Child Poverty Bill

My Lords, the purpose of these amendments is to highlight a pocket of child poverty that is often hidden. It happens when family or friends take on the care of children when the natural parents cannot, because of death, imprisonment, substance misuse or other reasons. There are at least 250,000 such children. My amendments take up an issue that is not new. Much good work was done on family and friends carers in the Children and Young Persons Bill two years ago. Concern was shown on all sides of the House during the passage of the Bill, and some of those involved are here today. The Minister knows these issues well. He has been involved in many discussions, particularly about grandparents, in a very helpful way. Since those discussions, we have learnt much more about the plight of family and friends carers. We have seen more action, research and reports. I am particularly grateful to the Family Rights Group and to Grandparents Plus, which have done excellent work in this area. I was delighted to see measures on family and friends carers in the Green Paper on families and relationships that was published last week. All this is good news. The numbers of children living with family and friends carers may seem small, but it is significant. We need to know precisely how many children are involved and what the problems are. My first amendment is about financial support for family and friends carers. The second seeks to ascertain the numbers involved and the third seeks to clarify the numbers involved. The fourth aims to ensure that child poverty needs assessment includes children who are being raised by family and friends carers. I shall say more as I go through the amendments. I will first clarify who the carers are. This is dealt with in Amendment 71. A family or friend carer is a person who is raising a child who is not living with his or her parents, while the family or friend is related or otherwise connected to the child—for example, an aunt, a grandparent, a godparent or another friend. As I said, there are at least 250,000 children living with family and friends carers. However, there are no official statistics. My amendment would require this to be improved. Many such carers are at risk of poverty and of passing on this poverty to the children for whom they care. Some care for more than one child. One grandparent whom I have met has cared for three children, aged between one and 10, since her daughter died from a drugs overdose. Only 6,800 children are termed looked-after children, who qualify for a right to be supported. Family and friends placements for children are more stable than unrelated care placements. The outcomes for such children, both social and academic, are better. Nevertheless, three out of four family and friends carers experience financial hardship; one-third are lone carers; three out of 10 have a chronic illness or disability; and one in three lives in overcrowded conditions. Many are older—for example, grandparents who take on the child of a son or daughter because of imprisonment, substance abuse or death. The vast majority of local authorities do not have a written or even unwritten strategy to best serve family and friends carers. How much better the outcomes could be for children if more support were in place. The situation is confused and confusing, both for family and friends carers and for the professions who work with them. There is a range of legal options for a child living with family and friends carers: a private arrangement with no legal order; a residence or special guardianship order; or the child is looked after by the local authority. I will not go into the details and intricacies of these arrangements, as they are very complex and too confusing. We know that private arrangements and residence orders do not attract entitlement to support. The local authority has discretionary power but is not required to pay. With special guardianship, there is no support, but the carer can claim child benefit and child tax credit. Other support is entirely discretionary. If the child has been placed by the local authority with a family member or friend because of concerns about the child’s welfare, the carer should be assessed, approved and paid accordingly. Only one in six local authority foster placements is with family and friends carers. Many of those carers are paid less than a related foster carer. Grandparent carers have told me that they would not seek local authority sanction for caring, as it is a lengthy process full of hazards and risks to the child, including the fear of the child being taken into local authority care, which is something that family and friends carers want to avoid. The cost of applying for a legal order when applying for a residence or special guardianship order can be between £3,456 and a massive £38,000. This is completely beyond the means of family and friends carers and few get any financial help. I have met such carers who have had to remortgage property or borrow money, so desperate are they to see the best done for their grandchild or young relative. The Family Rights Group freedom of information survey of local authorities found that 85 per cent lack explicit eligibility criteria stating which family and friends carers of children outside the care system are eligible for financial support and at what rate. That is something that we should look at. Noble Lords will perceive the dilemmas and risks of poverty to family and friends carers and the children in their charge. The Fostering Network found that the cost of caring for a foster child is 50 per cent higher than the cost of caring for a birth child. The cost of raising a child in residential care has been calculated at 9.5 times that of a kinship care placement. Family and friends carers are saving the state a huge amount of money, but out of love for the child they often have to make enormous financial, emotional and physical sacrifices with little or no help and support. The Family Rights Group, on behalf of the Kinship Care Alliance, has produced recommendations for kinship care that include the collection and publication of statistics on family and friends carers, enabling more children to be raised within family networks, including the use of family group conferences as mentioned in the Green Paper; the assessment of family and friends carers where children are listened to; systems to meet the short-term and long-term needs of children and carers regardless of legal status; financial support through an allowance; assistance with the tax and benefit systems; legal support; and an end to financial discrimination against family and friends carers who are foster carers. My amendments seek to clarify some of the problems associated with family and friends who care for children. They look for action that will enable children to get the best possible care without the threat of poverty. I beg to move.