School Funding

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) and the other co-sponsors for securing this important debate on school funding. There are few subjects more important to this House than the future of the nation’s children. They will be the inheritors of a post-Brexit Britain. They will be digital natives, as unfazed by digital technology as we are by electricity. We will bequeath to them the big challenges facing the country and the world, such as climate change, new kinds of labour market, and many more. That is why it is so important to invest in our young people’s talents and ensure that they are among the best educated in the world.

Let me start with the ugly truth: this Government are letting the next generation down. Ministers are failing to make the necessary investment, and the Government are endangering our prosperity and productivity by not investing in education and skills.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

I am conscious of the differences between the English and Welsh systems, but given the concerns of teachers, parents and students, does my hon. Friend agree that we need to be spending a higher percentage of our GDP on education?

[Rushanara Ali]

I absolutely agree. We need cross-party agreement to ensure that we invest in our children’s futures, because that will ensure our nation’s prosperity.

School funding has been cut in successive Budgets since 2010, and that has continued into this Parliament, as the hon. Member for St Albans mentioned. Since just 2015, when the previous Prime Minister won his short-lived majority, nine out of 10 schools have seen real-terms cuts in per-pupil spending. If Ministers had maintained spending even at 2015 levels, overall school funding would be £5.1 billion higher than it is. Across the board, from early years to further education, funding cuts are devastating our young constituents’ lives when they should be supported.

The Education Policy Institute found that the proportion of local authority secondary schools in deficit has trebled to more than a quarter of all such schools. My constituency has the highest child poverty rate in the country, with an 11 percentage point increase since 2015, but its schools and colleges face drastic cuts. An enlightened Department for Education would put resources into the schools that need them, not take them away. Schools in my constituency face a £16 million funding cut between 2015 and 2020, which is an assault on aspiration.

Education in my constituency was transformed over the previous decade, thanks to investment and Government support, but taking all that away damages lives and makes matters worse. The same can be said for many constituencies across the House. It is so important to reverse the cuts and to reverse the increase in class sizes, because the same things are happening elsewhere, including in pockets of poverty in leafy suburbs—I recognise the points made by Conservative Members—but we must not punish poor areas such as my constituency by taking resources away. We must level up, not start a race to the bottom. We need to avoid a divisive approach that pits MPs against each other for much-needed resources for their schools, which has been the tendency over recent years following the assault on the fair funding formula and cuts more generally. We have fewer teaching assistants. Teachers are leaving education. There are massive problems with infrastructure and lack of investment. Just like the NHS, we need a new consensus to ensure investment and to protect young people’s futures by ensuring that they can pursue meaningful careers and make a positive contribution to our society.

In the 2018 Budget, the Chancellor said that he would provide £400 million of extra cash, but the reality is that we need billions. He told the Treasury Committee yesterday that the comprehensive spending review could be delayed due to the lack of clarity around Brexit, yet the Government have spent over £4 billion preparing for a no-deal Brexit. We need to prioritise the comprehensive spending review, and if it does not come soon, the Government must step in and ensure that schools get the much-needed funding they require.

We need pupils to be taught in decent-sized, safe classrooms with good, modern equipment and with motivated teachers, tailored education for all and a range of cultural enrichments. We need to make sure pupils realise their full potential. We need to make sure the education system not only tackles social exclusion and discrimination but ensures that all children thrive so that we have the world-class economy we need to face future challenges. We need our education system to provide the future engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, artists and writers, and we need it to be the best in the world. That is what is lacking, because this Government lack the aspiration and the courage to invest in our future by investing in future generations of young people. I call on the Minister to take urgent action to invest in our schools to reverse the negative impacts and support our kids.

Education and Local Services

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman may be aware that we already had plans to scale up the sorts of programmes undertaken by fantastic charities such as Magic Breakfast. We all recognise their benefits, particularly for disadvantaged children, who can get into school a bit earlier, have time to settle and start their classes ready to concentrate and learn.

