(cont.) Children and young people within social services (cont. SoU19)

Gustaf Lantz (S)

Mr. Speaker! I would like to thank the member for the speech.

I reacted to the closing remark. The member of parliament said that a society can only have one top priority: the children. I became a bit thoughtful there, considering how this parliamentary term has looked. Not in any single budget during this parliamentary term has the government chosen to increase the child allowance. Instead, the government has chosen to lower taxes most for those with the highest incomes.

Now the government has come forward with a proposal regarding the maintenance support. One shall ensure with precision that children who happen to live in families with many siblings shall receive significantly less maintenance support. I ask myself: Is it really the case that this government, which is led by the Moderate Ulf Kristersson, has had the children as the top priority?

To this, we can add the failed youth care. The government has not bitten on any of the proposals that we Social Democrats have put forward to take back control and remove organized crime from the HVB homes. Is that really putting the children first?

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Noria Manouchi (M)

Mr. Speaker! It is always special when parties that govern in the parts of the country where child poverty is most widespread, where the number of child evictions is greatest and where unemployment is highest, and which have seen to it that there can be a difference of over ten years in life expectancy between residential areas in one and the same city, have the nerve to accuse us of misprioritization.

We ensure that a nursing assistant receives an extra month's salary per year in job tax credits. We introduce leisure cards so that all children will have access to a meaningful leisure time. We lower the employer contribution for young people, who we know have particular difficulty entering the labor market. We invest in vocational training, which practically guarantees jobs.

The Social Democrats have the nerve to criticize the Moderates for misprioritizations and for prioritizing the rich when it is the Social Democrats who are proposing that the rich should receive increased child allowances. We prioritize lowering the tax for those who earn the least. It will soon become obvious to everyone who files a tax return that the job tax credit which the Moderates have introduced in several parts is what has the greatest effect on the account.

Our tax cuts improve things for families who are struggling. I can mention reduced food VAT, reduced tax on petrol and diesel, or reduced preschool fees – the list showing how we prioritize that these families with children should have it better is infinitely long. The Social Democrats had eight years but did nothing of this. The question is why, Gustaf Lantz.

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Gustaf Lantz (S)

Mr. Speaker! When I hear the member, I wonder which children it is that one prioritizes. It is not all children. We have seen how this government has slaughtered the allowance. Because of that, many families will now be forced to apply for social assistance for their livelihood. We already see more people applying for social assistance. One has also not increased the child allowance.

I note that the member would like to talk about individual municipalities, but it is the state's responsibility we are talking about. That is what we are to discuss here in the Riksdag. That is what we have the mandate to decide on.

I also note that the member, despite my asking about it, does not want to touch the proposal concerning the fact that children who have many siblings will have significantly worse opportunities in life on that single basis. It is illogical for these children. It is illogical for me. It is illogical for a society that has the ambition to be a welfare society.

I am quite proud that we have a final safety net, which is the supply support, and that it also catches children. I think the ambition to have children as the top priority and to put them first is very good.

I am proud to represent a party that does not just talk, but also shows in budget after budget that it means business and wants to reduce the gaps in society rather than increase them. We do not prioritize large tax cuts for those with the highest incomes, but we prioritize the families who have had it tough due to price shocks and other things.

Above all, it is about the children. We particularly want to take care of youth care, which has completely spiraled out of control under this government's watch.

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Noria Manouchi (M)

Mr. Speaker! The Social Democrats can try to maintain their classic performance of being the party for the vulnerable. It is a lie that has been exposed many times.

The Speaker does not need to tell me about the Social Democrats' system – I grew up in it, and I hate it. I remember how BMW after BMW stood parked on the street while the neighbors' children lacked winter jackets during recess. I remember how four-year-olds were let out alone to play while the parents sat in the play area at Ica.

Adults and able-bodied people do not need more Social Democratic benefits. What these people need are activity requirements, education and work. Our benefit reforms are not introduced in a vacuum. They should not be viewed in isolation, but they should be viewed as pieces in a large puzzle of measures so that more people can move from unemployment and benefits to self-sufficiency.

