PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Care Leavers - 3 November 2025 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

Today marks the first sitting day of National Care Leavers Month, and what a way to begin. I am grateful for the opportunity to come to the Chamber and talk about the challenges facing young people once they have left children’s social care, and I very much hope that this month Members from across the House can join together in the spirit of raising awareness of these challenges and working together to bring forward solutions. I welcome the fact that the Minister was the chair and author of the independent review into children’s social care over three years ago. I know that he feels deeply about this area and I am sure he will bring a wealth of experience to his role on the Front Bench.

The theme of National Care Leavers Month 2025 is “Rising as Me: Overcoming challenges, transforming, and finding your identity”. The ages of 16 to 25 are a formative time in the lives of many young people, and care leavers should have the same opportunities to enjoy and explore this period; instead, many face a cliff edge of support and services.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Care leavers need support; they need the state to deliver for them when family is sometimes not there in the way that it is for many young people. Does she agree with me and my Select Committee that we need to iron out the differences in support for care leavers across the country and that we should have a national offer for care leavers so that they can rely on support wherever they are in the country?

I completely agree. As we move through this debate today, I think a theme that will shine through is the need to get rid of what is often a postcode lottery for care leavers.

I want to recognise some of the good work that the Government have already done in this area. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill marks an important step forward in ensuring that support for care leavers endures beyond the age of 18. I welcome the requirement for local authorities to publish a full care offer for care leavers, which will offer clarity and direction. I know that there is already some good practice from my own council in Doncaster, with comprehensive offers of support, including the Staying Put and Staying Close initiatives.

I commend the hon. Lady for bringing this debate forward; I spoke to her beforehand. Does she agree that those leaving care may not have had the financial advice and instruction that they should have had and that many of us take for granted? It is imperative that they are taught how to be self-reliant and are able to manage their finances by themselves. Does she further agree that such classes should also teach these vulnerable young people, who do not have a family to help and protect them, how to protect themselves financially and physically from those who would seek to target them?

I agree. I think it comes back to the fact that the offer is very different in different areas, and that is something we all want to address.

I am happy to take an intervention from my hon. Friend—

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing forward this debate. We know that care-experienced people face distinct discrimination and challenges throughout their lives. As of September, 125 local authorities have passed motions to recognise care experience as a protect characteristic, which is an important step towards tackling inequality. Does my hon. Friend think that this might be an appropriate time for the Government to follow suit and recognise care experience as a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010?

I do agree, and I am proud that my own council in Doncaster is one of those that has recognised care experience as a protected characteristic. The council also has a supported accommodation service, which includes a rent guarantee scheme and council tax reductions, and a care leaver guaranteed interview scheme. I also welcome the in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill the extension of the corporate parenting responsibility to all Government Departments to ensure a wider net of support and awareness when it comes to care leavers and the unique challenges they face.

Earlier this year I attended the all-party parliamentary group for care-experienced children and young people—along with Minister before he was in his current role—where I met Fay, Caelan and Caitlin from Doncaster’s children in care council. The recognising of care experience as a protected characteristic is due in no small part to the campaigning that young people like Fay, Caelan and Caitlin have led. It just goes to show that if these young people are given the opportunity to speak out, they will lead the way and show us what they need in order to thrive. It is pivotal that they are part of pushing the change we desperately need.

While we have seen some major strides forward, we must recognise the journey still ahead. The state has some responsibilities for care-experienced children until they are 25, but for many, when they turn 18, the support and relationships that have been available to them up to that point are hugely reduced.

Leaving care can be extremely challenging. In Watford, Hertfordshire’s local authority provides support with housing, finance, education and training, health and relationships, and wellbeing, but does my hon. Friend agree that all these services have to work really well not just independently but harmoniously together to ensure that care leavers can take steps into adulthood in a properly supported way?

I do agree. Having a holistic approach that is the same across all local authorities is really important, especially because children in care often move around a lot and have to get used to new social workers, teams and support systems. We definitely need to move towards having one support package in place.