In the election, people were faced with choices. Indeed, the Opposition set out their alternative plan. It was very big on rhetoric, but the question is what it will actually mean for people in reality. Of course, we do not have to go far to find out. It is clear what Labour would mean for education standards as we only have to go across to Wales and look at its education performance. Instead of high standards for children in schools, Welsh children are faced with low and falling standards. Indeed, according to the OECD it is the lowest-performing country in the UK, and it is run and overseen by the Labour party. In fact, its performance is now significantly below that of England in maths, reading and science. That is Labour’s legacy for Welsh children and it would import it for English children, if it ever got the chance.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

The Welsh Government are quite open about the fact that we need to get better scores in relation to the PISA results, but what I will not accept is how, yet again, the Tory Government are trying to demonise Wales. They did it before on health, calling it a line between life and death. It is a disgrace. Will the Secretary of State apologise to the people of Wales?

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Lady’s comment shows the reality, which is that Labour needs to pull together a strategy to improve education in Wales in the same way as our strategy of reform has improved standards in England. It has not been easy, but Labour has dodged it in Wales. Labour will never be credible to parents in England until it sets out why it feels it is failing children in Wales, including on opportunity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

It is a great privilege to speak in this debate and especially to enjoy such amazing maiden speeches from across the Chamber. I pay a special tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), who spoke so well. I am sure he will be a tireless representative for his community. I also pay tribute to my electors in the constituency of Clwyd South for electing me for the third time in seven years.

The Queen’s Speech contained some very fine words, and here are my favourites:

“A priority will be to build a more united country, strengthening the social, economic and cultural bonds between England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.”

That is a fine sentiment, but then we discovered what really happened—a tawdry little deal and a strange game of “Who Wants to be a Billionaire?” that led to the Government giving one of the constituent nations £1 billion, seemingly on the basis of a confidence and supply deal to prop up the Tories. What sort of message does that send to my constituents and to people across the rest of Wales, and indeed to the rest of mainland Britain? It will not come as a surprise that Members across the Opposition Benches will rightly be asking for that extra £1.7 billion for Wales, and I am sure that other Members will be making similar requests for other parts of mainland Britain.

The Queen’s Speech rightly spoke about the importance of ensuring that people have

“the skills they need for the high-skilled, high-wage jobs of the future”.

Unlike some in this Chamber, I do not believe that we can pooh-pooh the issue of student debt. Our UK manifesto was right to address that, and I am delighted that our Welsh Labour Government have taken practical steps to ensure that students are better supported. Wherever one is on the political spectrum, it is undoubtedly true that student debt of levels that my generation did not see or know benefits absolutely no one.

There are some measures in the Queen’s Speech that I think few would oppose, such as greater action to tackle domestic violence, meeting the NATO 2% commitment and support for the police and security services to tackle terrorism and human trafficking, which is a global concern. However, we need to recognise that we can only implement those measures with proper resourcing. This week’s Economist magazine asks for an honest debate about taxation and cost-effectiveness, and about what we want to fund and how we propose to do it. That is a welcome debate, and in it we must speak up for the dignity of proper state investment for high-quality public services. We must speak up for the measures that were excluded from the Queen’s Speech. What would be wrong about giving, as part of those settlements, a decent bridging pension to the WASPI women—the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign—who were born in the 1950s? I believe that the ideological debate with the penny-pinching, small state ideologues of the hard right, who always have their way, must have its day.

No speech in this Parliament would be complete without a message for the Government on Brexit. Let us have a Brexit that works for the whole nation, not just for the hard right of the Tory party. If we end up with no deal and without proper votes, we are going to be mighty cross.

Budget Resolutions

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) and to hear a terrific maiden speech from our new colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), who will be a great asset to the Labour movement, the Opposition and this House.

It was interesting to hear the Secretary of State for Education begin her speech by saying that the Budget was delivered on International Women’s Day, as indeed it was. That makes the insult all the greater that the Government chose not to mention the WASPI women who have been campaigning for fairness. Those women were born in the 1950s and often left school at 15. They are women who have dedicated their life to their job and their family, yet they got not one word from the Chancellor.

