asked Her Majesty's Government:

By what percentage the number of children taken into care has risen over the past decade; and whether they anticipate any further increase.

My Lords, the number of children entering care on a care order in England increased from 2,600 in 1995 to 4,100 in 2005—an increase of just under 58 per cent. The Green Paper published last week examined how the care population is changing and announced a new working group chaired by Martin Narey, the chief executive of Barnardo's, to consider the long-term vision for the care system. Its report will inform our long-term strategy for supporting children within and outside care.

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his Answer. My understanding is that the actual total of children in care rose by 20 per cent between 31 March 1996 and 31 March last year. If that is so—I think that the Government accept it—do they regard that as a sign of progress or of the deteriorating circumstances surrounding young people? Furthermore, will the total number of young people in care not increase when the Government's action plan for social exclusion announced by the Prime Minister last month comes into operation? That action plan involves even more and earlier intervention by the state in the lives of young people.

My Lords, the figures that the noble Lord cited are broadly correct. We hope that earlier intervention, which is at the heart of the social exclusion action plan, will lead to fewer, not more, children going into care. I stress that the increase in the number of children going into care is due almost entirely to care orders involving those who would be at risk if they were not taken into care and is not due to voluntary placements. The social exclusion action plan has at its heart better identification and earlier intervention, including better protection tools for use by front-line practitioners—for example, health visitors and community midwives. We very much expect that giving the support to families that is needed will result in fewer children going into care because they will be better provided for and their parents will be better supported in the child's earliest years.

In conjunction with that, we are developing children's centres, which will act as a focus of special support for parents. There are 1,025 Sure Start children's centres in operation. We are committed to having 2,500 by 2008 and 3,500 by 2010. Spending on Sure Start alone will reach £1.8 billion next year, which is double the figure for 2004. I hope that by giving parents earlier support all those measures will result in fewer children going into care in future.

My Lords, I am sure that everyone supports the Government's intention of reducing the number of children taken into care. However, do the Government intend to make available support and resources that would enable ageing grandparents or disabled members of a child's family to take on the responsibility for that child, who might otherwise have to be taken into care, and, if not, why not?

My Lords, kinship care is complex, as the noble Baroness will recognise. At the moment, many relatives, including grandparents, are registered foster carers and are eligible for the full support available to foster carers, including the new minimum allowances for foster parents, which were introduced this year. Local authorities that have not offered those allowances to kinship carers have been subject to legal action. Recently, a major local authority settled an out-of-court action in respect of relatives who were not given that allowance. Martin Narey will examine the wider issue of the development of kinship care and the role that relatives such as grandparents can play as part of his review on the future of care.

My Lords, many of us on these Benches are pleased with much of the Green Paper, not least because it examines the needs of children in care who get into trouble with the law, but how do the Government plan to tackle this group's over-representation among the prison population?

My Lords, the better the support that is available to children in care, both to prevent them going into care in the first place and to tackle issues such as the poor standard of education which children in care experience at present, the more likely we are to keep them out of the custody system—a measure which I am sure the right reverend Prelate supports. A whole section of the Green Paper, which was published last week, concerns how we better support children in care who end up in custody and are very liable to reoffend but who do not get the provision that they need when they leave custody. We hope that those measures will also improve that situation.

My Lords, the Green Paper published last week contained the very welcome measure that young people can choose to remain in foster care until the age of 21, or even later if they are in further or higher education. Has the Minister any idea of the number of young people choosing to do that? Will he assure the House that, when the relevant figures are collected in future, the figure relating to those children will be recorded separately so that we can genuinely see any increase or decrease in the number of children in the lower age groups taken into care?

My Lords, as the noble Baroness will be aware, for two years now children coming up to16 have had the option to remain in care. Better support arrangements are in place to enable them to do so. A substantial and rising proportion have chosen to do so. I believe that we will monitor the number in the older age ranges who choose to stay in care. I shall let the noble Baroness know how we propose to do that.

My Lords, the most alarming fact about children in care is that they are 66 times more likely to have their own children taken into care, creating a generational vicious circle. There are massive variations in the number of children taken into care across the country. What action has been taken, other than publishing the Green Paper, to address that?

My Lords, when we discussed the Green Paper last week, the noble Baroness pointed out, for example, the work that Kent County Council has done to better support children in care. We are doing a great deal to promote best practice between local authorities in this area, which is a prime local authority responsibility. I accept that there is more that we need to do in future, and we will seek to do it.