According to the charity Become, nearly 4,000 children nationally either moved home or left care during their A-level exams in the academic year 2023-24, and 60 of those children were in my home city of Doncaster. Accounts that have been sent to me from care leavers in Doncaster show the stark reality of life after care. Young people report losing weight, becoming ill, feeling self-conscious when going to a food bank, and being unable to access regular or healthy meals because they cannot afford them.

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this really important debate. One issue that came up in my life previous to becoming an MP, and that has come up since, is access to period products for care-experienced young people, particularly as they transition out of care. My hon. Friend has spoken about the postcode lottery, and not all local authorities necessarily provide that support. Although some can access period products through education, care leavers may leave education and not be able to access them. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that we move away from this postcode lottery and ensure that there is wraparound care, including for care leavers who are not in the education system?

I completely agree. Period poverty can often be overlooked when thinking about the whole system, but for young women in care and leaving care who cannot access those products, it can be debilitating to their ability to access all the other services that we are talking about.

One care leaver in Doncaster said:

“Even though I’m not homeless now and I’m safe and secure, it worries me that that will be the next step. It has happened before and it could happen again”.

Another said:

“I don’t think anyone who hasn’t experienced homelessness could understand how scared I was.”

Many in temporary hotel accommodation and still under corporate parentship have to face the choice between affording food or washing their clothes. One said:

“The government are my corporate parents, and they don’t act like it. Would a parent allow a child to go a week without washing their clothes? Would a reasonable parent allow their child to be homeless or not eat?”

The answer to that is no.

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful point in this debate, which she has thankfully secured. Last week, a group of Southampton care leavers came to Parliament, and raised housing and accommodation as one of the most urgent issues they want us to tackle. I have heard her welcome, as I do, innovations like Staying Put and Staying Close, but supported lodgings are another family-based option for care leavers where the young person gets not only a place to live but the practical help and relational support that she is using those young people’s voices to talk about so powerfully. The early evidence is positive, but does she agree that with too many care leavers living in substandard accommodation and without that support, initiatives such as Home for Good’s supported lodgings are also worth Government attention, particularly in National Care Leavers Month?

I agree; I will come later in my speech to a couple of local examples of supported lodgings, which, if applied nationwide, would have a transformative effect on the support that care leavers receive.

These young people often do not have the benefit of family support to help them find accommodation, or with rent and security deposits. Because of that, they are incredibly vulnerable not just to homelessness but to a whole raft of predators who see an opportunity to exploit them. Will the Minister work across Government Departments to increase the setting up home allowance, give priority to care leavers on housing lists in authorities where they have resided for over six months, reform universal credit so that care leavers are entitled to the over-25 weighting, and commit to work with the Department for Transport and regional mayors who have powers in the area to give free bus travel to care leavers up to the age of 25? While I am at it with the asks, can we also include free prescriptions for care leavers? In the context of wider Government spending on the population, the numbers are small, but I think everyone in the Chamber—that includes the Minister—knows that doing those things would make a huge difference to the most vulnerable group in our society, including the young people I have quoted and those on the minds of hon. Members in the Chamber.

There are other areas in which care leavers are often disadvantaged; I have seen them myself. When I worked as a prison officer, I was a single point of contact for care leavers in my jail. I learned that, shockingly, it is estimated that 29% of the prison population are care leavers, and they also make up over 50% of the youth estate. Young care leavers are also 10 times more likely to receive an immediate custodial sentence than young people who have not been in care. As a Government, and indeed as a Parliament, we cannot rest while that remains a reality for such a vulnerable group. Will the Minister work with the Prisons Minister in the other place to develop a national care leavers in custody policy, ensuring that support for young people—wherever they move to—is partnership based?

