Safeguarding Children

Graham Allen Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. He is taking us into an important territory that merits consideration in a further debate in the House, because those are big challenges we face.

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his generous remarks and for the way he has couched the motion, which allows all Members across the House who are concerned about the issue to support what I hope Members on both Front Benches will say today. He talks about early intervention, and obviously there are catastrophic consequences for individuals when things are not done right and social and emotional capability is not given to babies, children and young people, but there are also tremendous economic consequences. Does he agree that if the Chancellor wants an enormous deficit reduction programme, early interventions that mean we do not have the costs of later interventions, which are not only expensive but often only partially successful, suggest that the way to go is to have a little, but early, rather than a lot, wastefully, later?

[Stephen Twigg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He makes the point powerfully and better than I could, so I will simply say that I agree entirely.

There are positive signs that the system has been improving. Three years on from the baby Peter case, a review by the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service into care applications found that local authorities are intervening much more quickly and in a much more timely way. However, we are concerned that many essential early intervention services are being cut.

An important innovation has been the family drug and alcohol court, which provides intensive support to parents alongside a series of carrots and sticks to help them make progress. The close relationship between the court and families can serve to improve the speed of decision making and provide crucial therapeutic help at an early stage. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead said earlier, it is so important to work with parents to improve parenting skills. Parental support was a key element of Labour’s Sure Start programme, and the national evaluation of Sure Start found greatly improved outcomes for children in Sure Start areas, with more consistent discipline from parents, less chaos at home, parents making more use of local services and fewer children suffering in accidents.

There is a wealth of evidence on the relationship between domestic violence and child abuse, as the Minister acknowledged yesterday when he appeared before the Select Committee. We are concerned that we have seen a 31% cut in funding for refuges and specialist advice, which is surely undermining action to deal with domestic violence. On the subject of unintended consequences, I have a real concern, which I think has been expressed in the Select Committee’s deliberations, that in some cases the legitimate desire to protect a child from domestic violence can lead to the child being taken away from the non-violent parent, usually the mother. I would be grateful for any further information the Minister has on that.

Finally, let me say something about the importance of clarifying who is responsible within the Government for implementing the measures included in the new guidance. Professor Munro has said that she feels on occasion that momentum is not being maintained, and I think that, one year after her recommendation to appoint a chief social worker, and three years after that was first proposed, the Government need to move swiftly to appoint someone to that important new post. At the end of her one-year progress report, Professor Munro says that there should be continuing oversight of the whole system so that progress is maintained. The Government need to make it clear who will be responsible for that oversight, and I note that Professor Munro says that it should not be her, but a “fresh person”.