Lindsay Hoyle
Main Page: Lindsay Hoyle (Speaker - Chorley)
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Have you had any notification from the Home Secretary, the Minister for Crime and Policing or the safeguarding Minister, the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), that they intend to respond to the independent safeguarding report published yesterday outlining the deeply disturbing circumstances in which a child was strip-searched in the most degrading way by police in her school with profound and distressing consequences for the child involved? The report is clear that this should not have been allowed to happen; it is extremely distressing that it did. The report raises very serious questions about safeguarding, policing, training, guidance, racism and protection for children, and it has recommendations for both the Home Office and the Department for Education. Given these very troubling circumstances, have you, Mr Speaker, had any notification that any Minister is planning to respond to this report?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for giving me notice of the point of order. The issue she has raised is a very serious one, and I am sure she is correct that all Members will be concerned by it, as I am. I have not had notice of a statement; however, as the right hon. Member is aware, there are various ways in which the issue can be raised and I am sure that she and other Members will pursue the issue. I recognise that those on the Government Benches will have heard the point of order. It is quite right that we need an update to the House.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) is right. It seems that neither the parents nor the teachers were involved. I share her concern, as do others, to ensure that what has happened in this case does not happen in any other police forces across the United Kingdom. I again endorse what the right hon. Lady said. May I ask, through you, Mr Speaker, whether the parents and the teachers were notified? It seems that they were not.
Mr Speaker
Unfortunately, I am not answerable for that question. It is a very important question but I do not have that information. I assure the hon. Member that if I had had it, I would have answered the question.