Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many minors were murdered by family members in 2022-23; and what steps she plans to take to help prevent such deaths.

In 2022/23, there were 201 notifications where a child had died and abuse or neglect was known or suspected or where a looked after child had died, whether or not abuse or neglect is known or suspected. These statistics show the number of incidents notified in the period, rather than the number of incidents that occurred in the period and are based on one notification per incident, which can relate to more than one child in some instances.

Protecting children at risk of abuse and stopping vulnerable children falling through cracks in services are at the heart of the government’s landmark Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, introduced on 17 December. Reforming children’s social care is critical to giving hundreds of thousands of children and young people the start in life they deserve. This includes ensuring that every child is safe inside and outside of their home and has access to the right help at the right time.

This government’s vision to ensure children are kept safe is reflected in the legislative changes we are making in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. This includes:

• Improving information sharing across and within agencies through the use of a Single Unique Identifier for children.
• Strengthening protecting children from harm through integrated multi-agency child protection teams.
• Placing a new duty on safeguarding partners to ensure education is sufficiently involved in multi-agency safeguarding arrangements.
• Ensuring parents have consent from local authorities to home educate children where there are child protection concerns.

The department continues to deliver whole-system reform to help families to overcome challenges, stay together and thrive, where appropriate, and to keep children safe and in stable loving homes, including when they cannot stay with their family. This includes through the roll out of the Families First for Children Pathfinder and Family Networks Pilot, which includes multi-agency child protection reforms. The ‘Local Government Finance Settlement’ policy statement also set out an additional £250 million through the Children’s Social Care Prevention Grant which will enable investment in prevention activity, and is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-government-finance-policy-statement-2025-to-2026/local-government-finance-policy-statement-2025-to-2026.

Tackling domestic violence and abuse is a priority for this government, and we are committed to using every government tool available to target perpetrators and address the root causes of such abhorrent behaviours. Cross-government delivery of the Opportunity and Safer Streets Missions is driving policy and practice improvements for child victims of domestic violence and abuse. The department is also working with other departments and the wider sector, including local authorities and schools, to ensure that children are recognised as victims in their own right in line with the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, and that the best use is made of available resources in the provision of universal, targeted and specialist support for child victims.