This is what the moderate system means. This is what the work line means. The result, which we already see after four years with Ulf Kristersson as Prime Minister, is that relative poverty has decreased, according to SCB. It is also that unemployment has fallen for six months in a row, according to Arbetsförmedlingen. The Social Democrats can, of course, continue to deny that these data are real, but for Swedes out in the country, moderate politics matters. It makes it safer and wealthier to live as a Swede.

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Nils Seye Larsen (MP)

Mr. Speaker! It is nice to have an exchange of remarks with the member, who, as you know, grew up in the same city as I did. It was interesting to hear about the history.

Now, it was the case that there was an economic crisis in Sweden when we grew up. The alliance that governed Malmö managed to spend an enormous amount of money on tax cuts. We sat with enormously high unemployment.

Then one actually managed, despite the government holding onto the money tightly, to lower unemployment to below the average in the early 2000s, before the whole carousel with the job tax credit started. But that was not what I intended to ask about, even though I have now wasted a minute on it, but I intended to ask two questions that I had earlier.

The first concerns HVB homes. We have a completely dysfunctional HVB home market with an enormous number of private actors, even though it is absolutely crucial for the children that we have HVB homes of high quality. Therefore, I intend to ask the member: Does she believe that we would need to bring it back more under public control and ensure that HVB homes that function are built?

The second concerns, of course, the new Social Services Act, the work on which we initiated while in government. It is very clear that we are to have a knowledge-based social service. The work of the social service is part of a larger whole. There is great concern among many of those who work in the social service, where trust is paramount, because the interim coercive measures that are now coming are anything but empirically supported. Even the government's own agencies have pointed this out. Does the member see a problem with this?

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Noria Manouchi (M)

Mr. Speaker! Thank you for the questions, Nils Seye Larsen! It is wonderful to have another person from Skåne in the speaker's chair.

I thought I would start by answering a bit regarding the question about the HVB homes. I share the member's view that we have enormous problems when it comes to organized criminal groups that have entered the HVB sector. This is a complete failure, I must say.

There are some measures that the government has taken in this area. Among others, they have given Ivo more tools to handle unserious actors within HVB, a proposal that I believe the member actually voted for themselves, Mr. Speaker. It is about revoking certain permits. It is about suitability assessments for those who want to operate HVB. It is about simplified methods for municipalities to be able to report unserious or, for that matter, criminal actors.

In addition to this, the government has tightened the staffing requirements for HVB homes. They must have staff with education in a suitable area related to the operations. The government has also tasked Socialstyrelsen with strengthening the work on competence at HVB homes. We will have to see if this will be sufficient. The government may certainly need to do more, but measures have been taken and approved by a unanimous chamber. I was not in the committee then, but I am completely convinced that the member did.

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Nils Seye Larsen (MP)

Mr. Speaker! If I had sat on the committee, I would have certainly voted for it. It is good, but the great challenge is that it is a recurring theme. Therefore, my question is, so to speak, the step after. It is the same thing as when we said that we have a dysfunctional school market that has spiraled out of control. Then we are to introduce more controls. It is a bit the same thing here, where we see that there is a large dominance of private actors, many of whom obviously do not behave. Alarm reports arrive about how children are treated in HVB homes.

Is it not time to take the next step? And why was the investigation not commissioned to look at operating models? I believe it is a major challenge. Control and increased administration, for all it's worth, but when you have a dysfunctional market, you need to deal with it.

My second question, which I did not receive an answer to, concerns the investigation into intermediate coercion. There is a great deal of concern there, and I must say that I became extra worried when the Minister for Social Services was visiting the committee. We have a very clear law in place now that is preventive and fantastic and which clearly states that we should base our actions on empiricism and evidence.

The National Board of Health and Welfare itself rejects a part of the proposals. Many of them have not been tested – no other country has gone that far. When one then asks where the empirical evidence is, one gets the answer: When we have such a unique situation, we can test unique concepts for which there is no evidence.

The profession, the social services, and the employees themselves say that many of the measures risk destroying the trust that is fundamental and important for them to be able to do their work. Why is the profession not listened to more? And why is there such eagerness to push through reforms and be soft on evidence?

