
Shadow children’s minister Steve McCabe told CYP Now that the party is “not convinced” that allowing young people to stay in children’s homes until the age of 21 is the best way to improve outcomes.
Currently young people can stay in residential care until the age of 18, but, as a result of legislation that came into effect last year, young people in foster care have the opportunity to stay in the placement until they reach 21 – so-called “Staying Put” arrangements.
Campaigners are calling for parity between the two forms of care, and a scoping study ordered by Conservative children’s minister Edward Timpson recommended that government proceed with raising the age for leaving residential care at an estimated cost of £76m a year.
McCabe told CYP Now that rather than raising the age for leaving residential care to 21, the party wants to try to improve the support that young people receive when they leave care.
“We recognise that the anomaly created by the Staying Put fostering arrangement will have to be addressed and I think it is very unlikely that the present arrangement would withstand a legal challenge,” McCabe said.
“Obviously the fostering arrangements were the result of a fairly extensive pilot and we will need a period of time to address this issue.
“Labour is not convinced that the best solution is young people remaining in children's homes to age 21 or beyond but we do think there should be much better transition arrangements to help young people leave care.”
McCabe said he is “particularly interested” in the work of the Foyer Federation, which specialises in supported housing, training and employment, homeless prevention initiatives, transitional learning and health and wellbeing programmes.
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