Steve Yemm

It is a pleasure to stand here today and talk about a Bill that delivers on the Government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity. There are two aspects that I particularly welcome. The first is the potential profit cap, which will enable the Secretary of State to cap the profits of non-local authority Ofsted-registered providers of children’s homes, foster agencies and supported accommodation. There are areas throughout the country, including mine, where the cost of placing children in private sector residential social care is eye-wateringly high. I regularly meet officers from my local authority, Nottinghamshire county council, and the costs that they are incurring to meet the needs of children’s welfare have been described by the council’s former Conservative leader, Ben Bradley, as “rinsing” local authority finances. I think it important for us to ensure that private companies are not making excessive profits at the expense of other public sector services, and I therefore welcome the numerous measures in the Bill that aim to rebalance the children’s social care placements market and drive down those excessive profits made by some unscrupulous private providers, together with the demand for full financial transparency from those organisations and the potential for the creation of regional care co-operatives.