That is an important point. The delay in a child’s being placed permanently, whether through fostering, adoption or any other form of permanence, can certainly contribute to psychological damage, which can be characterised as neglect or in other ways. An improvement in the speed of decision making is essential. We debated that in some detail in Committee. One cause for concern is the problem of delays in the court system, and in the making of decisions on whether or not children should stay with their birth families. I think that professionals, along with the courts, should decide as quickly as possible whether children should stay with their birth families or move into other forms of permanence. The children’s long-term needs must always take priority.
I hope that, as a result of the Bill, the shortage of adoptive parents and the difficulty of recruiting them will be addressed. Perhaps that could be included in the report to which the amendment refers. Perhaps the report could include information about how well the agencies that are envisaged are doing in recruiting in general terms, and also about what has happened to children who have been to some of the specialist smaller agencies that were mentioned by my hon. Friend.
It is evident that unless prospective adopters come forward, very little can be done about adoption, and I hope that that will be one of the outcomes of the Government’s proposals. Approaches such as concurrent planning and fostering to adopt have succeeded in improving outcomes for children who end up in the care system. However, a danger arises from the fact that adoption has been given so much prominence in this Bill—it is the only form of permanence addressed in the Bill. This concern is reinforced by steps such as the closure of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering and the loss of jobs in the sector, as well as the hard times faced by the voluntary agencies and by local authorities due to the financial constraints they face. We run the risk of moving in the wrong direction and jeopardising having the support in place through a well-trained workforce, and having the right numbers of adopters and foster carers coming forward to look after children who end up in care and who need the stability and long-term support that should be available to them.
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We should bear in mind the numbers of looked-after children who end up in the criminal justice system. If we go into any of our prisons and ask about that, we will find that very high numbers of prisoners were in care as children. Because they have been left down earlier in life, they end up unable to cope with society and turn to crime and end up in prison. It is a very
expensive outcome for society as well as for them personally. It is therefore in all our interests to invest early and to try to solve these problems.
Anything that can be done early helps. Investment in mental health services for children and young people is particularly important, and the Government’s comments on that have been encouraging. The all-party group on looked-after children and care leavers—the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) is a qualifying member as he came to the inaugural meeting, for which I thank him—has looked in previous Sessions at issues around mental health care, in particular for children and young people in care. No doubt it will do so again, and I hope the Minister will be able to attend an early meeting of that group once it is up and running again, to talk about this Bill as well as other proposals that he might be bringing forward on other forms of permanence.
I would be grateful if the Minister would address in his speech today some of the issues around the workforce, the recruitment of adoptive and foster carers, and support for the profession and the voluntary sector, making sure that the specialisms are retained—a point picked up in the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe).
I think there is overwhelming support across all the parties to see success in providing permanence for children who end up in the care system. There are opportunities to make a difference for children who end up being adopted, but I remind the Minister that those children for whom adoption is the right form of permanence are only a small proportion of the children who end up in the care system. We must remember that and make sure we look after all the children who end up in care and do not contribute to a widespread perception that adoption is the gold standard and other forms of permanence are not. We must invest in and support all forms of permanence. I hope the Minister will do that both in the remaining stages of this Bill and in what he does over the coming, weeks, months and years.