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Mr. Hilton Dawson (Lancaster and Wyre) (Lab): I am delighted that my right hon. Friend makes that clarification. I hope that that will help local authorities to move away from what other hon. Members present will recognise as the Friday afternoon syndrome, in which other professionals—some of whom become very well known to social workers—clear their desks on Friday afternoon by offloading their anxieties about particular children over the weekend on to social services, without any hope or expectation that anything can be done about them. That is very poor practice. Margaret Hodge: Finally, I shall deal briefly with two other matters. First, I agree that the information must be accurate, but to include the source of the information, as proposed in amendment No. 225, Column Number: 277 tabled by the hon. Member for Isle of Wight, would be a bureaucratic nightmare. The identity of the person who raised the cause of concern would be included, but not the source of the complaint. For example, if a child's name and address was obtained from a health authority, the fact that the name and address was thus obtained would not need to be entered on to the database.Secondly, I understand, as do all hon. Members present, that practitioners need a clear understanding of what we want them to do. We will, of course, need to explain the detail in regulations and in guidance on how that aspect—the causes of concern—of the databases will work. That is why we are preparing the consultation paper and why we will subject the regulations to the affirmative procedure. We will take the public consultation exercise seriously; we want to hear what the professionals say and will have regard to that as we prepare the regulations for consideration by hon. Members. I hope that those final words of comfort will persuade hon. Members not to press their amendments. Mrs. Annette L. Brooke (Mid-Dorset and North Poole) (LD): I thank the Minister for her brevity. I do not mean that disparagingly, because she conveyed some important points despite that brevity. However, I do not feel reassured on some of my original objections to paragraphs (g) and (h) of subsection (4). First, we would feel more comfortable if it were not stated so definitively in the clause that there would be the opportunity to place flags of concern on the database. My reading of the clause is that that is definitive; it is not just a possibility that will be picked up later. That decision should be made after the evaluation of the trailblazers, and the big problem is that there will be a time lag in getting the evaluation results. I was also not reassured by the Minister saying that the cause of concern would not be indicated in any detail. I accept the point, but I see flags all over the place, because that does not overcome the problem that anyone can feel a cause for concern on matters ranging from the minor to the most important. Over-cautious people might flag things up and others will think, ''I don't want to get involved in a lot of paperwork—I don't think I'll do that.'' There is such a great possibility of the flagging system going wrong that I cannot support it. Margaret Hodge: Let me just provide some clarity. If I, as a professional, put a cause of concern on the data system, that will be because I have taken some action—it is not an excuse for inaction—and I feel that is important that another professional contacts me if they have causes of concern about a particular child. It is a false idea that a busy professional would put up thousands of flags of concern because they wanted thousands of other professionals to contact them to have conversations to decide what to do about the child. All the professionals are busy people; they will use those causes of concern appropriately, because otherwise they themselves will be overloaded with people contacting them about a child. Column Number: 278
2.45 pmMrs. Brooke: I thank the Minister for her intervention. As I said earlier, things could work either way, but we have no way of knowing, because we do not have the evaluation. We have heard time and again that everything is dependent on consultation before the full regulations are set out. It is difficult when we do not know what lies ahead and what is involved. There has been no further information since the Bill left the other place, and I hope that more information will be available before Report. It would help if we at least knew the terms in which the consultation will be framed and saw the documents before they were sent out. I am sure that the Minister accepts that I am not the only person raising those concerns, which worry many people throughout the country. I do not accept her argument, although I do not mean to be confrontational. We need to discuss the matter more fully on the Floor of the House, and I shall not divide the Committee on the amendment. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Mrs. Brooke: I beg to move amendment No. 110, in
I can be very brief. Subsection (13)(e) of the clause refers to the need for advice on data protection. Training would fit in perfectly with that proposal, as a great deal of training will also be needed. The amendment would address some of my anxieties in that respect. Margaret Hodge: The clause as drafted refers to the need for children and families to have advice so that they are aware of their rights under the Data Protection Act 1998. It is the professionals who work the system who would need training, and the clause is therefore not an appropriate place for the amendment. As I said earlier, I agree with the hon. Lady that training of professionals is important, but the clause is not the right place to specify it. Mrs. Brooke: I have made my point; I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill. Tim Loughton: I shall not detain the Committee. We have had a lengthy debate and received some useful information from the Government, although not nearly enough. However, I fear that there are still too many gaps in the Bill as drafted and too many question marks, and it would therefore not be right for the Committee to agree to the clause stand part. I shall urge my hon. Friends to vote against the clause with a view to returning to it on Report, when I hope the Government will greatly have improved the proposal. We may then be able to support it.
Column Number: 279 As the Minister knows, I support databases in principle, but they should be properly quantified, qualified, manageable and practical databases that will actually work, and we have not been assured that they will work in their current form. I shall press clause stand part to a Division.Mrs. Brooke: I endorse the hon. Gentleman's comments; there are still too many questions and not enough answers. Liberal Democrat Members have stated which proposals we strongly support. The Minister may suggest that we were dragged into it, but we have listened carefully to the arguments and worked them through logically. We accept many of the principles of the measure, and many of the Minister's reassurances. However, we still have many questions about what will actually happen—who has access, how long the data will be held and so on. Those questions were all raised in the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Any extra information that could be supplied between now and Report could only enhance the debate on the clause. I therefore also agree that we should vote against it at this point. Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:— The Committee divided: Ayes 13, Noes 5.
Division No. 9]
AYES
NOES
Clause 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 37 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
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