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Noria Manouchi (M)

Mr. Speaker! It was not intentional that I avoided answering the question regarding intermediate coercion. I simply did not have time, but I shall do so this time.

First, I want to comment on the left's eternal whining about reclaiming democratic control, abolishing all private activity, and being anti when it comes to entrepreneurship, choice, diversity, and so on. I do not share that view at all. I believe that what needs to be put in place is a proper control system, thorough audits of operations, and requirements for quality. All unserious actors must go, regardless of whether they are municipal, regional, state-owned, or private. That is my absolute opinion, whether it concerns HVB or, for that matter, independent schools.

When it comes to intermediate coercion, the member speaks of evidence. At the same time, the member notes that there are no other countries that have tested this. As the member can surely agree with me, it is difficult to research something that does not exist. It must exist first. It must be tested somewhere in order for one to claim evidence.

We will not be a party that says no to all ideas just because someone else has not dared to test them first, but we will test the ideas that we believe will have a positive effect on our society. Intermediate coercion is such an issue. I have personally driven the issue of intermediate coercion for perhaps 15–17 years from Malmö, together with a group of curators in Malmö who at one time initiated the issue.

The reason is that the social services do not have sufficient tools. It is bizarre that we do not have a step between voluntary offers and compulsory take-overs. This is something that makes people feel fear. If there is awareness that there are more options as intermediate measures, it will affect trust positively, I believe.

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Martina Johansson (C)

Mr. Speaker! I feel a considerable amount of frustration when I listen to this debate and previous debates where we have talked about social services, children and young people.

We often end up raising the issue surrounding children and young people who are criminal, who have been drawn into gang criminality and who are being exploited. It is not that I do not agree that it is a major problem that we have children and young people who end up in crime, but the question is how we approach the problem. Do we solve it by increasing control? Do we address the problem by focusing on the quality of the various activities that exist and by following up on what quality is delivered and how it affects children and young people?

Children do not become criminals because they themselves think it is a fun idea, but it is a symptom of a society and an adult society that is failing. The young generation we have today is a generation that is far worse off than previous generations when it comes to mental health. That is where we must focus our efforts. How do we do it? How do we help these children and young people so that they can achieve a mental health that allows them to also enjoy life, that they see a future, that they believe in the future and that they themselves have value?

Mr. Speaker! I am frustrated that it is constantly about control, punishment, incarceration, and the imposition of fines, instead of looking at which goals we should follow, what it is we want to achieve, and how adult society can support children and young people in getting there.

No, I have not taken any remarks from my colleagues today, because I feel that I will get the same answer as I always get: that it is stricter requirements, higher penalties and that it should cost, which are the answers.

When we talk about children and young people within the social services, I am very pleased, just as many others are, that we have a new Social Services Act in Sweden. We often return to it. It is an important law, and it is a law that will be able to make a difference. I am completely convinced of that.

At the same time, I wish that we could be honest, because it is not enough that we have a new law. We cannot simply base it on what we decide. We must also follow up on what actually happens for every single child, in the municipalities but also in the cases where social child and youth care needs to step in. We must become so much better at following up on the care.

Mr. Speaker! We must dare to ask the decisive questions. What goals are we steering towards? How do we measure quality? And, most importantly, what does this quality mean for the individual child?

That is why the Center Party has, at several different occasions, highlighted the proposal for a children's rights committee, as I have chosen to call it. The point is that it is a place where we can gather across party lines and jointly take responsibility for the future social care for children and youth.

There are so many deficiencies that we do not talk about enough. We lack a coherent care chain. Children and young people who fall into vulnerability early in life often encounter a system that does not hang together. It can be about parents with substance abuse, about mental illness in the family, or about a child who themselves develops some form of norm-breaking behavior.

Mr. Speaker! That is why we must ensure that the entire chain works, from early interventions to adulthood.

We must become better at detecting violence against children much earlier. We must work with trauma screening so that it becomes consistent and long-term. We must take mental ill-health seriously so that every child gets a real chance at a safe upbringing.

But in the future, there will still be children and young people who, for some reason, cannot stay with their original family, and in that case, society has an even greater responsibility than before. Here we are failing today. We cannot give up on these children. We cannot meet young people who commit crimes by saying: We lock them up.

