Lord Hampton (CB)

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 72 in my name and remind the House that I am a kinship carer of twin 13 year-olds. I also thank Kinship for its help in this. The Bill recognises the vital role that kinship carers play and strengthens welcome reforms which improve support for kinship carers. However, some of the Government’s stated policy objectives associated with the Bill’s provisions are unlikely to be realised without additional reform and the Bill ultimately falls short of delivering the vital education on the mental health support that children in kinship care urgently need. Making the kinship local offer a legal requirement through new legislation is welcome. In Kinship’s 2024 annual survey, a third of kinship carers rated the information provided about kinship care by their local authorities “very poor”, and only 7% of kinship carers said in 2023 that they had seen their local authority’s existing family and friends care policy—something local authorities have been required to deliver since 2011. A new legal duty and more comprehensive guidance around the content and delivery of this information should help kinship carers to better understand and access available support. However, as outlined by Kinship’s associate director of policy and public affairs when providing oral evidence to the Education Committee last month, the local offer’s impact will be to magnify the lack of support available to kinship families, particularly those with informal arrangements or where a legal order was made in private proceedings.