23. What recent steps his Department has taken to support care leavers. (901090)

I congratulate my hon. Friend’s work on the all-party group on financial education for young people. Last month, we launched the cross-departmental care leavers strategy, brokered through the Cabinet Committee on Social Justice, to ensure that for the first time pooled resources from education, employment, health, housing and justice will be tailored to the challenge facing a group of young people for too long left to struggle alone.

Does the Secretary of State agree that equipping young people in general and care leavers in particular to manage their own finances well is a vital tool? What are the Government doing to address this matter, as recommended by the report of the all-party group on financial education for young people?

Again, I congratulate my hon. Friend, because we will definitely be considering this next recommendation of hers. I have listened and read her suggestions, and we have actually managed to alter the new curriculum. The final version will now state that

“the functions and uses of money, the importance and practice of budgeting, and managing risk…income and expenditure, credit and debt, insurance, savings and pensions, financial products and services”

will be taught as part of the curriculum for the first time.