Kinship Carer Identification

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Lilian Greenwood.)

Sometimes, a child’s birth parents cannot look after them. Around 100,000 children in the UK are looked after by the state, and most of us are familiar with the concepts of adoption and fostering. But it is estimated that well over 100,000 children in the UK are being raised by members of their extended family, or by friends of their family: they are being cared for by kinship carers. An ever-increasing number of children are now in kinship care, and staying with a family member or friend has a range of benefits over being looked after by the state. Kinship care can reduce trauma, provide valuable stability and help children preserve their sense of identity and connection to their community.

Yet, despite being both widespread and beneficial, kinship care has remained undervalued and under-recognised by our systems. It is astonishing that, as of yet, councils are under no obligation to ensure that potential kinship placements are always explored and assessed for suitability before children become looked after. Yet children who grow up in kinship care are more likely to be kept with their siblings compared with those in foster care, have better social and emotional wellbeing and better long-term physical health, and are more likely to have stable permanent homes, achieve higher levels of employment later in life and report that they feel loved. Making kinship care the first choice rather than the lucky product of chance is a simple change, and I hope the Minister might speak to its pursuit.

There are other ways in which kinship carers could be put on a more equal footing. For example, many would be helped to stay in active employment by being allowed employment leave rights equal to those of parents who are adopting. That is another simple change that could make a big difference.

There is one way in which our systems are very clearly failing children and their dedicated carers that I would like to address. I would like to share some experiences of kinship carers that, sadly, are typical, as they frequently struggle to prove to hospitals, schools, doctors and dentists that they have parental responsibility.

I commend the hon. Gentleman for rightly bringing forward this issue. I spoke to him beforehand and he knows partly what I am going to say. The Minister might be aware of and want to follow the example of Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland has a higher rate of kinship care—31% of looked-after children, compared with England’s 16%. That is largely due to a long-standing cultural emphasis on family placements. There is also the fact that Northern Ireland offers the most consistent support, as all approved kinship foster carers are legally entitled to the same would-be allowance as mainstream foster carers, ranging from £149 to £268 per week. Does the hon. Member agree that, as is often the case, what we are doing in Northern Ireland might be an example of the very thing that he and the Minister wish to see?

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising good cases and good examples that we might like to follow. I also appreciate his having spoken to me beforehand about his experiences with the situation in Northern Ireland.

I would like to share the experiences of Clare. She said:

“I rushed into A&E in a complete panic. I was carrying my two-year-old nephew…who was struggling to breathe. The receptionist barely looked up as she asked me my nephew’s name and date of birth. Her next question filled me with fear: Who are you? As I answered, she looked up and I knew what was coming—a barrage of questions about why I had taken care of this child. Where was his mother? Could I prove that social services knew he was in my care? And—most terrifyingly of all—did I know that the hospital could not treat him without the consent of someone with parental responsibility? He was struggling to breathe, his face white as a sheet and his chest heaving, while this person was calmly telling me they couldn’t help.”

Donna’s step-grandchild was badly injured. The only thing she could do was call the local authority to see if it would vouch for her. It took two hours for the call to be returned. The child had lost blood and was in tremendous pain. Only once it was explained by the social worker that Donna was the legal guardian did they give him pain relief and begin to treat the injury. However, the injury required surgery and at a hospital in the next county, an hour’s drive away, Donna once again had to explain who she was. No one from the first hospital was there to verify that Donna was the carer. She had to call children’s services again and wait four hours for verification.

The examples that my hon. Friend cites are incredibly traumatic. These situations are even more complicated for those who do not have legal parental rights and who have an informal kinship arrangement. Has he had any thoughts about what could be done to support those families?

It is true that there is a real diversity in the situations of kinship carers, both in the causes of people finding themselves caring for young people and in the legal structures that they are operating under. We totally recognise that, as we move forward in trying to tackle these issues, we need to be really open-eyed to that full range of different experiences and situations.

Caroline tells her story:

“Eve landed on her arm, screamed out in pain, one look and I knew it was broken. I took her to the emergency department…and she was admitted immediately to the children’s ward. An X-ray was taken and Eve was administered morphine. The consultant booked Eve in for an operation the following day. She had been on morphine all night to help her with the pain. The surgeon came round and explained the procedure. Eve was prepped and then the anaesthetist came with a form to sign. He asked who I was. I told him I was aunt and the legal guardian. He then asked to see my legal order. I told him that no one had asked…He said, ‘I refuse to administer anaesthetic without seeing the legal document.’ I had been up all night with a crying young girl; the last thing I thought about was a legal order. I called my husband, who had to leave work to go home and find the document. It took two hours for the photo ID to be sent…During this time, Eve was hooked up to morphine. We had to wait for the anaesthetist to finish his surgery list to look at the photo on my phone, which was accepted in the blink of an eye.”

Steph points out that this happens consistently:

“I have to show copies at all doctors, dentist, school, etc. Any time we have to make a decision for him I have to show proof. Can you imagine if I lost that piece of paper? It’s not right having to explain that you are the carer in front of the child again and again. Imagine how the child feels.”

Sadly, these situations are typical and, as Steph points out, they can be deeply traumatising for both children and carers.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Tom Collins) for securing a debate on this important matter. Like him, I recognise the enormous contribution that kinship carers make to children’s lives. This Government are committed to helping more children grow up in safe, stable and loving homes within their family networks, wherever it is in the child’s best interests.