Putting 13-year-olds in prison is not a solution. It is a failure, regardless of whether we refer to all 13-year-olds or to those who commit crimes. I understand that we are referring to those who commit crimes, but they are not in the right place in a prison.

The solution is actually to build functioning alternatives. It is about the fact that we must create opportunities for safe family homes. We must have high-quality HVB homes, and we must have a functioning Sis, regardless of what form they are to be in in the future. And as we have said, we have waited the entire parliamentary term to see what it would be.

These are activities where children need to receive support, structure, and hope for the future. It is there that we should allocate our resources. It is there that we can make a real difference, because these children are suffering.

A report from the Children's Rights Agency just arrived. In 2024, there were 127 suicide attempts among children and young people at Sis. These are children and young people who are suffering.

Mr. Speaker! Of course we must start earlier, not when the children have already been placed, and then the school plays a major role. It must function before a child potentially needs a placement but also during the time when the child is placed, because a child in social care does not stop being a student.

Here, the home municipality has a continued great responsibility, and that responsibility must be taken seriously. We must work to ensure that the quality becomes the very best, so that children can feel safe. They shall be heard. There is a good proposal here that the Children's Ombudsman should be able to make unannounced visits to our operations to ensure the quality of what happens every day for these children and young people.

Now I have spoken a lot about children who are placed, but the responsibility does not end after a placement. In some cases, perhaps that is when it truly begins.

Few are the parents who would tell their children when they are 18 years old: "Now you have to manage as best you can, regardless of whether you have been trained in different parts that are included in adult life." But that is actually what happens to some of the young people who leave social services, Mr. Speaker. Who then helps them to understand how to do it when applying for their first job? How do you go about paying the bills? How do you go about booking a doctor's appointment? And who is there when life feels difficult? All too many young people stand alone, and that is actually not reasonable.

These children have been placed for a reason, because there is usually no functioning support at home. Society cannot turn its back on them when they leave social services, regardless of whether they are under or over 18 years old. We need a clear plan for every child and young person, and we need to strengthen the aftercare.

A concrete proposal is that there could be a contact person for this young person throughout the transition, someone who remains and who can provide support and create security, because it is about responsibility and about dignity.

Mr. Speaker! We have taken important steps with a new Social Services Act, but the work does not end there. Now we must ensure the quality. We must follow up on it, and we must dare to develop it. Let us do it together! Call it a children's rights committee or something else – the important thing is not what we use for a name, but the important thing is that we gather, take responsibility, and truly put the children's best interests first, Mr. Speaker, for I am completely convinced that Sweden can do so much more than this.

With that, I move for the approval of reservation 11 and apologize for exceeding the time limit.

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Lina Nordquist (L)

Mr. Speaker! Most children in Sweden grow up in security. They are able to take part in all the opportunities and all the rights that our society secures and shall secure.

Sweden has time and again, over many years, shown the way when it comes to putting children's rights first. We were first in the world to ban corporal punishment in schools. When the liberal Prime Minister Ola Ullsten in 1979 presented the bill on a ban on corporal punishment against children, we took the lead again. But still, almost 50 years later, not all children are doing well in Sweden.

Some children are deprived of their rights. They get a stomach ache every time they go home. They must live under honor oppression.

Children who should be in school are instead recruited by criminal gangs. They are pressured and threatened to perform serious criminal acts. Children shoot other children, and children carry out explosions.

Then, of course, we have the children who need to look for hidden alcohol at home or who have to wake up their siblings. They get no breakfast; there is no breakfast. They have to take on a responsibility that no child should have to take.

These children feel unsafe, betrayed and forgotten. These children need action.

Mr. Speaker! It all begins at home. Supporting families is therefore one of the most important preventive measures.

In the Liberals, we have long worked for more home visit programs for first-time parents that catch uncertainties in time, before risks arise that then become real dangers for the children. In municipalities that have such programs, parenting has become safer, and when social interventions are needed, they are implemented much faster.

These early interventions are absolutely crucial, and the new Social Services Act lowers the thresholds and makes it easier to obtain early interventions.

