Summary: Looked After Children (Distance Placements) Bill Jake Richards MP

A Bill to require local authorities to publish information about looked after children in distance placements; to require local authorities to develop and publish sufficiency plans in respect of their duty under section 22G of the Children Act 1989; to require the Secretary of State to publish a national sufficiency plan in respect of looked after children in distance placements; and for connected purposes.

Looked After Children (Distance Placements) Bill – Hansard – UK Parliament

My Bill aims to make a very modest but significant change to the way we approach our responsibility to the children’s social care estate—in particular, the lack of any meaningful strategy or local initiatives to ensure that there are good, safe care places in every locality across the country, so that children are not placed miles and miles away from their communities, families, schools and friends.

In recent years we have seen a deeply troubling trend of children in care being placed far from home, sometimes hundreds of miles from their communities, schools and support networks, and those placements are no longer exceptional: they are becoming the norm. New data obtained through a freedom of information request I submitted reveals that nearly 10% of all children in care in England now live more than 50 miles from home. Some 4% live more than 100 miles from home. The number of children placed more than 50 miles from home has risen from just over 6,000 in 2020 to well over 7,000 in 2024. Those are not isolated outliers; they are thousands of children sent far from their schools and support networks, and often their siblings and other family members, not because it is in their best interests, but because there is simply nowhere nearby for them to go.

Even more worryingly, some children are now being placed across borders. The number of children in England moved out of the country, primarily to Wales and Scotland, has risen by 9% since 2020. Placements in Wales alone have increased by 15% over that time. These cross-border moves are even more complex, taking children away from the oversight of their placing authority and often into different jurisdictions, with entirely different education and care systems. Those decisions are not taken through incompetence; they are the result of a system that lacks capacity, co-ordination and meaningful planning, and the impact on children’s lives, their education, their mental health and their relationships is profound. Because these are looked-after children—a phrase that ought to promise protection but too often rings hollow—their needs are bureaucratised, their voices are marginalised and their lives are shifted like chess pieces on a board they never asked to be part of.

Distant placements are no longer exceptional, but systemic. In some local authorities, more than 70% of looked-after children are placed outside the home area.

My Bill does not seek to overhaul the care system or burden already stretched local authorities. It sets out three clear practical measures. First, it would place a statutory duty on local authorities to collect and publish data on distant placements—specifically, how many children are placed more than 20 miles from home, and how many have been moved in the past year due to a lack of suitable local provision. Secondly, it would require every local authority in England to produce an annual local sufficiency plan, which is a clear, forward-looking strategy setting out how they will meet their duty under section 22G of the Children Act 1989 to secure sufficient accommodation in their area. Thirdly, it would introduce a duty on the Secretary of State for Education to publish a national sufficiency plan after each financial year. That strategy must bring together the data collected from local authorities, and set out what action the Government are taking to support councils in meeting their duties.

… too many children are being placed far from home. It called for a fundamental reset—a shift from a reactive, fragmented care system to one grounded in early intervention, as the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) has advocated for, with strong relationships and homes that are local, loving and stable. It warned of a dangerous reliance on large private providers, many of which operate with little accountability and at high cost. We could have a whole separate debate about the extortionate costs of private companies in the care system and the profits they are making on the backs of desperate local authorities. That review also made a powerful case for rethinking the way in which we plan for care, arguing that the absence of a joined-up national approach has left too many children at risk of instability, isolation and, in some cases, real harm.

We know from councils that the crisis in placement sufficiency is leaving them with little choice. They face a dire shortage of foster carers, especially those trained to provide therapeutic support, and they are locked in bidding wars with other local authorities, or priced out by private providers demanding fees that would make even a well-resourced system buckle. If the state is going to remove a child from their family and their community —an enormous, draconian power and responsibility—the least it can do is ensure that every child does not lose everything else in the process. We must not only protect children, but nurture them; we must provide not just safety, but stability. I hope that the Bill lays the groundwork for that ambition. It would ensure that we do not just talk about sufficiency but plan for it. It would ensure that we treated data not as a bureaucratic requirement, but as the foundation of good care, and it would ensure that Parliament played a role in scrutinising the system, rather than simply reacting to its failures.

The Bill would not ban distance placements, because, as I have touched on, there will always be cases where a child must be moved, but it says firmly that they should never be the default. Placements should never be driven by gaps in provision, lack of planning or market dysfunction, and the Government must take a leading role in changing the care system.

Rebecca Paul Conservative

The ambition of improving the transparency of data about placements of looked-after children is much welcomed. The Bill would place a duty on local authorities to publish such information, making it easier to identify where there are issues, and where local authorities are not performing. We will start to see tangible improvement only when the extent of the issue nationally is clearly laid out. As is often the way, measurement prompts improvement.

… I should acknowledge that for all the justifiable talk today against distance placements, there is a very limited set of circumstances in which they are appropriate and necessary. Some children need specialist provision that simply does not exist locally. Others may need to be placed at a distance to ensure their safety if they have become involved with gangs or are threatened by an abuser. The question is not whether distance placements should be banned—they should not—but how we can get to a point where they are used only when it is truly and demonstrably in the best interests of the child.

A key focus is how we recruit, retain and support foster carers, and how we encourage local authorities to invest in local residential provision at a time of such pressure on their budgets. Many of the answers lie in not only legislation but funding, training and leadership, both local and national.

Janet Daby

I am pleased that the Bill provides the opportunity to consider the importance of residential children’s homes, and the sufficiency of placements.

I want to put on record that I am clear that a child should be placed far away from their home only when that is in their best interests. In the current system, however, a lack of availability of suitable local placements is too often the deciding factor for too many children, who end up being placed in care far away from their home and community. This situation may have been acceptable under the previous Government, but it is not acceptable to this one. We must change it, and we will. We are already working with local authorities to do so. I have met many campaign groups, and have spoken to young people and professionals about this specific area of change.

Local authorities have an existing duty to collect data on out-of-area placements. Since becoming Minister, I have come to realise that this data is actually published every year. The proposals in this Bill are therefore unlikely to tell us anything new about local authority sufficiency that will help. The data tells us that as of 31 March 2024, more than two thirds of children were placed less than 20 miles from their home, but that 45% of children were placed outside their local authority boundary. That is not good enough. However, the statistics cover many situations where a placement further away was in the child’s best interests, and where that was part of the care plan, rather than it being due to local insufficiency.

I absolutely agree that bold action is needed to improve sufficiency, but the variety and complexity of children’s needs and their individual situations mean that we cannot always easily categorise distance placements as inappropriate. Local authority staff work hard to find placements in really challenging situations. If a placement is found that best meets a child’s needs, but it is some distance away, the issue will be ensuring the child’s safety and wellbeing, and ensuring that contact is sustained, where that is appropriate. Furthermore, requiring national Government to publish sufficiency plans misunderstands the way that duties and funding operate in this space, and risks creating confusion. Responsibility sits at local authority level and it is not for national Government to assess the levels or types of need in each area, or how that need is best met.

Debate adjourned

Ordered, That the debate be resumed on Friday 11 July.