I want to begin by acknowledging the incredible commitment and generosity of kinship carers. By opening their hearts and homes to some of the country’s most vulnerable children, they are transforming the future generation. We should not underestimate the life-changing difference that kinship carers make every single day to children across this country. Kinship children and families need support to navigate the very challenging circumstances they find themselves in.

The Minister is giving a comprehensive answer to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Tom Collins). My constituent Natalie had seven nephews and nieces brought to her door and was told by the police and social services that it would be really good if she could take them in. She was then told that she was not entitled to any support whatsoever because it was a family arrangement, but she had not made the arrangement herself. She is a hero for taking those children in. I accept that multiple campaigns state what kinship carers should be entitled to, but would the Minister agree that in this circumstance with these unambiguous details that she absolutely should get the support that she is entitled to?

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. It is because of stories exactly like that one—from aunts, uncles, grandparents and other relatives across the country who often step into these children’s lives at sometimes no notice, waking up one morning to find that they are now responsible for very young children, sometimes babies and newborns—that I recommended a whole series of changes when I undertook the independent review of children’s social care in 2022. In that review, I described kinship carers as the “silent and unheard majority” of the care system.

Under this Government, they are now being heard.

I will set out a few of the things the Government are taking forward now and in the coming weeks to change the situation for kinship carers across this country. To ensure that family networks and kinship care are always fully explored—there are good examples in Northern Ireland, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned, and elsewhere in the UK—we are legislating right now to require all local authorities to offer a family group decision-making process such as a family group conference to all parents, or those with parental responsibility, whose child’s case has reached the pre-proceedings stage. That will bake in the need for services to engage proactively with the whole family network, not just parents, to establish whether the family themselves have a better answer for looking after that child than the care system. That, more than anything else, will probably be the factor that shifts the culture within children’s social care to put the initial focus on kinship networks.

That will be backed by the roll-out of family network support packages so that councils can fund some of the more informal arrangements that are a way of avoiding the need for children to enter the care system.

My hon. Friend was a big advocate for kinship carers before becoming a Minister, and he still is. Kinship care is incredibly hard for everyone involved. It often arises from really difficult circumstances, and the family members who make that commitment often give up a lot to do so. Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to Sue Nash, a local volunteer in my constituency who runs the Peterborough Kinship Care Group, which provides support to kinship carers all across Peterborough and North West Cambridgeshire and assists them in sharing best practice and learning among one another?

I would be absolutely delighted to recognise Sue Nash and the amazing work that she and so many others are doing across the country through kinship support groups.

The Government have supported the charity Kinship to run 140 peer support groups and training packages across England so that kinship carers have a platform to support one another and navigate the complex systems that sit around the kinship family system. We widened therapeutic help for children through the adoption and special guardianship support fund, for which I recently announced an extension of two years and a 10% increase so that we can continue to meet the needs of adoptive and special guardianship families. We have introduced the first national definition of kinship care, published statutory guidance and appointed a national kinship care ambassador.

We will continue to go further. I know that many kinship carers face financial hardship. That is why the Government will very soon launch a large trial, which will represent the largest single financial investment in kinship carers this country has ever seen, to test the impact of providing a weekly financial allowance equal to the national minimum allowance for foster carers in a number of local authorities across the country. The allowance will not be means-tested and will not impact benefits such as universal credit.

I thank the Minister for the serious consideration that has been given to this pilot. It is exceptional. We heard from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) what a difference financial support makes. I congratulate the Minister on making sure that this happens for these families, who are not asking for the earth—they’re really not. They just need a little bit of help, and they want that money to go towards the children they are looking after.

I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning that. The tireless campaigning of so many kinship families over the years has led the Government to the point of setting in train these changes, which will be announced in full very soon. The fantastic work done by the all-party parliamentary group on kinship care, which my hon. Friend chairs, means that we are now in a position to take these steps in the next few weeks.

Through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, we are legislating to require every local authority to publish a clear and accessible kinship local offer setting out the support available to kinship carers and children. The national kinship care ambassador will provide support and expertise to help local authorities to implement that new national duty, and will shortly release a national report summarising learning generated through engagement with the sector. That is the first step in creating a national kinship standard for a consistent kinship care framework across the country, tackling directly the current postcode lottery in support.

My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester raised the importance of kinship carers having employment leave rights equal to those of parents who are adopting. I reassure my hon. Friend and the House that the Government are considering that. We have launched a review of the parental leave system, and it is clear that kinship carers, and the parental leave to which they are entitled, are within the scope of the review. I thank all the carers who have taken the time to respond to the review. We will also improve data by adding a kinship indicator to the schools census in autumn 2026, and launch the first national study focused on children’s experiences in kinship care.

It is vital to ensure that children have someone advocating for them in education. We will ensure that the virtual school head role has statutory footing for children in kinship care in 2027. Of course, the generational reforms to special educational needs and disabilities announced today will support many children in kinship families. We know that the legal routes through which kinship care arrangements are made can be confusing, and carry different assessments and entitlements to different forms of support, which is why we have asked the Law Commission to review the kinship legal frameworks. Together, those actions show how serious the Government are about ensuring that kinship carers, children and families are recognised, supported and valued.