I will take a little time to pay tribute to an organisation in my constituency that has been mentioned previously. Doncaster Housing for Young People, which I am a patron of, provides tailored housing support in the form of supported lodgings with host families as well as floating support to help sustain tenancies. The organisation has shared stories of those who have had to leave foster places when they turn 18. One young woman in that position shared how she was not ready emotionally or financially to live independently, but, thanks to Doncaster housing for Young People, she moved into supported lodgings where she could build life skills, continue her studies and focus on her wellbeing.

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for giving way. Next week marks the first National Supported Lodgings Week. It will celebrate what those lodgings do in offering the wonderful opportunity of a safe, stable home to people who can then grow and have their independence. She and I are both patrons of Doncaster Housing for Young People, and we know that it has lots of experience supporting care leavers. It is going to go big on National Supported Lodgings Week. Does she agree that the Government should treat supported lodgings as part of the core offer for care leavers, and that we should always strive to make sure that that support is a lot more personal and is less institutional?

I agree completely.

The young person that I was speaking about just before my hon. Friend’s intervention said that they were not ready for their own place but that the supported lodgings made them feel less stressed so that they could relax and get on with what they needed to do. It is quite hard for people who have not been in that situation to imagine what it must be like to be on their own with no support network, no family and often no friends in an area where they did not grow up. When they are out there on their own, those supported lodgings are a lifeline for a lot of young people. I am sure that, when the Minister replies, he will discuss whether we can spread that provision more widely.

Other care leavers have shared how Doncaster Housing for Young People has helped them through linking them up with other agencies, and has offered support and help managing debts and finances. It is that holistic support that is so important to help young people leaving care maintain their confidence and transition into adult life. Doncaster Housing for Young People is one of many charities across the country that offer that tailored support; I thank them all for the work they do for young people. I of course invite the Minister to come to Doncaster to learn from Doncaster Housing for Young People, and to see for himself its incredible work.

Before I finish, I would like to reflect again on this year’s theme for National Care Leavers Month: “Rising as Me: Overcoming challenges, transforming, and finding your identity”. We should all remember that, at the heart of this month, there is a group of young people who innately have the same hopes, aspirations and potential as any of their non-care-experienced peers. They deserve to be ambitious about their future, to realise their potential and to become the adults they want to be.

I join my hon. Friend in welcoming the Minister to his place. Just this morning on my way down here, I visited the Newcastle-under-Lyme jobcentre, where I met the brilliant staff who are supporting care leavers to find fulfilling work and the dignity that comes with it. Will my hon. Friend add to her list of asks for the Minister the request that we do more not just through financial support but through directing care leavers towards work that suits their needs and their skillsets, because that is important to give them the dignity to which she has referred?

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I have not touched on this in my speech, but the number of people not in education, employment or training in the care leaver population is higher than the average. That is a fact that we need to take incredibly seriously, because those people deserve to have the same ambitions for their future as everyone else and to be able to realise their full potential. I am sorry to say that just is not happening at the minute, and it is the job of the Government to make sure it does.

My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. Tomorrow I will be hosting York’s director of children’s services here in Parliament to talk about York’s care journey, which has been phenomenal. It has enabled care leavers to co-produce services and to chair many committees. Does she agree that that is an exemplar that can enable young people not only to gain confidence and experience but to direct their future?

I agree. My hon. Friend’s anecdote and those from colleagues across the House show that there are many examples of good practice across councils and authorities around the country, but it is important to weave it all together to ensure that we have a national strategy and support package so that every care leaver knows what to expect and can access it. Because so many of them have experienced hardship and trauma in their young lives, they probably have—more than most—the drive, resilience and determination to overcome the obstacles ahead, but we need to recognise that the system is stacked against them.

