Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reasons there has been an increase in the number of (a) looked-after children, (b) child protection plans and (c) children in need since 2010.

Due to discontinuity in methods used for some of the data collected, we only look at trends in these numbers starting from 2013. I therefore refer the hon. Member for Wansbeck to the answer I gave on 17 December 2018 to Question 202744 raised by the hon. Member Stephen Lloyd.