Murders in Northamptonshire: Serious Case Reviews

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will make a statement on the findings of two serious case reviews into the murders of two toddlers in Northamptonshire.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)]

The deaths of Dylan in 2017 and Evelyn-Rose in 2018 were both tragic and, indeed, horrific. Separate serious case reviews were published on 5 June this year by Northamptonshire’s local safeguarding children board. The serious case reviews highlight serious weaknesses in child safeguarding practice and partnership arrangements at those times, and together make 16 recommendations for Northamptonshire and its safeguarding partners to implement.

These events have highlighted the serious systemic issues in Northamptonshire. I want to assure the House that we have already begun taking action. Since those deaths, and following an Ofsted focused visit in 2018 that exposed a more general decline in the quality of services, my Department has appointed a highly experienced commissioner, Malcolm Newsam CBE, to ensure that improvements take place, and has increased improvement support from Lincolnshire County Council—one of the best in the country for children’s social care. The commissioner has already identified six priority areas for significant improvement to effectively improve outcomes for children. He has identified the importance of learning from the tragic deaths of these two young children and others. I have written to Malcolm today to ask that he continue to put learning from Dylan and Evelyn-Rose’s deaths and the recommendations from these reviews firmly into his future work.

I have already set out my intention, on the recommendation of the commissioner, to create an operationally independent children’s service trust serving Northamptonshire to drive improvement in services. I can announce to the House today that I have issued a statutory direction to the council to work with the commissioner on the creation of that trust by July 2020.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question on these horrific and tragic cases. I thank the Minister for his heartfelt response. I also thank the shadow Leader of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), for highlighting this issue to the Government during business questions last Thursday.

Last week, two serious case reviews were published in Northamptonshire on the deaths of these two toddlers. Both these very young children were systematically let down by the local authority, Northamptonshire County Council—an institution that was supposedly there to protect them. The reports examined the deaths of Dylan Tiffin-Brown, aged two, when he died of a cardiac failure after his father assaulted him in December 2017, and Evelyn-Rose Muggleton, aged one, when she died in hospital days after being assaulted by her mother’s partner in April 2018.

I hope that we will now see—I believe that we will—Ministers use everything in their power to ensure that this public institution does not fail children again and to prevent other tragedies from happening elsewhere.

I note that a serious case review into the death of a third child remains confidential. The review looked into the case of a boy from Northampton who was locked in a room, beaten and abused. The parents were jailed for neglect last month, with professionals describing it as the worst case of child cruelty that they had seen in 25 years.

The two published reviews highlight key misjudgements from staff about the level of danger posed by the men to the two children and failures to act on warnings that the children were at risk. Northamptonshire safeguarding children board said that there were “lost opportunities” leading up to the murders and that the two children’s safety was “seriously undermined” after the significance of the killers’ criminal past and history of domestic abuse was overlooked by agencies.

Dylan died aged two after sustaining 39 injuries to his face, neck, torso and limbs, including 15 rib fractures and lacerations to his liver. After a sustained beating at home by his father—a drug dealer from Northampton who was convicted of murder in October 2018—a post-mortem found cocaine, heroin and cannabis in the two-year-old’s body at the time of death. No social worker saw Dylan in the two months between his being discovered at his father’s home during a police drugs raid and his death at his father’s hands.

Evelyn-Rose, aged one, died three days after sustaining a traumatic brain injury from her mother’s partner. She had received multiple bruising and bleeding injuries, including damage to her spine and both eyes. Social care and health agencies that had been involved with the family had failed to recognise the neglect that was taking place. The safeguarding children board stated that two social workers had been allocated to the case, but that the case had started to

“drift, with little if any attention being paid to the children’s welfare”.

Sadly, Northamptonshire’s children’s services have been on the radar since the severe financial troubles at the county council overwhelmed the local authority. The county’s children’s services were said to have “substantially declined” when inspectors were called in during last October’s visit and that a “fundamental shift” in culture was required—something that the Minister acknowledges. Given that, can he assure the House that the financial problems at Northamptonshire are not further jeopardising or worsening the provision of children’s services across the county? If he finds that they are, what representations will he make to Ministers in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, to ensure that Northamptonshire has the resources it needs? Is he assured—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am loth to interrupt, because the hon. Gentleman is treating of a matter of the utmost gravity, and I respect that, but I am afraid he has taken two and a half times his allotted time. I feel sure that he is reaching his peroration, which will be of formidable eloquence and brief.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. These are very serious matters. Is the Minister assured that the authority is able to finance improvements to children’s services both now and during the reorganisation, including the transfer to the trust that he mentioned, and to implement the improvements needed to put right these severe service failings? Lastly, will he intervene and ensure full transparency on the third serious case review, which remains unpublished? This matter is so severe and so serious that every opportunity must now be taken to act.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Let me take the last point first, about the third serious case review. Our statutory guidance is clear that local safeguarding children boards must let the independent Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel—the panel, as I will refer to it—and the Department for Education and Ofsted know of any decisions about a serious case review initiation and publication, including the name of any reviewer commissioned, as soon as they have made a final decision. The local safeguarding children board should also set out for the panel and the Secretary of State the justification for any decisions not to initiate or publish a serious case review. They should send copies of all serious case reviews to the panel, the DFE and Ofsted at least seven working days before publication.

