Member

On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bird, about the cost of failure in family breakdowns, I emphasise that, as well as better outcomes for young people, the cost element of local authorities taking young people into care is one of the driving forces in making sure that the full range of kinship opportunities is offered to young people so that they can be cared for within their families with, as I said, better outcomes against all those awful indicators we have heard about throughout the debate. The money that is saved by those local authorities should be able to be reinvested in early help, early intervention, family group conferencing and preventing the problems developing in the first place.