Child Poverty Bill

My Lords, I support these amendments and strongly support the speeches of the previous speakers. It is quite clear that, unlike with the previous amendment, the subject of these amendments is not covered by the Bill. It should be. As has been said, research has shown that those who care in this group are significantly disadvantaged compared with those who are foster parents and that, if you were to pay them less than you pay foster parents, you would save money on foster parents, particularly with children who are difficult to place. I will tell the Committee about one family. The godmother is a friend of mine. She took over the permanent care of a nine year-old girl, who is now 11, from the mother, who has significant difficulties with drink and drugs. She keeps in regular touch with the mother and grandmother. She has managed to keep working, but with difficulty. She was asked by the local authority to take over the care of the child. She offered to be a foster parent but was persuaded not to be. Of course, she does not get a single penny from the local authority. She has now, at my suggestion, become a special guardian, but she still gets no money from the local authority. Her situation is not exceptional. I should have declared an interest: I am president of the Grandparents’ Association. However, it is not grandparents about whom I will speak, because they have been adequately and eloquently covered. I will speak about other carers such as godparents and other friends of the family, who take over the care of these children at very short notice. We are talking not just about people in their 40s but about people in their late 50s and 60s, who have to readjust their lives for the sake of a little girl or boy to whom they are not naturally related but for whom they feel an obligation, as this friend of mine does. She is doing a wonderful job with her goddaughter. There is no shortage of people who do not take on the task because they cannot afford to, as has been said. What is very sad is not only that the child does not have a family or friend whom he or she knows, but that they go into care. The child is then moved from place to place. One appalling thing about the care system—it is not the fault of the system but the result of children going into care—is that children move two, three, four, even 10 times. I know of one child who moved 40 times before he ended up in an institution for severely traumatised children. Just think of it. The grandparents or other carers of these children should be able to have some financial relief. Most of them are seeking not a foster parent allowance but some lesser support. If a little work was done by government departments to see what might be satisfactory for grandparents and other genuine related or connected carers—as Amendment 71 sensibly says—they might find that the cost would not be greatly in excess of what it would be otherwise. Short-term foster parents have to be paid, as do the long-term foster parents of a child who has been through a totally unacceptable situation. I urge the Government to look again—and very sympathetically—at these amendments.