Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Timpson]

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady not only for her chairmanship of the all-party parliamentary group for runaway and missing children and adults, but for her vital contribution to the work of the groups in the Department that have been looking into the issue. I hope that we can continue that dialogue in future.

It is crucial for us to improve data on missing and absent children at local level, in police forces and local authorities and more widely in other agencies, and we need to make that as effective as possible throughout the whole system. I look forward to discussing with the hon. Lady how we can do that better.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

As the Minister will readily acknowledge, the police think that far more children are going missing than local authorities record. What the Minister says about trafficked children is absolutely right, but until local authorities are forced to identify trafficked children, we cannot begin to deal with the problem. Will he instruct authorities in future to record the number of trafficked children whom they are looking after?

[Mr Timpson]

Part of the purpose of the working group that we set up following the report from the all-party parliamentary group and the accelerated report from the deputy Children’s Commissioner was to consider how we could better record the data on all children who have some contact with the care system, and that includes trafficked children. I will think carefully about what my hon. Friend has said in conjunction with that work, and I should be happy to discuss it with him further.