Like many Members, last week in Parliament I met a delegation of local women who have been affected by the changes to the state pension law. Women came down from Chirk, Rhostyllen and Llangollen in my constituency. Those women, of whom there are more than 3 million across our country, are not political militants. They do not oppose the equalisation of the pension age, and they certainly do not want the state pension age to go down to 60. All they are asking for is a bit of fairness—a bridging pension to provide for them. It is downright shameful that the Government chose not to listen to them.

Budgets are about choices, and I cannot accept that the Government have put agreeing to £17 billion-worth of corporation tax cuts, £2.8 billion-worth of inheritance tax cuts and many other items above modest bridging support for these women. I am interested in the figures on inheritance tax—my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) recently wrote an excellent article on the subject—because I have read that only 15 houses sold for £650,000 or more in my constituency in 2015-16, which is 0.9% of the 1,700 houses sold during that period. The average sale price in June 2016 was £140,000. I wish those 15 people well, but they do not deserve a special tax cut to enjoy their new property.

Rather than that extravagant change to inheritance tax and the cuts to corporation tax, the Government should have been on the side of the small businessperson and the self-employed. How extraordinary it is that the Conservative party has broken its promise to the plumber in Penley, the cabbie in Cardiff and the grocer from Grantham. Could one believe that a Conservative Government are charging grocers from Grantham more? How extraordinary! We all know it is a trade-off. Being self-employed means no parental leave, no sick pay, no holiday pay and difficulty getting a mortgage, among other things. The hike in class 4 national insurance contributions has broken the consensus that we in this country have believed in for years. It is a £2 billion tax rise.

I also hope that the Government will consider what the Farmers Union of Wales has to say, because the Budget has a particular consequence for our rural communities. The union’s managing director, Alan Davies, rightly asked this question last week:

“Why is it that tax is being increased for those hard working individuals, some of whom only make a profit just over £8,000, whilst at the same time corporation tax is falling?”

The Under-Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb), has already said that he thinks the Government should apologise to everyone in Wales who read the 2015 Conservative party manifesto, and I thank him for his apology to me and others. However, I would rather that the Government reversed their tax hike and scrapped the tax.

We all remember the Tories’ 2012 “omnishambles” Budget—remember the one?—when the Government decided to declare war on caravanners, churches, stately homes and even the humble Cornish pasty. Well, that will seem like a picnic compared with the consequences for the country now. It is high time that the Government listened to the voice of the ordinary self-employed workers, strivers and entrepreneurs in our community. It is high time that the Government listened to those women who have worked so hard right through their life and have contributed so much to society. And it is time that this Government acted in the interest of fairness, listened to our communities—rural, suburban and urban—and recognised that they must now restore fairness by doing a U-turn on this ridiculous tax hike for self-employed people and by giving some decency to the people in this country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

I welcome my hon. Friend to her place. We know that start-up loans have led to considerable success. One thing I am keen to do is to ensure that we keep all small businesses, especially entrepreneurs and people looking to start up their business, well informed and absolutely aware of the various schemes available to them. I know the British Business Bank, through its website and other media, can provide that information, and I want to make sure that it is working, so that in the real world, people have access to funds, to schemes and the advice they often need when starting up their business.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will be aware of the great concern about the Government’s failure to meet export targets. With UK Trade & Investment’s own surveys saying that more than a quarter of businesses reckon that there is no business benefit from UKTI, how does he propose to deal with this problem?

[Sajid Javid]

We have seen some growth in exports over the last five years, but not enough. This remains a challenge, which means looking carefully at UKTI and improving what it does. That is exactly what the Minister for Trade and Investment, Lord Maude, is doing. The hon. Lady may know that we have seen record inward investment, which is also important and a job of UKTI to promote. It has now topped £1 trillion—the highest in Europe.

