My Lords, I will say a few words about kinship care. I remember the Minister speaking twice on this topic at previous Committee stages. I think that he knows the issues and is sympathetic to them—he certainly was the last time we met to discuss the issue of kinship carers. My noble friend Lady Armstrong has tabled a debate on this topic tomorrow, when I shall say much more, but this issue of adding complexity to the lives of kinship carers is important. Kinship carers deserve all the help they can get not to be landed with some other complex issue of how many children they can care for.
I recall being chair of the National Treatment Agency some years ago, where I came across quite a few grandparents who were carers—I think grandparents make up some 40% of kinship carers. The grandparents called themselves the midnight grannies, because they were often landed with children. But I am talking about complexity because they do not have the support they need. I met people who were getting no support—neither advice nor financial support from the local authority; it seemed to me to be hit or miss as to how local authorities behaved. Some grandparents had court battles about the children who they were caring for. These are people in distress, as are the children. The grandparents have lost a daughter or son—they may be in prison, be dead or be using drugs and alcohol—and the children have lost their parents. So there is a lot of distress in the family, and yet these kinship carers are coping with that. One of them said to me, “I’m tired of filling in these forms when I should be reading to my grandson”. That is how it works: they have to fill in forms and go to court, rather than being able to spend time caring for the children as they would want to.
It is a complex issue and I think that we ought to be aware of that—I am sure the Minister is aware of that. Therefore, we do not want to heap complexity on these people who, after all, save the state a huge amount of money a year for each child they care for.
4 pm