There has been and continues to be a great deal of debate about the transparency of the child protection system in England, but there is a presumption that all serious case review reports are published. That is why local safeguarding children boards and the new safeguarding partnerships are required to send copies of all serious case reviews to the panel, the DFE and Ofsted within at least seven days, as I have mentioned. At that point, they would need to provide justification for any decision not to publish the report. The panel has not yet received the draft serious case review in relation to child JL.[Official Report, 23 July 2019, Vol. 663, c. 13MC.] Once the draft serious case review is received, the panel will consider carefully if there is any justification for not publishing the report. I hope that reassures the hon. Gentleman.

On our work with the MHCLG, the hon. Gentleman can see that my colleague the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak), is on the Front Bench, and we take our work together very seriously. We are working towards the spending review and making sure that funding for children’s services is adequate. Overall, if we look at England, local authorities have made some tough decisions, but they have actually protected the funding for children’s services. I can give the hon. Gentleman the reassurance that working with Malcolm Newsam, with the recommendations he has made for me and the trust that we will be delivering for all Northamptonshire’s children, will be the best way forward.

Education and Local Services

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I get the sense that you would like us to finish sooner rather than later.

We have had a packed debate, and it has been great to listen to the 48 Back-Bench Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali), for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), for Burnley (Julie Cooper), for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones), for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) and for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan); the right hon. Members for Broadland (Mr Simpson), for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper); the hon. Members for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk), for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach), for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), for Copeland (Trudy Harrison), and for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston); and the hon. and learned Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer).

However, I pay special tribute to all those hon. Members who have spoken in this Chamber for the first time and to their excellent maiden speeches, which show that, whichever part of the Chamber Members sit in, they come here with the right reasons and the right purpose, which is to represent their constituents and their constituencies as best they can. I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Colne Valley (Thelma Walker), for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney), for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Lesley Laird), for North West Durham (Laura Pidcock), for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr Russell-Moyle), for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield), for High Peak (Ruth George) and for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), and to the hon. Members for Aberdeen South (Ross Thomson), for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham), for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), for Belfast South (Emma Little Pengelly), for Southport (Damien Moore) and for Glasgow East (David Linden). I would merely say that it was 12 years ago, on 23 May 2005, that I gave my maiden speech in the debate on communities, and I stand here 12 years later as the shadow Communities Secretary.

A week is a long time in politics, they say. Well, what a difference seven weeks made. When the election was called, I was virtually laughed off College Green in media interviews. Tory MPs’ tails were up—they were heading for a landslide. They asked for a big majority, but the Prime Minister lost the majority she had inherited. Their response? Well, out went all their policies—to the extent that we had a delayed Queen’s Speech that could have been written on an Ascot betting slip. Why the Queen had to wait for a goatskin to be prepared, I do not know—never has so much pomp and ceremony accompanied so little content.

This is the first opportunity I have had to speak since the appalling tragedies that shocked many of us over the past weeks. It is with pride, however, that I commend the way the communities of Manchester and London united to show opposition to that violence and hate. I also pay tribute to the heroic response from the emergency services, the NHS and the community following the dreadful tragedy at Grenfell Tower, and to those who provided support to all who lost family, friends and everything they own as the fire tore through their homes.

I know that, within the Labour party, there are staff and elected Members who have been affected personally, and I anticipate that similar can be said for others around the House. I am proud to stand alongside, and pay tribute to, all those who have demanded answers over the failings that allowed this tragedy to happen. Rather than being torn apart, the community has come together in a remarkable display of human compassion, mutuality and solidarity. I also welcome the fact that the Prime Minister last week recognised the failure of Government in this tragedy, and I look forward to the results of the forthcoming investigation, which I hope will ensure this tragedy is never, ever repeated.

