Residential Care Institutions

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Social Justice – in the Senedd at 2:13 pm on 6 July 2022.

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Photo of Jane Hutt Jane Hutt Labour 2:13, 6 July 2022

No, I think I shall disagree with every point. It's hard to answer, isn't it, a question like that? Well, it's not questions, it's comments—it's comments, which I won't be responding to in terms of your last point at all. We have an independent children's commissioner who was appointed by a cross-party panel, and we wish her well in her post.

But can I say that this, of course, is a commitment from this Welsh Government, in our programme for government, supported, I know, by Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Liberal Democrats, that we remove, we eliminate, private profit from the care of looked-after children and that we progress with it. And of course that involves working with stakeholders as we progress that. Of course, it's collaborative work with our stakeholders and it's about transitioning to not-for-profit provisioning. The transition is key and the support for our looked-after children—the First Minister answered this in full yesterday afternoon—I think is robust in terms of our commitment to ensuring that we're not just caring for our looked-after children, but also that we ensure that fewer children have to come into the looked-after care system.