Baroness Barran (Con)

My Lords, the context for my Amendments 134 and 178 is, as we have heard in this short debate, that we face a very severe shortage of foster carers. As other noble Lords have said, this Bill feels like a huge missed opportunity to try to address this problem. Honestly, I do not really understand why the Government have not chosen to do more to address it—but perhaps the amendments in this group will offer the way. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, mentioned that there is currently a shortage of 5,000 foster carers in England; that is 33 foster carers per local authority. It just does not feel like an insuperable problem to find 33 homes across the country in each local authority—though, absolutely rightly, my noble friend Lady Spielman spoke of the very high prevalence of complex needs in children who go into foster care. This speaks to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham and others about a strategy, which would also address the recommendation in the MacAlister review that we need more flexible models of fostering. As we have heard, of just over 160,000 families who expressed an interest in becoming foster carers in 2020-21, only just over 2,000 were approved—a conversion rate of 1.3%. I understand that many applicants apply to multiple agencies and so get counted twice. There may be timing issues for potential carers, and there are structural challenges, including pay and the need for training, and difficulties in the application process, as we have heard. This is the most significant area for the roughly 83,000 children in care. Over 56,000 of them are in foster care, half of them with independent agencies and half in local authority foster care. That is a very big and important number, and it feels fundamental to address it. It sits at the heart of what we might call the children’s homes problem of cost and profits, which we will debate in subsequent groups. If we had more foster carers, the pressure would come off children’s homes, prices would adjust and we would be in a much better situation, particularly, as the noble Lord, Lord Bird, put so convincingly, because the wraparound of foster care—the fact that there is a family and relationships—leads to vastly better outcomes for the child. For all those reasons, this is an important group, and I hope that Amendment 143 is one that the Minister takes very seriously. My amendments are much simpler. Amendment 134 would give more flexibility to allow young children over the age of three to share a room. My intention is that this would apply to primary-aged children, although re-reading my amendment I think that my drafting skills have come through yet again. Having talked to directors of children’s services in London and other areas with high housing costs, I know that the number of potential foster carers with several spare rooms is very limited. I am aware that some organisations in the sector see this as a safeguarding risk, but I argue that we are already trusting the foster carer to care for a very vulnerable child. Within that, we should trust their judgment about the sleeping arrangements of the children in their home. Sadly, safeguarding risks are not confined to what happens in a child’s bedroom. This amendment could potentially add several hundred more places, at little or no cost, in areas with the greatest pressure to place children locally, and would avoid children being placed very far from home—as we have heard about several times today—their roots and their communities. This is not the only way to expand capacity. Another would be to invest in initiatives such as the Greater Manchester Room Makers scheme and roll it out more widely. It provides funding for foster carers to renovate existing rooms or build extensions to allow them to care for more children. My Amendment 178 seeks to clarify the delegated authority that foster carers have for the children in their care. This was tabled in the other place by the honourable Member for North Herefordshire and received a positive response from the Minister. I seek further confirmation from the Minister here that the Government still intend to consult on this point. Perhaps she could update the House on the likely timeline for the consultation and for the secondary legislation to be amended. Thinking more broadly, and returning to Amendment 143, it would help the House if the Minister could share other ideas the Government are working on to improve recruitment and retention. I spoke recently to the organisation Now Foster, which is developing “weekenders”—that might not be the right term—which offer regular weekend placements for children who might be either in kinship or foster care, giving much needed rest and space to both parties, and a consistency and stability for the child or young person that can extend beyond the age of 18. Crucially, it also gives foster carers a chance for a more modest but still substantial commitment, rather than taking in a child full time with everything that entails. This idea—again, this came up in the MacAlister review—of having different options and different models of fostering is long overdue for more work. My noble friend Lord Young of Cookham talked about the importance of a support network for foster carers. I visited an amazing group of foster carers—some brand new and about to receive their first child, some who had been fostering for over 20 years—who are part of an employee co-operative, Capstone Foster Care, in Peasedown St John in Somerset. Again and again they spoke eloquently about the impact of that network on their ability to foster and to offer love and care to very vulnerable children. They also talked—this ties in with the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson—about the need for a really positive recruitment campaign. Most people hear about fostering only when there is a case of severe neglect or worse. But across the House we have heard examples of many noble Lords who have either been foster carers or who recognise the extraordinary and life-changing work that foster carers do. We need that message to get outside this Chamber and out to people who might consider this and see it as a respected and important profession. We need more innovation in this area to unlock the potential in our communities to provide this kind of support for children who need it, and to improve retention.