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28 Jan 2003 : Column 745—continued
Mr. Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam): I, too, thank the Secretary of State for giving me the opportunity to see the report and his statement in advance. I associate myself and other Liberal Democrat Members with the sentiments expressed by the right hon. Gentleman and by the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) about the report and about the sensitivities involved in this tragic case.
Reading through the report, I had a terrible sense of déjà vu. The same weaknesses encountered before led to the same mistakes being made, and they led to the same missed opportunities to do what was necessary to ensure that the nightmare of neglect and abuse described by the Secretary of State did not happen to Victoria. There is no quick fix, so may I ask the Secretary of State some questions?
The right hon. Gentleman talked about rationalising and replacing a welter of guidance and documentation. That is welcome, but can he tell us whether that will include clarity about what is risk and what is harm? All too often, there is confusion about that, with different definitions being applied in different parts of the country.
Will the Secretary of State say more about the children's trust proposals? The Liberal Democrats welcome the proposals in their pilot form because there is a need to explore new ways of integrating services locally. Will further guidance be published to assist local authorities in deciding whether they want to take the opportunity that he is offering them? Does he accept, however, that the boundaries between agencies will remain even when children's trusts are in place?
Will the Secretary of State say more about the area child protection committees? Legislation alone is not enough, but does he agree none the less that all the agencies involved in an ACPC must have a statutory duty to take part? In too many places, they do not join in as they should.
Lord Laming's recommendations referred to the need to move to a new system of safeguarding and promoting welfare and away from merely keeping registers. Can the Secretary of State ensure that everyone will turn up to child protection conferences and that the general practitioners and teachers are there? All too often, the key players do not take part.
Recommendation 16 rightly refers to the need to address information sharing. Information must pass freely and confidentially between the agencies. The report proposes that the Secretary of State issue guidance. When will he do so? It should be issued as soon as possible.
As the Secretary of State said, training is a key issue, but it can succeed only if we can recruit and retain enough staff. The chief inspector of social services has told us all that there is a serious crisis in the recruitment and retention of social workers. What additional steps are being taken, not least to reward experienced social workers who choose to stay at the front line to do their job and who really make a difference?
The national agency proposed in the recommendations has many characteristics similar to those required in a children's commissioner. I hope that it can indeed become a children's commissioner. Will the Secretary of State end the consideration process and confirm that the Government will introduce a children's commissioner in England?
As we look back on 30 years of inquiries into children's deaths, the milestones in the development of our child protection system have been marked, sadly and tragically, by the gravestones of children who suffered a nightmare of neglect and abuse. The Liberal Democrats will work with the Government to ensure that the system is strengthened and resourced and that it delivers a better quality of life for all our children.
Mr. Milburn: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments and very much agree that there is no quick fix. However, one striking thing about the Laming report is that although Lord Laming, who has a wealth of experience as a former chief inspector of social services, recognises that some changes will take time, he has wisely put a time scale on some of the changes that he recommended. Although he realises that there is no magic wand that can be waved, he says that about 88 or 89 of his 108 recommendations should be capable of implementation in some shape or form within six months. That is why I took action as I did today. I have distributed the recommendations to local authorities and the national health service and written to them about what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is doing as regards police services. We have to get the balance right and I think that we are capable of doing so. We can fix what can be fixed quickly while recognising that some of the structural and cultural changes will take time.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether the revised guidance would include clarification about whether a child was at risk or at harm. I read the report in considerable detail and it is clear that sometimes there is—at best—confusion about whether a case comes under section 17 or section 47. If it is a section 47 case, it goes up the list of priorities, but if it is a section 17 case it is deprioritised. That is one of the issues that we shall need to address in the guidance and we shall look carefully at that.
We shall issue guidance on children's trusts and an invitation to local authorities, the NHS and other organisations to make proposals. The trusts could take a variety of forms.
In recent years, there have been a number of recommendations on the structure of the ACPCs—for example, that they should be placed on a statutory footing. We must now consider such recommendations in the light of Lord Laming's broader structural recommendations to ensure that we get the overall structural balance right. The ACPCs could provide an important focus for local agencies to come together locally. However, partnership works well only when it is real rather than nominal. Although things vary throughout the country, all too often there is an assumption—for example, in the NHS—that the committees are really the responsibility of social services and no one else. We must be extremely careful to understand that what Lord Laming says is not specifically addressed to social services. He is not
addressing one part of the care system, but the whole care system. It is only if we get the whole system right that we shall avoid the problems that were encountered in this case.More needs to be done about recruitment. However, the case of Haringey—of all places—should fill us all with hope. Haringey had the worst record and, arguably, some of the worst services. Who would want to work in Haringey? Well, people are working there and they are doing so because the council took the decision to raise the status and the pay of the social work staff that it employed. That is a lesson that other local authorities should heed.
Lord Laming makes recommendations about the children's commissioner, but housed within a particular national, regional and local structure. We shall need to consider carefully whether that makes sense when we make our considerations for the Green Paper.
Mr. Hilton Dawson (Lancaster and Wyre): Does my right hon. Friend agree that Members of the House have the first responsibility for dealing with these issues and that it is essential to hone our anger and concern about what we have heard today into a determination to transform children's services and ensure that such a scandalous chain of events never happens again? Does he also agree that the Government have a huge responsibility to face some of the difficult issues that have been around for such a long time? For example, we need to put children's rights at the heart of any agenda for children, to address the fundamental need for a children's commissioner for all parts of the United Kingdom and to address the important point that, under the law, children have less protection from assault than adults. We must deal with private fostering and invest thoroughly and comprehensively to ensure that all who work in services for children, especially in child protection services, have the status, pay and career prospects that they deserve.
Mr. Milburn: My hon. Friend makes some telling points. He referred to anger. Both the anger and the incredulity of Lord Laming and his advisers about what happened are crystal clear from the Victoria Climbié inquiry report. It is more than a sorry tale: it is repeated failure at every level. The constant assumption made in almost every agency and by almost every member of staff was that Victoria's needs were being catered for by someone else, somewhere else. As we now know, nobody was catering for those needs. As my hon. Friend says, we really must learn those lessons now.
There are responsibilities both for local services and for national Government. The fact that we are publishing the Green Paper in the spring, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced some time ago, is a recognition across the whole Government that the existing structures, nationally and locally, need change. Some of the issues that my hon. Friend raised will of course need to be detailed in the Green Paper.
Mr. David Hinchliffe (Wakefield): Listening to my right hon. Friend's reasoned statement, I was struck by the fact that, 30 years ago, I had just started in local authority child protection social work, and we had recently had the Maria Colwell report on an appalling set of circumstances. I find it incredible that I am here
30 years later after 35 inquiries listening to more or less word for word the same story and the same sad, tragic picture. However, I have taken some comfort from the statement today in that communication between professionals has been a key element all the way along the line. As someone who has argued for integration of professionals at local level and co-location, I warmly welcome the comments that my right hon. Friend has made today.May I press my right hon. Friend on a more fundamental matter touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson)? It is clear that physical punishment was an issue in this sad and tragic case. My right hon. Friend is looking at the policies of countries such as Sweden on delayed discharges and foundation hospitals. Will he also look at what other countries have done on child protection? Sweden acted to outlaw the physical punishment of children by parents 10 years ago, and while we have experienced at least one child death per week at the hands of parents and carers in the past 10 years, Sweden has had none. Will my right hon. Friend consider that as a matter of urgency?
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