Steve McCabe
Main Page: Steve McCabe (Labour - Birmingham, Selly Oak)Department Debates - View all Steve McCabe's debates with the Department for Education
(9 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Edward Timpson
I pay tribute to the role that my hon. Friend has played in keeping these matters fairly and squarely at the top of the national agenda, but we have not just announced that. These services will still be inspected. In the past, I have alluded to the social work practice in Staffordshire that was outsourced by the county council and which was inspected by Ofsted and received a “good” rating.
We want to ensure the best possible services on offer to children across the country, and we should not get too tied up in thinking about delivery and who will be ensuring the services are the best they can be. Let us get quality at the heart of everything we do and make sure that that is what we inspect.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister back to his post. I had entertained the idea that we would swap places—but what will be will be. I am pleased he has retained this portfolio and I genuinely wish him well for the future.
Will the Minister give an assurance that nothing in his adoption proposals will have an adverse impact on smaller voluntary adoption agencies, which often specialise in finding families for harder-to-place children—a group the Government say the proposals are designed to help?
Edward Timpson
I welcome the hon. Gentleman back to his post. He and I have an interesting electoral history, but I see he managed to increase his majority at the last election, so he is doing better in his own constituency than he managed in Crewe and Nantwich in 2008.
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. We have an array of extremely competent, professional and dedicated voluntary adoption agencies across England and the wider United Kingdom, and we need to ensure that they are fully part of the new adoption landscape that we are creating. I made that point when I spoke at the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies conference only last week. We will make sure that they are central to the vision going forward.