated accommodation, and I am grateful to the noble and learned Baroness for her comments and her extensive experience of that.