Living Wage

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Thursday 6th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bain]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting and important point. Before his intervention I was saying that we should consider the impact of such measures on a lone parent in work. If she were to take a low-paid job—perhaps just above the minimum wage—the tax credit system effectively gives her an average hourly rate of £13 to £14. If wages paid not just by public sector employers but by the private sector increase, the tax credit system will still have an important role in topping up people’s income, but reliance on the state will be somewhat less. That will relieve pressure on the taxpayer and lead to a more affordable social security system in the decades to come.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that most people in this country do not pay taxes just to subsidise some fast food merchant or security company, and it is about time that we were better at getting that message across? When the centre right spoke a few years ago about “Broken Britain”—incidentally, I think the response from the centre left on that was inadequate—we forgot how such matters were dealt with on a corporate level, and we have to deal with that issue as well.

[Mr Bain]

My hon. Friend is entirely correct. The proportion of company profits paid in wages has declined in the past 15 to 20 years, but it has declined particularly in the period since the financial crisis and in the four and a half years of this Government. Companies must be forward looking if they want to retain staff and if they want staff to develop. Employees want a job that becomes a career—they want progression in that firm or that profession. Paying higher wages benefits not just the employee, but the employer. Many countries are demonstrating that.

How can we act to end the low pay crisis? First, every level of government, whether a council, a devolved Government, a regional government in England through local enterprise partnerships, or central Government, should commit to using whatever policy levers they have to advance the living wage, to show an example to the private sector and the rest of society. It was therefore disappointing that the Scottish Government yesterday rejected the Labour party’s offer in the Scottish Parliament to extend further the use of the living wage through procurement policies. I hope they will reconsider. With 264,000 women in Scotland earning less than the living wage, it was wrong for the Scottish Government to reject that practical and helpful suggestion yesterday. The living wage is too big a prize for us to be deflected by partisan considerations. People expect all politicians to use every tool at our disposal to extend it to the widest possible number of people. I hope that devolved Governments, central Government and councils use those powers and achieve precisely that aim.

Oral Answers to Questions

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

7. What recent assessment he has made of the number of complaints and the level of consumer detriment relating to estate agents’ practices in England and Wales.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

16. What recent assessment he has made of the number of complaints and the level of consumer detriment relating to estate agents’ practices in England and Wales.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jenny Willott)]

Citizens Advice received 2,831 calls on issues concerning estate agents from February 2013 to January 2014. The Office of Fair Trading investigated 114 complaints against estate agents from April 2013 to October 2013. Trading Standards continues to carry out enforcement activity against rogue estate agents. From 1 April, the Competition and Markets Authority will work with other consumer bodies to monitor the level of detriment relating to estate agents’ practices.

[Jenny Willott]

This particular issue has not been raised with me, but I am happy to take it up with the enforcement authorities and the two redress schemes. I will ask the Office of Fair Trading and the CMA to consider the matter on behalf of the right hon. Gentleman.

[Susan Elan Jones]

There is no doubt that there are good estate agents out there as well as bad estate agents, but it is surely a very bad practice when both buyers and sellers are charged a fee for the same property. Will the Minister condemn the practice?

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[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)]

We are committed to helping Lancashire companies to start exporting or to expand in new markets. Between April and December 2013, UKTI helped nearly 600 businesses across Lancashire and I was pleased to see my hon. Friend supporting those efforts by partnering with UKTI in delivering a successful export event for local businesses at the BAE site in his constituency last week.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

T3. I know that many of us were waiting with a great deal of interest for the Financial Conduct Authority’s new rules on payday lending, but does the Minister share my disappointment that it did not come up with a much tougher action plan on advertising?

[Matthew Hancock]

We were clear in our consultation on payday lending that we had put all the options for change on the table. We have taken the consultation seriously and that has included my meeting many of the stakeholders. We will do what it takes, but we will do what works—and what works for businesses large and small, focusing especially on the needs of small businesses—but we will not make changes just to satisfy calls and headlines. We will make sure that the system works as properly as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

I guarantee this: the scheme we have built to deliver the most apprenticeships in our history, of the highest quality, will not be altered. I also guarantee that adult and community learning, which was constantly threatened when Labour was in government, will be secure and safe under this Government, with £210 million a year for adult and community learners: second-chance education delivered by this Government.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

7. What recent assessment he has made of the Government’s relationship with the business community.

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

The Department has an honest, constructive and positive relationship with business based on the shared belief that enterprise and Government working together can get us out of recession—not more taxation, regulation and borrowing. Ministers also have one-to-one strategic relationships with key international companies.