Support and policy in this area are often not what grab the headlines. They are not on all the election leaflets and do not feature in the polls, but if we in Parliament, regardless of politics, cannot protect and improve the outcomes for this most vulnerable group of young adults in our country, we have failed. The Government have the opportunity to let these young people rise as themselves and fulfil their ambitions, so let’s take it.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Doncaster Central (Sally Jameson) and everyone who has intervened. I will keep my remarks even briefer than I said I would. We have already heard a huge amount about supported lodgings, and that is what I wanted to speak about briefly, as much as anything to highlight the cross-party support for what they represent, and the role that they can play for our care-experienced young people.

Supported lodgings—a family-based form of supported accommodation for young people aged 16 or over—play a vital role. They accommodate predominately care leavers, but also young people at risk of homelessness. In supported lodgings, a young person lives in the home of a host who offers not only a room but guidance, encouragement and belonging.

According to research from Home for Good, which runs the supported lodgings national network, 84% of young people say that supported lodgings feel like home, 89% had a positive relationship with their host, and 90% feel more confident about living independently as a result. As one young person put it,

“Being in supported lodgings allowed me to take the college course I wanted to take and ultimately the career path I wanted to follow.”

Supported lodgings can make a transformative difference. Further research from Home for Good found that when young people live in supported lodgings for six months or more, we see an average 44% decrease in the number of those not in education, employment or training. Supported lodgings also cost only a tenth of what residential provision costs, while delivering far stronger long-term outcomes for young people.

However, despite what we have heard this evening, awareness remains low. Only 30% of the public have even heard of supported lodgings, and most local authorities report difficulties in recruiting new hosts. That is why I am proud to support the launch of the first National Supported Lodgings Week, which takes place next week, during Care Leavers Month; over 60 local authorities and independent schemes are taking part.

My asks of the Minister are simple: I ask him to allocate dedicated funding to expanding supported lodgings; to reduce reliance on high-cost residential placements; and to improve national data collection, so that we can properly evidence the scale and impact of this vital provision. We are all agreed this evening that every young person, whether in care, leaving care or facing homelessness, deserves not just a place to stay, but a home where they belong.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster Central (Sally Jameson) for securing this debate at the start of Care Leavers Month. She brings to this place her insights from the prison system, in which she saw the tragic and avoidable over-representation of the care-experienced community.

There have been many excellent interventions and contributions by Members from across the House. I particularly want to mention the repeated mention of the important role that supported lodgings can play in our care system. I agree that they are underused—I thank the hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) and others for flagging that. I will gladly work with all Members to improve outcomes for this group throughout my time in this role. On calls for a national approach to care leavers in custody, I can share that my colleagues in the Ministry of Justice are looking at this, and will give Members an update by the end of 2025.

Let me start by making a point that may seem obvious: the disadvantage faced by the care-experienced community is one of the greatest social justice issues of our time. Ensuring that those who grow up in the care of the state have a shot at a good life is a collective obligation, and for too long, we have been found wanting when it comes to ensuring that the obligation is met. That is in part because meeting it is about providing assets that any Government or service would struggle to provide. These assets are so fundamental. They are the need for belonging—a tribe—and the need for something intrinsic to the human condition: lifelong, loving relationships. That is why, at the start of this first ever Care Leavers Month, I say plainly, as the Minister for Children and Families, that the creation and sustenance of those relationships must become the obsession of the care and leaving care systems in England.

When we fail care-experienced people in that endeavour, we leave them with lives that are more isolated, a weaker sense of belonging, and questions about their self-worth. The tragic consequences for some is a life cut short. Suicide and early death are, tragically, a part of the care experience for too many. To start to solve a problem, we must first confront it. That is why I have commissioned the Department for Education to review the shockingly high number of early deaths in the care-experienced community.

