Arthur Labinjo-Hughes

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Kelly Tolhurst

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. I know from my time as children and families Minister that she has been campaigning on this issue and I know she is meeting the Minister for children and families on Monday, but I will certainly take a very close look at what she says and feed back to the panels.

[Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I must declare that my sister is a social worker. No one can understand how beautiful little Arthur died at the hands of the people who were charged with caring for him. I have great respect for my right hon. Friend, and I know that he will be absolutely determined in his passion to get at exactly why this happened and the learnings we can take forward. However, does he agree with me that it is now finally time really to look at and deal with the case load that these social workers have to deal with? Some of them have excessive case loads with very complex cases. Can we finally give social workers the confidence, the safety and the time to be able to do the job that they love and get up every morning for to keep children safe?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s incredibly important question. She will, I hope, remember that, when I was children and families Minister, I was the champion of social workers, and I will continue to be the champion of social workers as Secretary of State. I am very confident about the MacAlister review—hence why it was such a priority for us for it to be in our manifesto. It is so important that we now get this right, and case loads are very much a part of that, as she quite rightly identifies.