Safeguarding Children

David Lammy Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg]

My hon. Friend is right, and I hope we will have an opportunity in today’s debate and the consultation period the Government have set out to make those very important points so the guidance is stronger than the draft guidance issued yesterday.

I want to highlight some excellent practice in the London borough of Hackney, which has been well evaluated. Hackney is one of a number of London boroughs that have established MASH—multi-agency safeguarding hub—teams to bring together the key services in one place. London boroughs are leading the way in such respects. Clearly, trustworthy and supportive relationships are key to ensuring a focus on the needs of the child.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for introducing a debate on this topic. Does he recognise that since the baby P case there has been an increase across both London and the country in the number of children being taken into care? In Haringey there has been a 40% increase. Does he recognise that we still have to do more to encourage parents and carers to contact social services before problems arise, and that there is growing concern about fear in relation to social workers? This hits the most deprived. Social work is not on the whole an area known to Britain’s middle classes.

[Stephen Twigg]

My right hon. Friend speaks very powerfully on this issue, and makes the case on why the relationships I am talking about are so important. He also, by implication, makes the case for something I shall come to a little later: the importance of enhancing the status of social work as a profession.

These relationships should, of course, be challenging. Hackney has developed approaches whereby mistakes by people working in the services can be openly acknowledged and addressed without fear of reprisal. That is fostering a culture that should ensure systematic learning, including learning from mistakes. The role of local safeguarding children boards in this process has been invaluable. The boards were originally established by the Children Act 2004, and they bring the key partners together in one place to focus on safeguarding. There is significant variation in the quality and effectiveness of these boards, of course, but I hope the work that is now being done to ensure lessons are learned between them, such as through networks of board chairs, will go some way towards addressing that. However, there is concern that in the context of reduced regulation, the Government must remain vigilant to make sure that that learning process moves forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), who as always speaks most perceptively and with great clarity.

It has been good to sit through the whole debate and to hear the strong cross-party consensus on tackling the issue of safeguarding children, an issue that we all know is of the utmost importance. I therefore congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), the shadow Secretary of State, on bringing it to the House, and congratulate previous Secretaries of State and Ministers and, indeed, the current Secretary of State and Ministers on their leadership. The Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who led for the Government in this debate, has an excellent record on the issue and has shown real leadership in taking the baton forward, as it is his duty to do.

I would have to say, as a professional in education, that safeguarding is one of the most difficult issues that we have to face. In many ways, it is more difficult than the challenges of attendance, retention and achievement, because it is more subtle and difficult to be clear about. For many young people, school is a point of stability in their lives. Many young people have massive challenges in their private lives outside school, and school provides them with solidarity and shelter in a storm.

Professionals, be they in education, health, the justice system or social work, need to get the balance right, and that is a difficult challenge to meet. I recognise the genuine progress that I have seen in my professional life in moving matters forward in relation to safeguarding. My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State was right to emphasise the importance of the five outcomes of Every Child Matters. That was a real step forward in dealing with this difficult agenda. We trivialise the focus on well-being at our peril. The Minister is nodding, and I am pleased that he recognises that it is important to capture that in moving things forward. In its focus on safeguarding after the baby Peter Connelly tragedy, Ofsted perhaps swung a little too far the other way, but it certainly made everybody sit up and think things through carefully and sharpened up everybody’s acts. It is important that the pendulum swings a little, but also that the fundamental centrality of purpose is not lost.

[Mr Lammy]

In that swinging of the pendulum, I wonder whether my hon. Friend recognises two things from his experience. First, there is concern among black and ethnic minority families that there are still not the relationships that are needed. We have seen across London an upsurge in black and ethnic minority families in the care system. Secondly, young people in care who reach the age of 18 can find themselves very vulnerable when they are suddenly bereft of any services and have to make decisions about their future.

[Nic Dakin]

My right hon. Friend makes a very important and cogent point from a position of great experience in this matter. I pay tribute to him for the work that he has done in this area.

I would like to emphasise the crucial importance of local safeguarding children boards and applaud the comments of the shadow Secretary of State and the Minister about that. Those boards have greatly helped to bring together professionals across disciplines and across cultures. Cultures are very different, and making them work together with a focus on the child is a big challenge. I applaud and pay tribute to all professionals working in this arena, particularly, in my experience, the social workers in North Lincolnshire, who have always astounded me with their professionalism and done a very good job on behalf of local people.

As the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) pointed out, this is a difficult world in which there are new challenges to do with e-safeguarding. My hon. Friends the Members for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) and for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) talked about the difficulties to do with child sexual exploitation. We need to get to grips with those difficulties and challenges. We do that best by working together, cross-party, in allowing the leadership baton to be moved on from one Administration to another, creating a unity that spreads down through the country to local children safeguarding boards. We must bring people together, focused on the child’s outcomes and continuing, all of us in this House and outside it, to work together to ensure that children are safeguarded as best they possibly can be as we move forward.