I do not think that I can add anything at the moment, but I will think about what the noble Lord said.
The noble Lord asked about the £30 million figure. This is for children in one of the following groups: children who have been waiting for 18 months or more at the time of placement; children who are aged five or over at the time of placement; children who are in a sibling group of two or more and placed as siblings at the time of placement; children who are from a BME background; or children who are disabled.
The noble Lord asked why the clause covers only adoption. If local authorities are interested in bringing together other permanent services voluntarily, they
have the freedom to do so. Furthermore, they can apply to our regional adoption agencies support programme for support to create a “permanence hub” that goes wider than just adoption. More than half of the bids for which we announced funding recently are interested in going wider than adoption. However, given the specific nature of the adoption system, this legislation is in relation to adoption only. Adoption is the system where consolidation and scaling-up of services is a pressing concern.
The noble Lord was not around when we passed the Children and Families Act, a substantial piece of legislation with 177 amendments which comprehensively covered wide aspects of SEN and children in care. Had he been, I think that he would have realised that we have substantially reformed the system for children in care and SEN. His comments about the Prime Minister’s recent concerns about adoptions are ill-informed and unfortunate. The Bill does not go any wider because we have covered fostering in the Children and Families Act and taken considerable steps to improve the situation for children in care homes. The children’s homes regulatory framework underwent significant consultation and review in 2014 to enable the development of new quality standards that must be achieved for looked-after children living in children’s homes.
The Prime Minister announced on 28 October that Sir Martin Narey will lead a review into residential care for looked-after children. Sir Martin will report his findings and recommendations in spring next year. The overall purpose of the review is to set out the role of residential care within the wider care system and to make recommendations about how outcomes for children who are currently placed in residential care can be improved. Given the proportion of looked-after children who have poor mental health, it is likely that the review will explore mental health and well-being of looked-after children in residential settings.
This year, we are providing up to £4.5 million of start-up funding to support the development of regional adoption agencies. As my noble friend Lady Evans mentioned, we have already announced the first 14 projects, which involve more than 100 local authorities and more than 20 voluntary adoption agencies. However, for that small number of local authorities which prove unwilling to rise to the challenge and to get involved voluntarily, we need the power in the Bill as a backstop measure. Without it, children in those local authorities would miss out. They would continue to face unnecessary delay, which we know causes lasting harm, and miss out on the vital support that they need. I therefore recommend that this clause stand part of the Bill and I hope that noble Lords will feel reassured enough not to press their amendments.