It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I welcome the Minister to her place. Today we are discussing an extremely difficult topic and focusing on the difficulties that children face within the care system. Some of the endemic problems are probably beyond their control and can have dangerous and devastating consequences, not only for their lives right now, as young people, but in the longer term. We should take a moment to appreciate how serious the subject is, and how the serious ramifications of not taking action can have a long-term impact on their lives. I congratulate Ann Coffey on securing this debate, and I thank her for the work that she has done as chair of the all-party group for runaway and missing children and adults.

The APPG’s report, “No Place at Home”, which was produced with The Children’s Society, indicates just some of the figures—as Members can imagine, they are difficult to obtain—to outline how much of a problem this is. The worrying factor is the untold statistics. After I graduated, I supported a young looked-after person in Brighton. That was a good 10 years or more ago—I am sure the system has changed since then—but my experience has informed me. The idea that a young person at 16 years old is mature enough, or sufficiently supported, to be able to live independently is perhaps something that the Minister could look at, with regard to how the process works in England. How can we allow such a young person to leave the foster care setting—their foster care placement might not have been the most successful—and go to live in private, independent accommodation? That accommodation might be provided through the charity sector, a business or an organisation that gives a sense of support, but ultimately it can never provide the same level of support as a family parental setting or a foster care setting. I am sure the Minister will agree that we can look further at how local authorities in England contract out responsibilities to organisations and how much their accountability for that contracting service is truly examined. Is that the most efficient, the most cost-effective or even the best way to trace the outcomes of young people?

The young person I supported was incredibly inspirational; she had sought to go to fashion college in London and had got a place. Sadly, though, she had come up against the education system and had not succeeded for a variety of reasons. Her foster care placements had not been very successful, and then she had found herself living independently, with everything that comes with that, and she was starting to enter a world of challenges and distractions—be it drugs or alcohol—at the age of 16. No matter how much I wanted to support that person, my role was simply to tutor her and support her to get through her college coursework. No amount of Intervention that I singlehandedly, or the many other peripheral services, could put in place could prevent her from entering that path. I will never know where she ended up or what happened, but I know about the outcomes for 16-year-olds and the opportunities that were presented to her in that vulnerable and challenging setting of living independently at 16 years old. I still live with the regret that perhaps I could have done more, and I was one of many people involved in the service. I hope the Minister will have a serious think about whether that model of care is the best one.

Jim Shannon should be a spokesman for the Scottish National party, but we have slightly different views on numerous subjects. None the less, he does a very good job. He highlighted the work of the Scottish Government, which is what I want to speak to today. From a professional perspective, I want to outline where we are tackling this matter differently. The report is hard-hitting, and it details the harsh realities faced by some children in the care system who have been let down by failures in the system. I appreciate that one Minister or one Government Department cannot prevent the systematic failures that can befall a young person, but the most important point that the report makes is that children are often ripped away from their support networks of family and friends because of placements far away from where they have grown up. The placements are based not on where is best for the child, but on where is cheapest for them to be sent. Tragically, the report makes it clear that these children can on occasions become magnets for paedophiles and drug traffickers.

Children in care are among some of the most vulnerable in society. Their circumstances are often due to problems of neglect and abuse within their family, which can mean additional mental health problems for children. Children in care run away for many reasons, such as stress, anger, and unhappiness at being in care. Myriad other issues can come with adverse childhood experiences. Running away can put those children in huge danger, including sexual and criminal exploitation, and, as we have heard, physical harm, being introduced to drugs, and untold other harms. For that reason, every missing person report is deeply worrying, and never more so than when it involves a child or a young person.

In 2018 in Scotland, 1,935 cases of children in care going missing were reported to the police. Earlier this year, the Scottish Government awarded £30,000 to two charities, Missing People and Barnardo’s, to develop materials to educate children and young people about the dangers of going missing, and to encourage them to access support. The project supports the goals of Scotland’s national missing persons framework, which aims to improve the way in which agencies and organisations work together to support vulnerable people and prevent individuals from running away.

According to the charity Missing People, only one in 20 young people in Scotland who ran away reached out for professional help. Most young people simply do not know that support is available to them. We can put as much money into the system as possible, but if we do not start to tackle the myriad other factors, we will not get to the heart of it. The Scottish Government are also leading a bold drive to reduce stressful and poor quality childhoods, and to support children and adults in overcoming early life adversity. We recognise that ACEs, as we now know them—adverse childhood experiences—can have a long-term impact, but the SNP also recognises that it is important to respond appropriately to the emotional distress that is linked both to the circumstances that led to a child becoming looked after, and to the experience of being looked after in any setting.

The 2018-19 programme for government builds on our commitment to prevent adverse childhood experiences and to mitigate the negative impact where they do occur. The Scottish Government also aim to have a care system where fewer children need to become looked after by engaging early to support and build on the assets within families and communities. I know my hon. Friend Hannah Bardell has a lot to say on that from her own personal experience.