New clauses 6 and 10 deal with children with disabilities in long-term placements. The issue has been raised in the Lords and it is a campaign by the Every Disabled Child Matters group. All of us in Committee sympathise with what that group has achieved; it has been very effective. I do not understand why the Government were not more sympathetic to adopting the proposal in Another place, so I will be grateful for more clarification from the Minister in this place.

The Every Disabled Child Matters campaign welcomes the progress that the House of Lords made to improve the Bill for disabled children and young people, as do we. Part of that was the short breaks from caring provision, which we debated earlier and is greatly welcomed.

The new clauses would require local authorities to consider whether disabled children in long-term residential placements should have the protection and support of looked-after children status. They retain the flexibility to ensure that the right solution is found for each child and family, but make sure that every child placed away from home will have their safeguarding needs properly considered.

Looked-after status should include disabled children in long-term residential placements in education or health settings, some of whom are away from home for 52 weeks of the year with little or no parental contact. Looked-after status would provide a package of support for those children, including a contact plan to support parents to maintain contact with their children while they are away from home. We are talking about severely disabled children who require specialist placements. Those placements are few and far between and for many children will inevitably mean being a long distance from home, with implications and practical problems for keeping contact with their parents and other people looking out for them.

The few homes that offer those specialist services do a fantastic job. I have visited many of them and have seen the services and the dedication of the staff. Those long-term placements are for children who are not in the care system on account of having been taken away  from their birth parents because of abuse or other problems, but who are living away from their parents because they are severely disabled and require the intensive and specialist support that many of the homes and education or health settings offer.

The Every Disabled Child Matters campaign thinks that there is a gap in the system. The 2005 review of disabled children in residential placements recommended a more consistent application of looked-after status for disabled children spending long periods in residential placements, particularly those are far from home. That recommendation recognises that disabled children are three times more likely to be subject to abuse than their non-disabled peers, and therefore require much more robust child protection measures and support from the placing authority. There is widespread confusion on the part of residential settings, local authorities and parents about that, and Government research shows that guidance is too often disregarded. We are not talking about an enormous body of children. Recent statistics show that 338 children are placed in residential accommodation for 52 weeks of the year without the protection of looked-after status. The new clauses would send a clear message to local authorities that they should consider looked-after status for disabled children in long-term placements, to determine whether or not that is the best way to keep them safe.

The current system for allocating looked-after status is inconsistent and confusing for families, and it is not optimal for safeguarding vulnerable children. We are not trying to undermine the voice of the parents; the proposed approach would support the creation of partnerships between parents and local authorities, and those partnerships would maintain parental rights and responsibilities as set out in section 20 of the Children Act 1989. That section was designed as an opportunity to create such partnerships, and placements made under it are based on a voluntary arrangement between the local authority and the child’s parents. That does not affect parental responsibility, which remains with the natural parents. We are not stepping in to override the parents’ wishes and be unduly nannying.

To conclude, I shall outline the benefits of looked-after status for this small body of children. Disabled children living away from home without looked-after status miss out on a range of measures to support and protect their welfare. If looked-after status were given to those children, they could receive an allocated social worker, and a care plan that identified their needs and how those should be met, and which included the views and wishes of the child and their family. There would also be a health assessment and health plan, and a contact plan to promote contact between the child and their family, along with access to support for the costs associated with visits from the family. There would be an allocated independent reviewing officer to monitor implementation of the care plan and to ensure that the child’s views were being taken into account, and finally there would be regular reviews of the placement, and access to after care advice and assistance to support the young person’s successful move on from the placement.

The solution proposed by the new clauses put forward by the Every Disabled Child Matters group is a straightforward assessment process at the point of placement, to decide whether looked-after status would best promote a child’s welfare. The status would not be  compulsory. Parents and local authorities would decide together, with input from the child, whether measures that come with looked-after status, such as an allocated social worker and access to the support and protection they provide, would benefit the child. That, after all, is our primary consideration. The new clauses would be a positive addition to the Bill, and I genuinely do not understand why the Government did not respond more positively in another place. Perhaps they have had a change of heart, which I will be delighted to hear now from the Minister.