What steps she is taking to tackle academic under-achievement by children in care.

Improving the educational achievement of looked-after children is a key priority for this Government. Thanks to the significant sums that we have invested, especially through the quality protects and choice protects programmes, we are making some progress. We are building on this in a number of ways—for example, via the duty on local authorities to promote the educational achievement of looked-after children that we introduced earlier this year.

I thank my hon. Friend for her reply. As a former chair of social services, I know from first-hand experience that a high priority has been given to looked-after children—a development that started under my right hon. Friend Frank Dobson. I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the large number of young people and children who are on the at-risk register. What steps can she take to encourage that group to do their very best in education?

I am happy to join my hon. Friend in commending my right hon. Friend Frank Dobson, whose Intervention in this matter as Secretary of State for Health in 1998 is still remembered very well by those responsible for looked-after children. However, we still have to do more. My hon. Friend referred to children on the at-risk register, not all of whom would be looked-after children. There is no doubt that such very vulnerable children can face far more obstacles in ensuring that they progress as well as other children during their school years. The increasing emphasis that we are placing on targeted and personalised support—not only for the gifted and talented, but for the vulnerable—should ensure that such children get the proper support that they need when they need it, in order to overcome the extra obstacles that they face.

Given that children who languish either in institutional care or, indeed, in serial fostering arrangements face particular challenges, anything that the Government can do on that front to improve their prospects will be warmly welcomed on both sides of the House. May I ask the Minister in particular what is being done to ensure that there are plenty of opportunities for such children, first, for reading, and secondly, for adequate and monitored homework?

The hon. Gentleman raises some important points about stability of placement. One of the real difficulties that some looked-after children have in doing as well as they should at school and reaching their potential is that they are frequently moved—whether it be from foster placement to foster placement or from school to school. That often presents difficulties, making it more likely that such children miss more chunks of their schooling than others. We need to do more and we have a target to try to ensure greater stability in placement, which the Department is currently striving hard to reach. The further effort that we are going to put into targeted and personalised support—identifying the needs of these children through the children's trust arrangements, which will ensure that every child has more support at an earlier stage—will be an important step forward and help to ensure that these children are not left behind, languishing at the bottom of the pile, as too many of them currently do.

Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating Collingwood college of Durham university in my Constituency on its excellent mentoring scheme, whereby university students mentor looked-after children in the area, help them with their studies and, most importantly, raise their educational aspirations? Will she look into ways of fully recognising and expanding that scheme?

I would be happy to pass on my congratulations to the college and institution that my hon. Friend mentions and to the people who are doing that work. I am looking into seeing what further proposals we can make to improve the opportunities for support and extra help that looked-after children receive, and I am convinced that improving the reality of corporate parenting and improving the reality of mentoring, support and high aspiration for each individual child who is looked after has to be a way forward. We need a pushy parent for every one of these children and I am looking into ways of carrying that forward.

One of the great unsung scandals of the education system is the achievement of looked-after children across all the qualification ranges. She quite rightly mentioned the problem of multiple foster placements. If a child is moved from one end of an authority to the other, the continuity and stability goes and, unsurprisingly, the educational achievement lapses. Does the Minister agree with our proposals for authorities to have a cap on the number of foster placements that can be made in a year for a particular child, other than in exceptional circumstances? That would help to give them stability at the same education provider.

We are pursuing that aim—I agree that it is important—to improve the stability of the lives of looked-after children so that they do not have multiple placements. The hon. Gentleman referred to a cap, but it is hard to impose a cap because of—[Interruption.] The problem is that individual circumstances make it difficult. Our target will, however, focus the minds of local authorities—it is already doing so—on increasing stability. That involves fewer placements for individual children, but there may be circumstances in which it is right for a child to move from one placement to another. That mitigates against the use of something as inflexible as a cap, but there is no disagreement between what the hon. Gentleman said and what we think about the importance of stability in the lives of these children.