Children and Young Persons Bill [Lords]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. There are measures in the Bill that will reduce the number of young people being moved out of area; that is an incredibly important and praiseworthy step. However, there will still be young people who are moved out of area. The hon. Lady has touched on an issue that I wanted to raise: that of young people in custody, who are frequently moved away significantly from their areas. The current position is that if a young person moves into custody and is looked-after because of a court order, they will remain in receipt of looked-after status. If they go into custody having been subject to voluntary accommodation they will lose looked-after status at that point. Under the Bill, a young person with looked-after status cannot move into other accommodation and, if we get the commitment from the Minister, cannot lose their looked-after status unless an independent reviewing officer has decided that that is in their best interests—unless they go into custody. The amendment would give a young person in custody access to an independent reviewing officer and would mean that the independent reviewing officer was maintained throughout the process. Most significantly, when the young person left custody the independent reviewing officer would have a role in the decision-making process as regards what was suitable accommodation for them. It is essential that we get an agreement from the Minister that relevant young people will have access to an independent reviewing officer. If a young person is to be able to change their way of life on leaving custody, it is essential that they have secure and stable accommodation. I must press the Minister to ensure that they have access to an independent reviewing officer during that process and that they will not lose the entitlement that they would otherwise have had to that officer reviewing the decision on where their accommodation should be when they come out of custody. It seems contrary in the extreme not to give those young people support in finding proper and stable accommodation. Will the Minister give full consideration to supporting young people in custody in promoting contact between them and their families? It was exceptionally good to see that new clause 19 will give families proper support by working with disabled young people in retaining their relationships and having good, close contact. Young people in custody will frequently be the parent of the family themselves, so it is particularly important that they have contact and are able to maintain a caring relationship with their child which remains effective when they leave custody. I hope that the Minister will clarify the position on visitors for young people in custody. We have seen laudable movements to ensure that disabled young people who are accommodated away from home will have within seven days a visitor who is a qualified social worker. Will the Minister also ensure that young people in custody receive the vital support of a qualified social worker as their visitor and that that visit is made at an early date within a specified time in regulations? In relation to the new clause which deals with collecting information, we all know that independent accommodation and supported accommodation are essential to young people. Can we have an assurance that the general duty of a local authority to secure sufficient accommodation is applied equally to other arrangements along with foster care and residential placements? Will the Minister also ensure that national leaving-care accommodation standards are developed and introduced? The foyer movement has been very successful in doing this, as have most universities. In Lancashire, a project has been developed based around the university process for deciding whether accommodation is suitable. It is not beyond our wit to do this, and will the Minister ensure that it is done in regulations? In support of the general aim of the new clause, I ask that the Ofsted inspection process, where relevant children and former relevant children up to the age of 21 are accommodated, will have the information that was referred to, to ensure that when inspections are carried out it is possible to see whether the local authority is fulfilling its duty—not whether it transferred a young person to something that was suitable in the first instance, but whether that young person is still in suitable accommodation. That is essential if we are to ensure that every local authority achieves the standards of the best. Finally, in reference to every local authority achieving the standards achieved by the best, some authorities are already providing access to an independent reviewing officer to relevant children leaving care. We all wish to see fewer children leaving care before the age of 18. We hope that the Bill will achieve that, but unless it is underpinned by access to a reviewing officer for relevant children by provisions in the Bill or in regulations that create a statutory duty and a right and entitlement for young people, we will find that young people in custody, or those who have moved into independent living where their accommodation has failed, will not get the effective support that they need. We will also find that young people who have moved back to family support or support of that nature, whose accommodation has failed or whose relationships have broken down, do not get the support they need to succeed. They must have access to an independent reviewing officer, so that they have someone speaking on their side, who has the knowledge and skills to do that, but who is part of the statutory framework, to ensure that those young people get the intervention they need to get a successful outcome.