Lord Farmer (Con)

My Lords, I rise in support of Amendments 43 and 49 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, to which I have added my name. In Committee, the Minister clearly understood the basic principle of this group was to ensure that young people leave care with supportive and, hopefully, lifelong loving relationships. She assured the Committee that the Government “are funding a number of family-finding, befriending and mentoring programmes. These help looked-after children and care leavers to identify and connect with important people in their lives and create safe, stable, loving relationships”, which last. She said: “The family-finding, befriending and mentoring programme is being evaluated, and this will help to inform decisions about the future of the programme”.—[Official Report, 12/6/25; col. 1607.] However, I understand funding runs out in March this year for these family-finding, befriending and mentoring programmes, and there is no decision yet on continuation. I am concerned that the good work to date will be wasted, but perhaps she has encouraging news on funding and the results of the evaluation. I particularly want to flag again lifelong links and how this picks up the vital relationships identified by family group conferencing, which is in the Bill.