Member

I just want to respond to what the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, said. Local authority care in many cases is having major problems because of rising costs and finding placements, so local authorities put children into private care providers, and the costs are absolutely enormous. The local authorities do not have the resources themselves, so they go to private providers and the costs keep going up each year. The noble Earl, Lord Effingham, quite rightly talks about costs, but he needs to be aware that in the private sector the costs are very expensive.