Part of Backbench Business – in Westminster Hall at 1:30 pm on 14 September 2023.
Absolutely, and I am grateful for that intervention, because the right hon. Member makes a case that I have made throughout, whenever I have talked about kinship carers: the Government cannot afford not to provide this support. The analysis shows that if we paid kinship carers a similar allowance to foster carers, for every child that we prevent from going into care, the Government would save £35,000 a year. It is a no-brainer because of both the short-term savings to the Treasury and the long-term savings, in terms of the more positive outcomes that we achieve for those children.
So what opportunity stands before us with the national kinship care strategy? It provides a key opportunity for the Government to deliver financial and educational support to children in kinship care that will be truly transformative. Kinship carers cannot wait for another spending review or a different colour of Government.
My Kinship Care Bill, introduced last year, had four main asks, and I hope that the strategy will make significant progress towards implementing each one. First, all kinship carers should have a weekly allowance at the same level as the national minimum fostering allowance. Many experience severe financial hardship. Kinship’s survey last year found that two in five kinship carers had avoided putting the heating on, one in five skipped meals and more than one in eight used food banks. A national, non-means-tested allowance would end the system of patchy, means-tested allowances that reflect a postcode lottery in the support that councils can afford to provide.