The social services shall work according to evidence-based methods and ensure that the interventions actually have an effect. It sounds boring, but what it means is that the people in our country who really need help shall also receive help that works. They shall receive it early, and it shall really help them.

The Liberals have long said that we must remove working methods that have no effect or, in the worst case, are purely harmful. Now this is finally happening.

For the parents who are struggling, Mr. Speaker, we have strengthened the right to vab, so that no parent shall be denied leave or have to take leave from work for meetings with the social services.

Parental rights have long been too strong. This government strengthens the children's perspective, strengthens children's rights and puts the children before the parents.

The State Institution Board is reformed, child and youth care is strengthened, the rights of placed children are secured, and barriers to agency cooperation are dismantled – finally!

Children are deprived of contact with a parent who has abused them. Mandatory intervention is introduced so that parents can be forced into support if they refuse to accept help in order to be able to be parents.

Mr. Speaker! Research shows that school results for children in social care is the parameter that has the greatest individual significance for their future. Failure, or just the feeling of failure, in school is incredibly strongly linked to a palpably higher risk – not just higher but palpably higher – for addiction, crime, ill health, suicide, and other premature death. It is terrible, but it is also true.

The Liberals in government are building a school that gives all children the prerequisites to learn things, to grow, and to become secure adult individuals who in turn can take care of children, their own and others.

Mr. Speaker! Truancy is an important warning signal. We are investing in school social teams where schools work closely with social services. This leads to better school results and higher attendance, which affects the children's entire future lives.

We support, finally, the parents who want to but do not always manage. We set demands on parents who neglect their children or subject them to violence and oppression. We strengthen the school, the social services, and the children's entire safety net.

Mr. Speaker! Vulnerable children in Sweden must dare to dream about the future, and that future shall be bright.

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Gustaf Lantz (S)

Mr. Speaker! I am concerned about the situation within Swedish youth care. The police reports testify to HVB homes that are infiltrated by organized crime. Treatment homes that are operated and owned by criminals shall, therefore, take care of our most vulnerable youths. It can involve people who themselves are involved in crime, but it can also involve girls who risk falling into prostitution.

This situation is totally unacceptable. We Social Democrats have come forward with a series of proposals. To begin with, we proposed that ownership of the HVB homes should be taken back by the public. If that is considered too Social Democratic, perhaps the government could still look into allowing the police to be able to close these homes upon strong suspicion.

When it is then examined, there could also be a reverse burden of proof: It should not be society that has to prove something, but those who run the homes must themselves prove that they have clean milk in the bag and that the children are not being harmed.

But now that the government has said no to all these things, my question is: What are your own ideas to make this madness stop? What are your own concrete, powerful proposals so that children do not end up in the hands of criminals, are driven into crime, or end up in prostitution? How do you shut down these homes, which we know continue to be run by criminals?

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Lina Nordquist (L)

Mr. Speaker! Elected officials often tend to call things challenges. It is not a challenge but a massive problem that parts of our welfare, parts of the public sector, are infiltrated by grossly criminal people who exploit people, exploit tax funds and, frankly, destroy our welfare society, our safety net. Even Försäkringskassan, which as far as I know is not privatized, is affected by this. We really must take this seriously.

In addition, even before this infiltration, this hijacking by grossly criminal individuals, we had too low competence requirements and too low permit requirements. We did not have sufficiently high requirements on state child and youth care, nor on the care that the municipalities seek assistance from.

This is, of course, completely unacceptable. The small problem is that our tax funds, which should go to really good things that we have agreed to do together instead, go to weapons, drugs, and violent crimes. But the really big problem is that people in our country who need help – whether it concerns LSS, long sick leaves, or children who need really good support when they are doing poorly – do not get the help they deserve because elected politicians did not take their responsibility a long time ago.

Now, I will not repeat the five minutes I just spoke, but I can say that this government has as its absolute goal – that is why the member will have to work even this summer – that more should happen during this mandate period to support vulnerable children and ensure our society's safety than what has happened for a very long time previously.

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Gustaf Lantz (S)

Mr. Speaker! I do not know if it was self-criticism from the member, who is also politically elected and has now sat in the constellation that holds power at the state level in Sweden. Still, these HVB homes are not being closed down.

