Safeguarding Children

Edward Timpson Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Edward Timpson (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

David Norgrove is, of course, talking principally about equality of time. In family court cases in which I was involved, it was clear that when people started to talk about 9 o’clock in the morning until 5 o’clock in the evening and shared arrangements of equality during the week, it often proved divisive, whereas trying to reach agreement is in the best interests of the child. What I think the Government are trying to achieve through their shared parenting considerations is children receiving a shared time of quality care from both parents, which is a very different model from simply trying to cut the time in half.

[Stephen Twigg]

The hon. Gentleman, who I know has campaigned and spoken out on these issues for many years both before and after he came to the House, speaks with authority. What I am saying is that we need to tread very carefully, as these changes might have unintended consequences. I believe I am right in saying that evidence from Australia suggests that a similar change resulted in greater litigation and greater resort to the courts there. [Interruption.] The Minister says that the position is different there. Let us learn from the experience of other countries. We will study the Government’s specific proposals in detail today.

Norgrove recommended that

“children and young people should be given age-appropriate information to explain what is happening when they are involved in cases.”

They should be offered a menu of options setting out the ways in which they can do that if they wish. The court process is clearly an important part of that, but I think that we also need greater clarity from the Government on how we can ensure that children’s views are taken on board in the rest of the care system, which includes social workers.

We have been looking at the issue in our policy review, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) for the work that she did on it when she was in the shadow education team. Children often stress the importance of the monitoring of placements by social workers, and the importance of being able to talk to their own social worker alone. Often a social worker is a source of constancy—a rock—for a child who is moving between different foster carers or residential homes.

The second aim of our motion is to ensure that children and young people are given appropriate information and guidance so that they understand the risks of abuse and sexual exploitation. We fear that in too many cases young people may not be clear about how to report instances of abuse or exploitation, and that some may not understand that the acts in which they or their friends are involved constitute sexual abuse. I am sure that we were all shocked by yesterday’s “Channel 4 News” investigation of Habbo Hotel, a very popular website which is used by children as young as 10 and has 250 million users globally.

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[Stephen Twigg]

It is not, and in my concluding remarks I shall say something about the Department for Education’s broader responsibilities for the well-being of children.

The Government have to explain how they will address the challenges that I have set, and there needs to be a robust training and continuing professional development framework not only for social workers, but for other staff in the relevant agencies, especially those in the health sector. It is crucial that we have robust supervision of social work practice by experienced senior staff and consultants who are accountable for the exercise of professional judgment. We know that the lack of good supervision was a significant issue in the baby Peter case.

[Mr Timpson]

If all those in the agencies that are involved in protecting and safeguarding vulnerable children are to be able to do so with the best possible judgments that they can make as professionals, they need to learn from mistakes that have been made in the past. We have heard about the horrendous cases of baby P and others, which have led to a number of serious case reviews. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that in order to make sure that we shine a light on the mistakes that were made in those particularly appalling cases and learn those lessons from the past, it is important that we have full publication of serious case reviews, albeit anonymised in the appropriate places?

[Stephen Twigg]

I am going to tread carefully on that issue. I am being advised to say yes by my esteemed colleague in the shadow team, my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), but I recognise that that would be a change from the position that my predecessor took. I will undertake to look at it and get back to the hon. Gentleman.

Let me finish by saying something about the Government’s broader policy with regard to children and families. When the Secretary of State took over two years ago, he renamed the Department, removing the words “Children” and “Families”. I am a passionate advocate of innovation, rigour and high standards in our schools and colleagues.