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Jonathan Shaw (Chatham and Aylesford) (Lab): I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman mentions the BBC's current season. Does he agree that its portrayal of children and young people provides a realistic picture? He used the word "plight", but many such young people succeed despite the events that they have gone through. We should applaud them and provide a balanced view of children in care—it is not all bad news.
Tim Loughton: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I have seen many of the programmes, I went to the season's launch and I had a meeting with the producers. The great thing is that the season portrays children in their everyday lives. It shows, with no holds barred, the great successes that many of them achieve and the great problems and challenges that many have to overcome. That is exactly the right way to portray things, and I think that the BBC is doing an excellent job with the season. It may be unfashionable to say it to the Government at this time, but I think that the season is broadcasting at its best.
The issues are important, and we are determined that the House should be given a proper opportunity to debate them. We need to address several questions: first, are children safer from abuse, and ultimately death, at the hands of their carers or abusers than Victoria Climbié was four years ago?
Mr. Dawson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Tim Loughton: With respect, I would really like to make some progress. I have given way several times and I have quite a lot to say.
The second question is: are social services departments and other agencies in a position to implement in a practical way the safeguards recommended by Lord Laming, and endorsed by the Government and the Opposition, and to bring about the sustainable improvements that we all want? The Government have so far failed to answer those questions, and the House is entitled to a full report, as are all parents who are concerned about the welfare of their children, and children who are looked after. Those questions require full answers about what practical action has been and is being taken, not just what boxes have been ticked or departmental memos sent out. I intend to focus on the practical action taken since Lord Laming's report was published; to consider the
particular problems associated with information sharing, which is crucial to effective child protection; to examine the additional problems created by recent revelations from the Court of Appeal regarding the discrediting of expert witness testimony provided by proponents of Munchausen's syndrome by proxy; and, finally, to touch on the future of the Children's Fund.On 7 January 2004, the Minister for Children produced her response to the Health Committee report on the Victoria Climbié report. It itemised the Government response to each of the 108 Laming recommendations and subsequent action taken. That seems all very well, until one looks in detail at what action is promised. Many of the important recommendations are met with this observation:
- "In the Queen's Speech on November 26th 2003 the Queen announced that the Government would bring forward a Children Bill this Session to take forward some of the measures in the Green Paper."
- "The Government will consider what mechanisms are needed to support the Minister for Children in discharging her responsibilities";
- "This is included in the checklist of good recommendations issued on publication of the report";
- "Advice is contained in the booklet 'What To Do If You're Worried A Child Is Being Abused' issued by the Minister in May 2003",
- "progress so far—completed".
The fact that the Government are considering something, or that they have issued a checklist or a booklet to local authorities apparently means that the problem has been sorted—the box can be ticked. Recommendation 35 is:
- "Directors of social services must ensure that children who are the subject of allegations of deliberate harm are seen and spoken to within 24 hours of the allegation being"
- "When allocating a case to a social worker, the manager must ensure that the social worker is clear as to what has been allocated, what action is required and how that action will be reviewed and supervised."
- "Hospital social workers must always respond promptly to any referral of suspected deliberate harm to a child."
The problem is that things are not that simple. Such complicated problems are not solved simply by issuing memos and ticking boxes—the panacea so beloved by the Government. The Government amendment to the motion refers to the Minister as though everything has been achieved by the appointment of a new Minister for Children. We welcomed that, but it is only the start of the journey—and a shaky start it has been at that.
Mrs. Humble: Earlier, I pointed out that the Government have issued guidance. Is the hon.
Gentleman seriously suggesting that the Government should not have done that? The checklists consist of more than tick boxes; they place a requirement on managers to supervise properly the social workers who have the difficult task of making decisions and judgments and offering advice and guidance in respect of extremely vulnerable children. Surely the Government have done precisely what they should in issuing clear instructions to social services departments and managers and social workers at all levels.
Tim Loughton: Of course I am not saying that the Government should not have issued that guidance, and I shall discuss that later. However, that is not the important thing. The important question is: are the people there to put it into action? If they are not, the guidance is worthless.
Jim Knight (South Dorset) (Lab): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Tim Loughton: I wish to make a little progress.
We are told that the Children's Bill, which is due to be published today in another place, but which we shall not see until tomorrow, will propose structural changes, such as appointing a children's commissioner, a director of children's services, which may or may not be a central model, and a new inspection hierarchy. Now that we have given the Minister an opportunity to address the House, perhaps she will provide some details of the Bill. We look at the details and offer constructive scrutiny, but all that will be meaningless and all the responses to Lord Laming's 108 recommendations will be fruitless unless there are sufficient skilled professional child protection officers in social services departments and other agencies, working on the ground, at the sharp end, detecting cases of child abuse, intervening and working to prevent abuse, with the resources necessary to make meaningful interventions available to them. It is highly unlikely that that can be achieved in the cost-neutral fantasy world suggested by the Minister.
Mr. David Hinchliffe (Wakefield) (Lab): I am saddened that the debate is becoming politically partisan, because the House is at its best when, as in the case of the Children Act 1989, we discuss the way forward. I hope that the hon. Gentleman, who was not a Member of Parliament at that time, recognises that point and I say that the 1989 Act was a credit to the Conservative Government. I started work in child protection in 1971, and I am struck by the clear parallels between the Maria Colwell case in 1971 and the Victoria Climbié case and between Lord Laming's recommendations and the recommendations of the Maria Colwell report. I do not want to make a partisan point, but I urge the hon. Gentleman to reflect on the fact that Conservative Governments were in power for a total of 21 years after the Maria Colwell case and might have addressed one or two of the points that he raises today.
Tim Loughton: I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman's expertise on this subject. Lord Laming made the point that this report must be different and must make a difference. I have already applauded many of the steps that the Government have taken, including
the appointment of the Minister for Children, for which I called for a long time. If joining up relevant individuals works properly, it is welcome and I applaud the guidance that has been issued, but the test of those actions will be the results that they produce.People must be on the ground to put the guidance into effect, but I fear that they are not. In many cases, more people were on the ground when the hon. Gentleman was practising social work. One can have as many children's tsars as one can shake a stick at but their hegemony will be short lived if the workers are not there on the ground. Recent recruitment figures show that the number of whole-time equivalent field social workers in children's services has hardly changed over the past six years, despite the extra requirements placed on local authorities by, for example, the Adoption and Children Act 2002, which sets out requirements to provide adoption support services.
One local authority that I visited recently told me that it had been advertising for months to find someone to head up its adoption support services and that it had received zero applications. Despite all the requirements in the 2002 Act to promote adoption, the preparation work undertaken by local authorities to respond early to some of the problems highlighted by the Climbié case and the myriad schemes that have hit social services departments, the figures suggest that there are more than 5,000 social worker vacancies, around two thirds of which are in children's posts. Those figures cover services required now, ahead of the recent legislation, but there is still a heavy reliance on temporary agency workers, who simply cannot provide the necessary continuity, particularly in complex cases.
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