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28 Jan 2003 : Column 741—continued
Dr. Liam Fox (Woodspring): I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his statement and his courtesy in making it available to the Opposition earlier.
Clearly, this is an appalling human tragedy first and foremost, and it is right that we remember the feelings and sensitivities of Victoria's parents as we discuss the details of what needs to be done. That a defenceless child could be subjected to such unspeakable acts of savagery over such a long period brings shame on our society. Those who are brave enough to do so can only imagine the terror, pain and misery that she must have endured, but this is also a shocking tale of individual professional failure and systematic incompetence.
During the past 30 years, there have been more than 30 inquiries into the deaths of children who were known to social services. None seems to have had much effect. We all agree, time after time, that it must never happen again, but it does. Lauren Wright, John Smith and Ainlee Walker are only a few of the large number of those who have been failed by the system.
There are a number of questions that I want to raise with the Secretary of State, although I do not expect him to answer them in his response, as they cover important and sometimes conceptual and cultural issues that we need to examine in far more detail than is possible in the House today. Every report says that something must be done. Why will this one be different? How will the House be able to monitor progress in a truly transparent way so that this one does make a difference?
Communication is the main problem among different agencies. How will that improve in practice beyond just setting up new structures? What role is envisaged for the greater use of information sharing and early detection? Intelligence gathering can succeed only on a local basis. What review of the Data Protection Act 1998 will the Government undertake to ensure that nothing stands in the way of the proper sharing of information?
Will the Secretary of State tell us what action has been taken against the social workers involved in this case to give us a guarantee that they are not still responsible for children? What progress has been made to fill gaps in social work, especially in London and the south-east?
The Secretary of State did not touch on one subject: it is estimated that about 10,000 children in England and Wales are privately fostered—80 to 90 per cent. of them are west African—despite the Utting report identifying private fostering as
- "clearly an area where children are not being safeguarded properly, indeed an unknown number are likely to be seriously at risk."
If the status of social workers is being improved and more responsibility given, equally, what measures are being put in place to ensure that incompetent social workers are disciplined as toughly as other medical professionals? What does the Secretary of State think has been learned from the Children (Scotland) Act 1995, which placed a positive duty of care on parents to promote children's well-being? Do the Government favour a single system of referral and assessment to address needs—for example, child safeguarding teams proposed by the NSPCC along the lines of existing youth offending teams and sure start? Should sections 27 and 47 of the Children Act 1989 be amended to include police and GPs as agencies that should support the local authority when it is carrying out its duties in relation to children in need of protection?
Despite what the Secretary of State said, the new police national plan 2003–06 lists child protection under the heading "other policing responsibilities". I hope that the right hon. Gentleman's statement today reflects a change of mind on behalf of the Home Secretary about the importance that child protection will be given.
Above all today we need to make sure that the changes recommended by Lord Laming and being introduced by the Government will allow us to get to a system in which we all know clearly where the buck stops. Professional failure on this literally fatal scale cannot, and must not, be tolerated. We welcome the concept of children's trusts, but I am sure that the Secretary of State will be well aware that the devil will lie in the details, including budget sharing, which will be worked out later.
I fully understand the difficulties faced by professionals in this very difficult area. I have been there myself. I can think of nothing that I have ever done
professionally as stomach churning and terrifying as telling parents that I suspected them of having abused their child. However, the primary responsibility for professionals is to the child in their care, not the professional relationship with the carer, as it has been too often. Difficult though it may be, we need to encourage that cultural change in all the professionals who deal with children. "I'm too busy/didn't suspect it/didn't have enough resources" are excuses that we cannot allow to be tolerated.In the time available today, it is not possible to do justice to the detailed conclusions and analysis in Lord Laming's report. I hope that we will get a chance to debate those matters in great detail in Government time over the coming months. Whatever measures need to be taken must be taken, and quickly. The Conservative party will willingly give its support in this most justified cause.