I share the description of the problem. However, I believe that the voters do not want politicians who just stand and describe a heavy and black existence. They want politicians who actually do something about it. In that case, it is actually the case that Lina Nordquist has much greater power than I do to get something to happen.

I note that we are now writing the fourth year with this government, and these homes continue to have our most vulnerable children in their operations. I think that is one of the absolute biggest failures that this government has on its responsibility.

I would also like to conclude by asking what ideas Lina Nordquist has on how we should combat child poverty. It is also a breeding ground for crime and for children to suffer. What are your own ideas that hit just these children? You have chosen not to increase the child allowance. You have chosen to stand behind a proposal that precisely targets those children who happen to be born into families with many siblings. It does not feel like a particularly liberal way of thinking to punish children for who their parents are and how many siblings they happen to have.

Then the question is: Do the Liberals believe that one will be able to fight child poverty and stand up for children's rights in a better way with Jimmie Åkesson as part of the government than through cooperation with, for example, the Center Party and the Social Democrats?

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Lina Nordquist (L)

Mr. Speaker! I repeat: Unserious actors must, of course, be removed. Permits were needed to conduct this type of activity. One must have the required competence – in the ownership, in the operation itself, in the management, and among the people who meet the children. Significantly more competence is required than what has been had until now. And it does not only apply to private HVB homes; it applies to all. It is unacceptable how the entire child and youth care has fallen short. It has affected these children's entire lives. That is the first thing.

Then the question was what we do to combat child poverty. The Liberals are for a child allowance for all children, but having said that, it is not the case that the children support themselves on their child allowance. The most important thing of all is that the adults in the family have a job to go to that they are proud of. If they lose their job, they receive more money from the welfare fund during the initial period. Unlike what the member just said about us having destroyed the welfare fund, we have actually raised the ceiling.

We want more people to work, that more people should come home with their own salary. The money should go further; the food VAT is lowered. It will become cheaper to acquire a home. We have lowered the tax so that people actually have more money left in their wallets. It is not a question of high-income earners like myself and the member, but it is a question of people in Sweden with an average salary who get 6,000 kronor more. It is clear that it reduces child poverty when more people work and more people get to keep their own money.

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Nils Seye Larsen (MP)

Mr. Speaker! Almost a year ago, the Children's Ombudsman's report "You must manage to be ahead" was published. It touched me deeply. The report shows so clearly what happens when society fails to see, ask, and act in time for our children and young people.

The report is based on 88 in-depth interviews and 543 survey responses from deprived children and young people. The Children's Ombudsman himself describes how he was met with skepticism out in the facilities: The children will not want to talk. You can send the survey, but do not expect to receive any answers.

It turned out to be exactly the opposite. There were so many placed children who wanted to tell, who wanted to have their voice heard, who finally got to speak.

The problem often does not seem to have been that society has been completely absent. A majority of the children and young people who were interviewed had been in contact with social services long before they were deprived of their liberty, and in some cases, social services had been involved from an early age, often following reports of concern from, for example, preschool or school. But despite that, the children describe that they rarely were asked how they actually were at home, how they felt, or what support they needed.

Only a few of the children had received interventions based on their own exposure to violence. Instead, support had often been absent until they themselves had developed a problematic behavior. The Children's Ombudsman's view is therefore not only that something was missing, but that in several cases society saw the children without seriously reaching out to them.

Many children also describe a contact with the social services where the relationship never had time to become secure or supportive. Important decisions about their lives were made by adults they had never met. Constant changes of social secretaries made it difficult to create continuity.

The report is also very clear about what has been lacking in social care. Many of the children and young people whom the Children's Ombudsman has spoken with have extensive experience of placements outside their own homes, characterized by repeated relocations during their upbringing. Often, the time at each placement has been so short that they have not had time to settle down, create security, or establish themselves in school before being uprooted again.

When the report looks at HVB homes, the picture is very serious. What should be a place for care, safety, and positive development is instead described by several children as a harmful and chaotic environment with insufficient support and protection. Children tell about residences where other young people have taken the lead, where the staff have been unable to maintain order, and where drugs have been used openly. One boy says: ”It is not like treatment. People sold drugs, sold weapons.” Another tells that the placement at HVB led to contact with other criminals and that what started with small things became worse and worse.

