Meg Munn
Main Page: Meg Munn (Labour (Co-op) - Sheffield, Heeley)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Stephen Williams)
As a Welshman, I entirely sympathise with what my hon. Friend says about our Celtic cousins. We had a good meeting on the Cornish language and I have written to colleagues reminding them of the Government’s responsibilities in that area. As for the Council of Europe framework, the UK will make a submission in May 2014 and will invite Cornwall council and others to contribute to it.
Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)
T4. A recent survey by Community Care has found that many local authorities are raising their thresholds for intervention in cases of child protection, and many social workers fear that they are not able to provide the appropriate level of support and intervention to children in need. Given that we are continually concerned about cases of child abuse, and that every Government have rightly said that they are committed to ensuring that such cases do not occur again, will the Government look seriously at providing extra funding to local authorities, which will have to make cuts next year and the year after, so that we do not see more child deaths?
Mr Pickles
Even in difficult times, the Government have managed to increase funding to vulnerable areas. If the hon. Lady has an authority specifically in mind—[Interruption.] I do not call £3.8 billion from the health budget to deal with vulnerable people a trivial sum. I am surprised that Labour Front Benchers mock that. I know that this is a reality, but if the hon. Lady has specific authorities in mind that are increasing the threshold, given the effect that that has had on a number of authorities where things have gone terribly wrong, I will look into it for her.