Mr. Milburn: I am extremely grateful for the tone and much of the content of what the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) has said, and I shall try to respond to some of the detailed points that he made.
The hon. Member for Woodspring said that there have been a lot of inquiries over the years. That is certainly true. There have been both statutory public inquiries such as the Laming report and more private inquiries into the deaths and abuse of neglected children. The hon. Gentleman asked what was different about this report and about what we could make different, and he also wondered whether any inquiry had resulted in change. I think that some of them did result in change. The Children Act 1989 is a prime example, and Lord Laming considers it the bedrock of the legislative framework for the protection of children in our country.
However, I was very heartened to hear Lord Laming say on the radio this morning that the inquiry had already had an impact, even before publication of the report. I believe that he is right. For example, the Metropolitan Police Service has fundamentally restructured its child protection services. Quite rightly, it has brought those services under the aegis of serious crime, which is arguably where they should always have been housed. That is welcome, and there have been other changes in both the national health service and social services. We must build on those changes.
The hon. Member for Woodspring asked whether we could be assured that there would be appropriate monitoring of change and improvement. That is one of the issues that we will need to consider extremely carefully as we craft the Green Paper. Lord Laming's principal recommendations concern the central issue of accountability—how we can ensure that, from top to bottom, the interests of the child always come first, and that the different agencies involved in providing care and sometimes treatment are fulfilling their responsibilities. In due course, the Govt will present proposals on that.
The hon. Member for Woodspring asked about the disciplining of individual social workers. Some have been disciplined and others dismissed. However, Lord Laming makes a very strident point in his report when he states that front-line professionals—in social care, health care or the police service—failed to carry out the
elements of good professional practice. Some have paid a price for that failure, but it is noticeable that the people in charge of some of the local agencies have not suffered a similar fate, and no consequences have been felt at any level of the organisations involved.People in charge of organisations at local level—whether they have political or managerial responsibility—need to examine the Laming report's conclusions very carefully indeed. As the hon. Member for Woodspring rightly said, they should also examine their consciences.
The hon. Member for Woodspring mentioned gaps in social worker numbers. Haringey is the authority most criticised in the report, and it was charged for the longest period with caring for Victoria during her stay in this country. It had terrible problems with the numbers of locum staff and of vacancies among social workers. It took a conscious political decision—and I think that it was the right one—to invest more money in social services and to increase pay for social care staff. Those decisions have helped to plug some of the social work vacancies that Haringey was carrying. If one local authority can do that, others should learn the lesson.
With regard to private fostering, Lord Laming has asked the Government to carry out a review of the relevant law. We are undertaking that review, and the conclusions will be part of the Green Paper.
The hon. Member for Woodspring asked what the Government were going to do in respect of incompetent social workers. It is worth placing on record that, overwhelmingly, social workers do a very difficult job very well. The temptation for people—not necessarily in this House but outside it—will be to point the finger of blame. In these circumstances, that is extremely easy. However, we must ensure that there is adequate support for social work staff, and that the right safeguards are in place.
As far as safeguards are concerned, the new general social care council will, for the first time, regulate and register qualified social workers. That will be an important step towards establishing the sort of assurances sadly lacking in this case.
The hon. Member for Woodspring asked about national policing priorities. Ensuring that adequate child protection is in place is part of the violent crime priority, which is a national priority for the police service.
Finally, the hon. Member for Woodspring made a very telling point when he said that, all too often, what happens in cases such as this is that the interests of the people with the responsibility for caring come before the interests of the child. In this case, that is graphically true. Time after time, Kouao was interviewed and spoken to. Her needs were assessed and she had frequent and continual meetings with social care staff and other staff in the caring professions. It is noticeable that at virtually no point did anyone bother to ask Victoria what was happening to her.
That can be described only as a lamentable failure. We need to get the training and the relevant structures right, but most of all we must get right the culture of these vital public services. We have those services for one reason—to serve. None has a God-given right to
exist. The interests of those services should lie only in serving the interests of the child. That is what we must ensure happens in the future.
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