The Children's Ombudsman also writes that too many HVB homes are run or staffed by persons with connections to criminal networks. This is something that further worsens the situation for the placed children.

Mr. Speaker! When society fails to act early, build relationships of trust with children and provide the right support at the right time, the problems grow until the interventions become much more intrusive. And when those interventions also fail, in the form of insecure placements, relocations, weak continuity and environments that are dangerous and worsen the child's situation, then society fails the children again when they are in greatest need of support, care and security. Therefore, we must intervene earlier, work more persistently and ensure that the interventions we implement actually give children security, protection and a real opportunity to turn their lives around.

Mr. Speaker! We recently received a new Social Services Act, which in many ways is long-awaited and which implies a clear ambition that the social services should work more preventatively, more accessibly and more knowledge-based. It is an important and positive direction, and it has also been welcomed broadly – not least by organizations that work closely with children and young people.

But at the same time, there is significant uncertainty regarding how this will actually function in practice. Several organizations have warned that parallel legislative proposals, for example the so-called "mellantvånget" (intermediate step), risk undermining the preventive work by hindering the trust that is absolutely crucial in the interaction between social services and families. And it is precisely that trust that is often decisive – especially for the children who are already in vulnerable situations.

Mr. Speaker! The organization Maskrosbarns report has shown that around 80 percent of the young people experience that the social services should have helped them earlier. It is a figure that says something about the experience of not being reached in time, of not being listened to when it actually would have made a difference, of not receiving the support that could have changed a situation before it became all too difficult.

A concrete question raised in this context is children's opportunity to meet their social worker privately. For a child living with violence, substance abuse, or mental illness in the home, it can be absolutely crucial to be able to speak without the parents sitting next to them – to dare to tell and to be heard. Therefore, we want to investigate the possibility of introducing a regulation in the Social Services Act that gives children the right to have private conversations during contacts with social services.

When it comes to HVB activities, it is difficult to ignore the problems that have become increasingly clear in recent years. The Children's Ombudsman's report is just one of all the reports we have read that clearly point out the serious deficiencies prevailing in this dysfunctional HVB home market. It will have devastating consequences for the children and young people who are let down when their placements in dysfunctional HVB homes do not break, but on the contrary worsen a destructive spiral of mental ill-health, insecurity, exposure to violence, and increased risk of substance abuse and crime.

We know that there are links between certain HVB homes and criminal actors, between certain staff and criminal gangs. We also know that large profits are being made in a system that is intended for some of society's most vulnerable children and young people. This is not sustainable.

When tax money is used to create profit instead of security and when crime is allowed to take root in operations that are supposed to protect children, we have a systemic failure. It is a combination that should worry us deeply. That is why we in Miljöpartiet believe that the profit interest in HVB operations must be removed. Society must take back control. HVB homes must be operated with quality and care in public ownership.

(Applause)

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, it is not possible to speak about children and young people within the social services without also speaking about one of the absolute biggest risk factors: child poverty.

Children who grow up in economic vulnerability have poorer conditions in almost all areas of life – in school, in health, in the opportunity to participate in society and in their opportunities for jobs and careers. It is such things that leave deep marks not only in the individual but in the entire community.

What is happening in Sweden is deeply alarming. The number of children living in poverty and the number of people living in poverty has almost doubled in just a few years. Therefore, we believe that a larger and more unified grip on child poverty in Sweden is needed. We need to establish a crisis commission that develops measures across several policy areas, which is based on a clear child rights perspective and which also gives children the opportunity to have their voices heard in the process. This is not an issue that can be solved with a single reform, but it requires long-term and coherent work and a changed course for the economic policy being pursued today.

With this, I move for approval of reservation 16.

I want to conclude by thanking all the invaluable employees within the social services who truly burn with heart and commitment, with knowledge and competence, to take care of our children. They need our support and our wisdom in the decisions we make.

Then I wish Sweden good luck in the match against Poland.

(Applause)

The deliberation was hereby concluded.

(The decision was to be taken on 1 April.)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)