[Susan Elan Jones]

I am grateful to the Minister for that answer. Will he tell us why he does not agree with the chair of GKN, Mr Mike Turner, who is calling for a more active “industrial strategy”? Why does he not listen to him? Surely Mr Turner knows something about business.

Farepak

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jessica Morden]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, which was well made. Many victims have called for Sir Clive Thompson to have his knighthood removed if he loses the case, and perhaps the Minister will also address that point.

A survey posted on Twitter and the Farepak victims committee Facebook page reveals what Farepak victims think: 95% of the respondents thought that the liquidators had taken too long, and should have finished by now; 79% did not think that there are enough regulations to protect consumers from anything like the Farepak collapse happening again and 95% thought that all Christmas savings schemes should be tightly regulated. Many Farepak customers are upset about how the administrators, BDO, have handled the liquidation process. BDO struck an agreement with some of the ex-directors of Farepak to pay a total of £4 million in compensation, which is about 15p per pound owed. Not only are Farepak victims angry, as they should be, at receiving only 15p in the pound, they find it deeply unfair that as part of the deal the directors accept no liability for Farepak going bust. Will the Minister say whether that is common practice?

I am aware that some agents and customers received some money back in 2009 under a court order. That was a repayment to customers who had made payments as the company collapsed and which Farepak tried to put into trust accounts. Customers received some compensation from a response fund just after the company went bust, but as yet no customer has received any money via the administrators. BDO will argue that the reason is that it is still chasing, and that it is standard practice for administrators not to pay out any dividend until all avenues have been exhausted. However, as widely reported in the news last month, BDO has so far cost in excess of £8.2 million, which includes, for example, £50,000 for public relations work. That is an eye-watering sum, especially when BDO has managed to obtain only £5.5 million back for the victims. So far, the process hardly seems fair.

I understand that there is a possibility that ex-customers could receive less than 15p in the pound. If the administrators fail to recoup any more money from ongoing operations, they will take their costs from the moneys already recouped. I accept that the ongoing actions, if successful, could result in ex-customers receiving more money, but either way the administrators will accrue more and more costs, making customers even more resentful.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. Does she agree that some of the practices that she describes are at best ethically questionable and, looking at them more strategically in terms of how victims have been affected, downright wrong?

[Jessica Morden]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I agree that the matter is downright wrong, and I hope that the Government will act.

I would like the Minister to say whether he believes that the insolvency process is fit for purpose in dealing with the aftermath of cases such as Farepak. Should there not be a limit on how much administrators can demand—perhaps a percentage of the total amount accrued? I have spoken to Farepak victims and agents, and the process is incomprehensible from the outside. Victims need to know what is going on, and why it is taking so long.

Adoption

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jessica Lee]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has essentially summed up the problems. There is not one individual, agency, organisation or Department at fault. We are dealing with an entire system that needs to be examined and improved throughout. A domino effect of improvements is required.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

Is the hon. Lady aware of developments in Wales? The Welsh Assembly Government are consulting on the possibility of unifying the adoption capacities of local authorities into a super-agency, with the idea of reducing duplication and, hopefully, providing speedier and better matches between adoptive parents and children. I imagine that the hon. Lady, like me, would welcome that approach.

[Jessica Lee]

I of course welcome any initiatives that are being taken, and I am sure that more information will be presented about the pilots and process in Wales, which will help us all, throughout the country.

