Homicide

(asked on 21st February 2020) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the ONS statistical release of 13 February 2020, Homicide in England and Wales: year ending March 2019, what steps her Department is taking to reduce trends in the number of (a) baby girls and (b) toddlers being killed.


Answered by
Victoria Atkins Portrait
Victoria Atkins
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
This question was answered on 10th August 2020

Every child’s death is a tragedy. That is why the Government has called on everyone who comes into contact with babies, children and families to recognise the role we all play in keeping them safe, and the need to work together to identify concerns, share information and take prompt action.

As part of this, the Government has already taken the following steps:

  • We are transforming the way local safeguarding agencies work together, having placed a new duty on the local authority, police and health leaders to produce new safeguarding partnerships arrangements. This will ensure a more effective and collaborative response in safeguarding children, which has been especially important in light of emerging risks during the lockdown period. We have been working closely with statutory partners and wider stakeholders who may be coming into contact with vulnerable children at this time to ensure that safeguarding concerns continue to be reported and acted upon.

  • We have created a new system of practice reviews, overseen by the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, to ensure that lessons are quickly and robustly learned when a serious incident or death of a child occurs. The Panel have recently announced that their third national review will focus on non-accidental injury in children under one. Government has welcomed this review and will consider the Panel’s findings in detail once published.

We reintroduced the Domestic Abuse Bill in March 2020 to better protect and support the victims of abuse and their children and bring perpetrators to justice. The Bill transferred to the Lords on 7 July having completed its Commons stages.

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