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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr. Stephen Ladyman): Are not the issues the hon. Gentleman has raised just as significant whether we have a database listing only children at risk or a universal database?
Tim Loughton: No, because they will be replicated from an initial database that could consist of the 61,000 looked-after children, plus some others, in another requiring up-to-date information relating to more than 11 million children. Doctors will be required to give further details about their child patients, even if they are not concerned about child abuse or anything like that—simply because they change their address, for instance. I am alarmed that the Minister thinks that that could lead to anything other than an enormous multiplication of the amount of work that will be required of GPs, let alone everyone else.
Jonathan Shaw: In his response to my hon. Friend the Minister, the hon. Gentleman demonstrated how much ambiguity there could be if we referred to a particular group of children. He referred to children in care. We know about those children. The point is the children whom we do not know about. We cannot have any ambiguity if we are to do what the hon. Gentleman spoke of in his opening remarks, and not make the mistakes of the past.
Tim Loughton: The hon. Gentleman fails to acknowledge that putting the names—and perhaps addresses and national insurance numbers: I gather that the Government may be thinking along those lines—on a database does not necessarily make the children any safer, unless means exist to bring about action for those who are genuinely vulnerable. It is the tick-box mentality that worries me most. Making a list does not protect children; concentrating on those who are likely to be most vulnerable, for a whole range of reasons, is much more manageable and practical if they are to be given the attention, care and protection that the Bill is surely all about.
Margaret Hodge:
I was trying to avoid intervening, because many other Members wish to contribute, but there is a basic misunderstanding of the purpose of the database. The database is merely a tool that will make it easier for professionals to take the action that they need to take. In no way does this constitute an action in itself.
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What will be shown on the database is this. If a professional has a particular concern about a particular child—we will discuss this in Committee—the concern itself will not appear on the database, but the fact that the professional has a concern will. If another professional were to have a concern as well, all that would be facilitated would be the two professionals speaking to each other and then taking the appropriate action to safeguard, protect and promote better outcomes for children.
Tim Loughton: The Minister has proved my point. It is the children who have triggered a cause for concern—as she puts it—and it is the mechanism by which that cause for concern is triggered that we need to concentrate on, instead of putting all children on a national database, which will do nothing to enhance the prospects of getting care for those in respect of whom a cause of concern has been triggered. This clearly shows that the Government have yet to decide on a great deal of the detail, and we and many of the relevant bodies are enormously confused about what this provision actually amounts to. I appreciate that the Government still have a lot of work to do, but we are being asked to write a blank cheque in the next few weeks for what is a significant and important measure.
I shall not go into great detail now—I shall do so in Committee—but we envisage two models, the first of which concerns the local hub. If the relevant professionals—the general practitioner, the social worker, the teacher, the police officer and so on—have cause for concern about a particular child, they should be able to flag it up directly with the office of the director of children's services, and the information should be kept on a database. Where several professionals—or even just one—provide such information, it should be up to the office of the director of children's services to decide whether action is required. There would be a reporting mechanism, the practicalities of which we can talk about.
Secondly, a national database is needed to deal with the transient child who, for example, leaves Dagenham and ends up in Worthing, where no data exist showing that there were suspicions that they were being abused, or being subjected to violence by someone in the domestic environment, or by others who were in charge. But that database need not automatically contain all 11 million children. It needs to be a mutual reference, so that when the child turns up in Worthing and comes into contact with social services, the police or the education authorities, those organisations can refer to the database if they have a particular concern. They could then be told that some information is available on that child, and that they need to speak to the director of social services in Dagenham, Barking or wherever it may be.
We do not see why, in trying to concentrate on the most vulnerable children, it is necessary to clog up the system with all 11 million children. I look forward to debating in Committee the relative merits of our system and of the Minister's yet-to-be-formulated system. On the face of it, she is trying to create a surrogate identity card scheme. The suggestion of using national insurance numbers also gives cause for concern. That system is
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already greatly discredited—we have substantially more national insurance numbers than citizens in this country.
Tim Loughton: I shall very generously—and perhaps for the last time, so that he can speak later—give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Dawson: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Is he not trying to create a system with holes in it? It relies on far too many subjective definitions and hardly caters at all for those who want to evade it and to hide the child's identity. Is he not being massively inconsistent in drawing attention—rightly—to the role that the immigration authorities should play in such a system, but then saying that the vast majority of children should play no part in it?
Tim Loughton: There is no reason why such a system should contain more holes than one that simply lists everyone who happens to be a child. We will need to continue this debate on Report, because I remain unconvinced. I began by saying that we support the idea of a database, but it needs to work and to benefit the people whom it is supposed to benefit. We should not simply create another database that involves sleepwalking into a surveillance society, as Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, has put it. Setting up such a comprehensive national system would also lead to all sorts of problems with data protection; and key questions remain about security and who would have access to the system.
I want to consider a final point on databases that the Bill has totally ignored. The system is completely one-sided and we will be looking to set up an appeals procedure. There seems to be no mechanism whereby a perfectly good parent or a professional against whom concerns have, for whatever reason, been wrongfully expressed can challenge the inclusion of information relating to the person on the database. Circumstances can change and vexatious complaints can be initiated by professionals against individuals. In the vast majority of cases I hope that that will not happen, but there are no checks and balances for the few cases where it will.
I look forward to hearing the Minister's assurances that our suggestion for proper checks and balances may not be necessary. However, I suspect that they will be—certainly they were in setting up the potential leviathan of the Financial Services Authority, which deals with all sorts of professional bodies. On the face of it, checks and balances are missing from the Bill, so we will propose amendments to rectify the difficulty. There should be a procedure whereby people giving rise to "cause for concern", in the Government's own terminology, should be able to challenge the veracity or continued relevance of the complaints rather than risk being fingered indefinitely.
We will also propose some technical amendments about the running of the local safeguarding children boards. On the inspection framework, there is surely a greater role for children's services authorities in overseeing nurseries, particularly in view of recent revelations about abuses and the failure of the Ofsted
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inspectorate on its unannounced inspections. That is particularly important given the likely proliferation of such places in the future.
On the duty of local authorities to promote educational achievement, set out in clause 44, it has to be said that the current circumstances are a scandal. I wholeheartedly concur with the intentions behind this part of the Bill. It is a scandal that only 44 per cent. of young people leaving care had gained at least one GCSE or GNVQ compared with 96 per cent. of all year 11 children at large. It is a scandal that as few as 1 per cent. of young people leaving care go on to university and that fewer than 6 per cent. go on to any form of further education—let alone all the other problems that they are likely to face by having to move schools more often than non-looked-after children and all the additional health problems that they are likely to suffer. Surely the placing authorities—social services departments—should be much more mindful of the desirability of stability and continuity in the school of an individual in care. All that is, indeed, a scandal.
Too much of the existing guidance—on designated teachers and governors and proper educational plans for looked-after children—has been and is being ignored. There is no excuse for the social workers who are responsible for individual children in care not to attend parent evenings at school. They should be placed on the same basis as other parents who, to the great embarrassment of the rest of us, fail to attend such evenings.
I also recognise that there are problems with admissions policies, but arrangements for accessing schools must not prejudice other children living with birth parents. The clause should deal with that problem. There must be equality of opportunity in education—the key to helping many vulnerable children.
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