However, we do not need to wait to act, and this Government certainly have not waited. We have a comprehensive plan to fix the children’s social care system at every single level. That is core to the relentless focus of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on breaking down barriers to opportunity at every stage. Let me give the House a sense of the recent action that we have taken to improve support for care leavers. We have removed the local area connection test in social housing allocations for care leavers. That is crucial for those who have grown up in care and moved around between different local authorities. We have expanded corporate parenting duties to public bodies, especially the NHS. We have committed to expanding Staying Close and local authority offers of support for housing. We have disapplied the intentionally homeless test for eligible care leavers, meaning that they should no longer have to declare themselves homeless to their corporate parent in order to receive housing support. Very recently, the Secretary of State for Education automatically made care leavers able to get the highest level of maintenance support at university. Overall, we have doubled down on the Families First programme, which will see many more families stay together successfully, avoiding the need for the care system, including through much greater support for kinship care.

My hon. Friend has outlined the vast range of steps that the Government have taken in short order to fix a very broken care system, but these things take time, and local authorities are under unimaginable pressure—they are at breaking point in many cases. What can he do in the short term to ensure that local authorities can continue to provide care for looked-after children and do not reach breaking point?

I thank my hon. Friend for that important intervention. As a country, we must reset the children’s social care system. We must move away from the crisis-led approach that the system has been stuck in for far too long, and towards earlier effective intervention for families. Local authorities need help and support to do that. They will have my full backing in making that transition. We are rolling out a national programme that will leave no local authority behind in the pursuit of that goal. I will speak to local authorities at the end of this month to set out more detail of how they will get the Government’s full backing to make those changes.

Further to that point, we must do much more to support the recruitment and retention of foster carers across our country. Much of what we see in the care system is a symptom of a fostering system that has been in decline for too long. Next year is the centenary of the fostering system in England, and I cannot think of a better time than now to reset how we do fostering.

Stoke-on-Trent has the second highest number of children in care per capita—second only to Blackpool. The items that the Minister has outlined are welcome for children in my city, but because we have that high per-capita number, the costs are such that more money is spent on children in care than can be found for those who are transitioning out of care. What is available to local authorities with acute demand that are in distress, so that as a vast number of young people leave care and go forward in life, we are able to put social support around them?

I am in the unusual position of having been commissioned to do a review for a Government, and of then being in a position to start implementing its findings. One of the things I called for was additional spending to help local authorities that are in exactly the situation that my hon. Friend described get out of that vortex with additional spending, and that is what this Government are doing.

One of my constituents came to my surgery to talk about her experience of being a care leaver. We discussed making care-experienced children a protected characteristic, and the discrimination that she felt in the education system. On local authorities, should we not do more to ensure that schools and colleges have the tools needed to educate our young people about the difficulties that people go through in the care system, so that discrimination is eradicated?

I completely agree. I first came across these issues as a secondary school teacher, and I see fully the impact that teachers, schools, colleges, and universities can have when these issues are spotted in the classroom and acted on. We absolutely should do more on that.

I conclude by celebrating the extraordinary people who make up the care-experienced community in England. When I meet people who have grown up in care, I always sense a remarkable determination, and the special perspective that they have on humanity and relationships. It is often called a superpower by others, and we should do as much as we can as a country to tap into the incredible talents of that community—talents such as those of Tony Simpson, partner at Oliver Wyman; Meera Mistry, director of strategy at an NHS trust; Allan Jenkins, the award-winning former editor of The Observer “Food Monthly”; Ivor Frank, a barrister at Church Court Chambers; Jack Holton, a baritone opera singer; Lemn Sissay, author, poet, and former chancellor of Manchester University; Samantha Morton, Oscar-nominated BAFTA-winning actress; Kriss Akabusi; Fatima Whitbread; the noble Baroness Lola Young; the noble Baroness Floella Benjamin; and AJ, a young care-experienced person from Coventry whom I had the pleasure of meeting a few weeks ago. He is embarking on his first few months of adulthood with the support of his grandfather, who the care system managed to find and reconnect him with. He has a bright future ahead of him.

I will close with the words of Richard Henry Tawney:

“What a wise parent would wish for their children, so the state must wish for all its children.”

That is the spirit in which we should change the care system. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster Central for securing this important debate. We must all get to work for those in and leaving care.

Question put and agreed to.