Turning to the streamlining of the process, I ask the Minister this: do the Government consider that the process takes too long on occasion? Are the assessments too lengthy? Is there too much bureaucracy? Again, I am not criticising individual social workers—adoption is not an easy area to work in, and those working in adoption teams are often passionate and committed to seeking a placement for children for whom they are responsible. My concern is about the culture that has developed regarding assessment and the heavy-handed approach to form-filling. We need to reach a position where professionals feel confident to exercise their judgment to make decisions. That is perhaps reflected in the conclusions of Eileen Munro’s review into social workers and how we can improve prospects for professionals.

Young Runaways (Sexual Exploitation)

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Ann Coffey]

Of course the hon. Gentleman is right. We must have proper arrangements between children’s homes and the local police. If they do not work together, we will be unable to prevent children from going missing; and we will not know where those children who are that do go missing. He has made an important point.

Barnardo’s says that those who exploit children are all too aware of how the system works:

“These heartless men and women understand the police procedure on runaway children and know if a child goes missing on a regular basis, for a short period of time and then returns home safely, the case is unlikely to attract much attention.”

Turning to statutory guidance, another concern is the mixed picture that not all local authorities are adhering to the statutory guidance on children who run away from home or care, which was published in 2009. The guidance states that local authorities should have procedures in place for recording and sharing information between police, children’s services and the voluntary sector, and that the local authority should have a named person responsible for children and young people who go missing or who run away and that there should be return interviews.

I cannot emphasise enough the importance of the independent return interview. As the Children’s Society has demonstrated, children are more willing to disclose what has happened to them to adults whom they do not perceive to be in authority. A 16-year-old at Manchester’s Safe in the City project said:

“It was horrible. I felt I could not talk to anyone—friends, family, police, teachers—no-one.”

Eventually, however, the child did talk to the Children’s Society.

I have asked a number of parliamentary questions about implementation of the guidance, but I have been repeatedly told that the information is not held centrally. Implementing statutory guidance should be a high priority for local authorities. Local safeguarding children’s boards have a responsibility to protect children in their areas. The young runaways action plan 2008 asked safeguarding boards to evaluate the risk of children running away and to put action plans in place. The Children’s Society’s “Stepping Up” report found that half of the local authorities surveyed had no protocol for managing cases of children and young people who are missing from home.

According to recent research by the international centre for the study of sexually exploited and trafficked young people at the university of Bedfordshire, there are protocols for responding to sexual exploitation in less than a quarter of local safeguarding children’s boards. Ten years on from the introduction of the dual strategy of protecting young people and proactively investigating their abusers, a third of the country has no plans for the delivery of such a strategy.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

An increasing proportion of the sexual grooming of children now takes place online. I imagine that policing that is complex and difficult and that it involves many officers. It is important that funding is kept in place, and if possible increased, to deal with what is a horrific crime.

[Ann Coffey]

My hon. Friend has made an important point. It is crucial that resources are available to support such initiatives and actions, because without those resources the actions will be meaningless.

Ofsted has a duty to inspect general safeguarding in an area, yet in a letter to the director of children’s services in Stockport in December 2010 following an annual children’s services assessment, it stated:

“In reaching this assessment, Ofsted has taken account of arrangements for making sure children are safe and stay safe.”

Astonishingly, in that letter and in the assessment itself, there was not one mention of the number of missing incidents reported to the Stockport police in that year. I am not clear how an assessment can be made of how well local safeguarding boards are discharging their responsibilities in relation to missing children, but one way might be for Ofsted, in its inspection of safeguarding in local areas, to assess whether local authorities are implementing statutory guidance in relation to the safeguarding of missing children. Another way might be for local safeguarding boards to publish information annually on numbers of missing children in their area together with the actions that they have taken and the outcomes of their interventions. I would welcome the Minister’s comments on that. It is important that the statutory guidance is fully implemented in local areas, because such guidance is there for a purpose.

Furthermore, I want to see the development of early intervention programmes that target children who are at risk of running away. The Munro report stressed the value of early help in the area of child protection. I realise that funds are limited, but existing resources—education, health and police—could be used more effectively by developing innovative ways in which we can work with parents and voluntary agencies.