Whether we refer to looked-after children, or children looked after, we’re talking about the individual lives of those who depend on us to give them life chances. As we heard, at 5,617, the number of looked-after children in Wales in 2015 was up 200 on 2011, and 1,000 on 2008. And, as I stated when we debated this in 2011, looked-after children have much poorer psychological and social outcomes when compared to their peers. A 2004 study found that the prevalence of mental disorders for children and young people aged five to 17 and looked after by local authorities in Wales was 49 per cent. Another study found that psychiatric disorders are particularly high among those living in residential care and with many changes of placement.

Although 94 per cent of looked-after children do not get involved in the criminal justice system, research in 2005 showed that up to 41 per cent of children who end up in custody across the UK will have some history of being in care. The Centre for Social Justice report, ‘Couldn’t Care Less’, stated that the treatment of many children in care and those leaving the care system deserves to be a source of national shame. These children, they said, too often go on to experience lives characterised by unemployment, homelessness, mental illness and addiction. We’re picking up these enormous costs through the criminal justice system and the health service and these are set to rise.

The 2009 Westminster Children, Schools and Families Committee report found that the state is failing in its duty to act as a parent to children in care, by not adequately protecting them from sexual exploitation, homelessness, and falling into crime, with children in care, aged 10 and over, more than twice as likely to be cautioned or convicted of an offence. It also revealed evidence of organised, targeted exploitation of girls in residential homes and hostels and warned that the vulnerability of young people leaving care was a matter of great concern.

The Children’s Commissioner for Wales 2010-11 annual report stated that the provision of advocacy for looked-after children, care leavers and children in need is inconsistent across Wales. Lessons from Sir Ronald Waterhouse’s report ‘Lost in Care’, the Carlisle review, ‘Too Serious a Thing’, and our own ‘Telling Concerns’, they said, are that advocacy is an essential element of safeguarding, enabling children and young people to speak up when they perceive that something is wrong. He added that if this is to happen for all children and young people in care, we would expect that all of them would be actively encouraged to have an advocate with whom they can build up a trusting relationship.

What the paper also showed was that other countries seemed to be much more responsive to the needs of the children they’ve taken into care, and often with better results. The previous children’s commissioner also spoke about his frustration at the ‘initial slow response’ to recommendations he’d made about independent advocacy in his 2012 ‘Missing Voices’ report and the follow-up 2013 report, ‘Missing Voices: Missing Progress’. We therefore need to know whether local authorities and Welsh Government will implement together a national model for statutory advocacy services to meet the requirements of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014. We also need to address the attainment gap between looked-after children and that of all pupils, rising from 23 per cent at foundation phase to 40 per cent at key stage 4, with only 18 per cent of looked-after children achieving five A* to C GCSEs, including English or Welsh and maths.

The 2009 children’s commissioner’s ‘Full of Care’ report referred to the advantages that a young carers identity card could bring, and, four years ago, I attended the official launch by the children’s commissioner of the Barnardo’s Cymru and Flintshire County Council Access to Action card for young carers, looked-after children and care leavers. This was the first of its kind in Wales, designed to help young people to receive recognition and prompt access to services they need. Although this should have been a template for an all-Wales card—something I raised with the Welsh Government at the time—I now understand it’s not received the support it needs and I urge the Welsh Government to address this and expand it across Wales.

And as the Centre for Social Justice’s ‘Survival of the Fittest’ report states, and I conclude, we must address

‘the extreme loneliness and isolation felt by care leavers, by finding ways to foster enduring and supportive relationships, with birth families, siblings, former carers and children’s services, that last long after 21.’