The consequences of a Tory Government are visible to all. They include unrepaired roads, uncollected bins, cuts to English classes for speakers of other languages, cuts to adult learning and closed children’s centres throughout England. Less visible, however, are the stresses that have been placed on core services, planning services, building regulation and inspection of commercial properties. A recent study by the Local Government Information Unit found that three quarters of councils had little or no confidence in their financial sustainability, and more than one in 10 believed that they were in danger of failing to deliver legally required services such as those I have mentioned.

[Lucy Frazer]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, if only one in 10 believe that they are not capable of delivering, nine out of 10 are managing with some of their financial services?

[Andrew Gwynne]

The hon. and learned Lady shows a lack of understanding of precisely what is happening in local government. The fact that one in 10 are fearful of the financial future does not mean that 90% are satisfied. I suspect that she will regret making that intervention, because she will know that councils of all political persuasions up and down the country are struggling to make ends meet, and they want an end to Government austerity too.

Although I welcome the fact that the general election demonstrated the strength of public support for the policies of my party, and that it led to the Conservative party abandoning not just some but most of its damaging and unpopular plans, there is now a complete financial and policy black hole.

A 56% cut of central Government funding to local authorities was due to be replaced through new measures allowing local authorities to hold on to 100% of locally raised business rates. Where are those plans now? Local business rate retention was expected to begin in 2019-20. However, due to the lack of a legislative framework to carry the introduction of the policy, many in the local government world now assume that the plans have been kicked into the long grass. This is the third time that I have had to raise this issue. When will the Government provide the clarity that local councils need? Are the plans still going ahead, and are they still going ahead on the timescales previously mentioned? Where is the legislation?

The Minister can intervene if he wishes to answer those points—perhaps he will answer them in his speech—but the fact is that Back-Bench Members on both sides of the House will want to question Ministers precisely on the detail of how their local councils are going to be financed. The Opposition will not let up until we have the absolute certainty of how the revenue support grant is going to be replaced.

The King’s Fund predicted a £1.9 billion funding gap in social care this year, while the Local Government Association estimated a £2.6 billion funding gap by 2020. Once again, the Government had no answers in the Queen’s Speech. Almost half of elderly people are living in inadequate care homes.

Although it seems that the grammar school plans have been abandoned, thousands of teachers and teaching assistants have either already lost their jobs because of the cuts or left the profession early because of this Government’s policies. This is not propaganda. Many schools are due to be worse off under the new funding formula, which will still result in Government cuts of 3% to school budgets, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Since 2010, 455 libraries have closed. Investment in arts and culture has declined by £236 million. Some councils have been forced to impose cuts of up to 80%, which have disproportionately affected the most deprived areas in this country. In the previous Parliament, the 10 most deprived council areas in England faced cuts 18 times higher than the least deprived councils. If we want a Government for the many and not the few, it is really clear that it will not be served by the party currently sitting on the Government Benches. We need a party that is committed to governing in the interests of the whole country and to making sure that inequality is reversed.

Let us look at what this Government have done. Despite the cuts to all our public services, this Prime Minister has managed to find £1 billion to invest in securing herself a wafer-thin parliamentary majority. Why has the same priority not been placed on investing in our public services? One billion pounds would help to prevent cuts to the police budget and allow us to recruit more police officers across the whole country. One billion pounds could train 45,419 new firefighters. One billion pounds could not only fund the Government’s pledge to create 10,000 training placements for nurses, but allow them to do so without scrapping bursaries.

There is a growing consensus that the austerity project has failed, but this legislative programme promises more of the same—unless you live in Northern Ireland. Urgent action is needed on health and social care budgets, public sector pay and local government funding, yet all those issues were absent from this delayed Queen’s Speech. Local government faces a cliff edge, yet during the election Ministers were unwilling to debate those issues. They remain so detached from those they claim to represent that they are unable to see the looming crisis. This Queen’s Speech was an ideal time for the Government to admit that their 1% pay cap is not working and that public sector workers deserve to be paid a wage they can live on. It was an opportunity for the Conservative party to demonstrate that it had learned from the criticism it received during the election campaign. Sadly, I suspect we will still see nurses using food banks. It was an opportunity for the Government to recognise that not enough money is being invested in our education system. As has been demonstrated in today’s debate, schools that raise concerns about a lack of funding are dismissed as engaging in political propaganda.

It is time to build a country based on hope and shared prosperity. Local government and public sector services will play a vital role in supporting us to do that, enriching communities and creating an environment in which we are able to tackle isolation, division and mistrust: a country for the many, not the few. This is possible only if it is properly funded. We will take no lectures from this Government. We look forward to the day when we show this Government the door and we get the Government that our public services and constituents deserve and need: a Labour Government for the many, not the few.