My Lords, I urge that, whatever approach is taken, we are better at supporting families, particularly vulnerable families. In recent years, we have seen a steady increase in the number of young people being taken into care from their families and a flood of new-born children being taken into care. In some ways, that suggests that we are intervening better to take children out of damaging families, but we should really be trying our level best to support families so that they can keep their children.
Whichever approach one takes—I suspect that it will be a mixture of the two—one needs adequately to fund the general services of local authorities, and I am grateful to the Chancellor for ensuring that there is some limiting of the cuts expected by local authorities. At the same time, approaches such as the troubled families initiative—I express my admiration for Louise Casey, having watched her work in the past—which recognise the need to stick with the family over time, and the importance of loving that family until it can look after itself, are very welcome.
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