asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will publish national minimum levels of boarding-out allowances to be paid to foster parents in respect of foster children.

As my hon. Friend knows, local authorities determine their own scales of boarding-out allowances in the light of individual and local circumstances. However, separately from its guide to practice, the Working Party on Fostering Practice, responding to an invitation to consider boarding-out allowances, suggested that my Department should discuss with the local authorities' associations the basis of calculating these allowances and how these might be regularly reviewed, and this we propose to do.