Speeches by Dixon.

“It was a delight to welcome my hon. Friend to Saltaire recently as part of the World Heritage UK conference, where he saw the regeneration of Salts Mill at the heart of our world heritage site and the amazing regeneration that it has brought to the whole village. Is that an example that he thinks his own world heritage…”

“I thank the Minister for his comments. Last week on the Public Accounts Committee, we heard about the shocking scandal of faulty cavity wall insulation under the energy company obligation 4 scheme, for which the last Government outsourced oversight to TrustMark. I have heard from constituents across Shipley who potenti…”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“I briefly want to come back on growing a diversity of provision, including from the not-for-profit sector. There seem to be three barriers that the not-for-profit sector sometimes talks about. First, they may have facilities, but they are in the wrong place or are outdated, and it is harder to borrow. I am keen to know…”

“Okay. I am conscious of the time.”

“None of what you said overcomes the things that were mentioned as blockers: housing, the cost of living, issues of converting the home, and the pay and fees for foster carers. Can you say a bit more about how you are overcoming those challenges? It is very nice to do a recruitment campaign, but the NAO Report suggested…”

“On the costs of involving agencies as opposed to doing this through local authorities, can you give any explanation in terms of value for money? Why do the costs of independent fostering agency places seem to be going up, as opposed to local authority places? Are the hubs going to drive more people towards IFAs, which …”

“I am not looking for a repeat of the challenges. What are you doing to overcome them?”

“I would like to come on to foster carers. We touched on this with the previous panel, as sadly there has been a decline in the number of foster carers. You have talked a lot about encouraging kinship carers, and I think there has been some progress on that. Given that a place in a children’s home is eight times as expe…”

“I suppose this is the point I was coming to. It seems, from the picture you are painting, that it is crisis decision making on a Friday about a child. Are we confident in these reforms? How quickly are they going to commission the necessary provision on a proactive basis, whether that be securing appropriate residentia…”

“It goes back to whether you feel it is possible to keep those children safe. By safe, I mean that some of these children are vulnerable to being groomed into criminal gangs and county lines, with girls going into sexual exploitation and abuse, but also safe in terms of not self-harming and all sorts of other aspects. H…”

“Isabelle, the priority here is obviously keeping children safe. Adding to the challenge of out-of-area provision, if children are with illegal providers—unregistered providers—that means Ofsted is not going in to look. We heard that social workers are travelling across the country to check up on these providers. What g…”

“My concern is that there are new providers entering the market, buying up homes in cheap areas like mine—I have examples in Cottingley in my constituency—and taking placements, often out of area. This links to the previous question about out-of-area and unregistered. We had reports from neighbours about a child abscond…”

“Let’s set aside the ones that have been brought into this because of the change in regulation on supported accommodation, so that we are just looking at the ones where local authorities have children who they cannot find a place for due to sufficiency reasons. How quickly do you expect Ofsted to get the ones in the que…”

“You will have heard the pre-panel and the questions from my colleague Clive Betts around unregistered care; given that operating such homes is illegal, perhaps we should call it “illegal” care. Nearly a thousand children are now placed in unregistered homes each year. Ms Acland-Hood, shouldn’t that be zero?”

“What are the priorities?”

“FosterSupport, which supports foster carers, would argue that there are factors such as the level of pay, the amount of support they get, their rights and entitlements as workers, and the level of funding for supporting more complex children, such as through adaptations in the home. Are these barriers familiar to you, …”

“One of the reasons for more demand for residential care is the lack of foster care placements. I realise that not every foster care placement is suitable, but it appears that there is some decline in foster carers. Joe, what do you think the challenges are? Why are we losing foster carers, and how could we turn that ar…”

“Bradford council is an area with low property values, so quite a lot of councils commission out-of-area placements in that area. As you are representing the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, Rachael, could you say a little about the challenges of safeguarding children who are placed out of area?”

“I think just under half of children are placed more than 20 miles away from their original family home. Joe, I wonder whether, as a deputy to the Children’s Commissioner, you might say a bit about the impact on children of being placed far from home.”