Children’s Social Care

My noble friend is absolutely right: there has been an unacceptable increase in the number of children subject to deprivation of liberty orders. That is because there is not the often very specialised and regulated provision that is appropriate for them. That is why they need the order to place them in what is essentially unregulated provision. Going back to the urgent action that we need to take to increase the number of placements, I come back to the point I made about the £90 million additional investment. Part of its work will be to find new forms of secure accommodation that can safely, and with high quality, care for the sort of children my noble friend rightly brings our attention to.