Member

Currently, the Government’s aim to reduce the number of children in local authority care faces a significant obstacle. Families must enter kinship foster care to access maximum support, and that creates an inherent tension in the system. I am aware of the newly started Law Commission review into kinship care, and I hope that subsequent legislation will set out specific legal pathways to well-supported kinship care arrangements that deliver parental responsibility and permanence, ending the perverse incentive for children to enter local authority care in order to maximise their and their kinship carers’ eligibility for support. In the meantime, my amendments seek to address some specific gaps that we currently face.