Oral Answers to Questions
Lisa Nandy Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Timpson
As ever, my hon. Friend makes an important and serious point about a problem that still blights too many children, and which continues in our communities, often under the radar when it needs to be more prominent. I will look carefully at what he says and I am happy to discuss the matter with him further to see what more we can do.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
Ministers’ plans to outsource children in care placements to private companies such as Serco were recently blocked by the House of Lords after an evaluation of similar trials under the previous Government raised serious concerns about the impact on children, questioning the continuity of knowledge, skills and care in the private sector. Will the Minister tell the House in whose interest he is pressing ahead with these plans, and say why he does not consider it reckless to remove at the same time essential independent checks on those companies?
Mr Timpson
We must be honest about the fact that the current system is failing too many vulnerable children, and it cannot continue. The previous Government introduced in legislation exemptions to the status quo to allow social work practices to develop, which is outsourcing some of the children’s services functions. We think that that is an encouraging way to look at innovative ways of bringing people into working with vulnerable children, so that they get the best possible care. The hon. Lady should look carefully at what we are doing, because it is in the interests of children. That is why we need it to go forward.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lisa Nandy Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Timpson
I explained in my previous answer the approach that local authorities quite rightly take to ensure that children’s services are the best they can be, but we can enable that through the revised Working Together to Safeguard Children, making it clearer who is responsible for providing which services while ensuring that the quality of social work is as high as possible. That is why I set out in my initial answer why this is such a high priority for the Government.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
Has the Minister seen the recent survey of 2,000 social workers, which paints a shocking picture of, in their words, “crisis”, “breaking point” and “chaos”. It shows increasing caseloads, long waiting lists, the use of non-qualified staff to assess children, the use of agency workers, and children who need help being turned away as thresholds are revised upwards to cope with the situation. As one social worker put it, “amber is the new green”. Is it not time that the Government got on red alert and did something about this crisis?
Mr Timpson
I am sorry that the hon. Lady, who was so supportive of many of the measures we have taken to bring in the recommendations of the Munro review, decides to use this set piece to provide a dividing line that does not need to be there. We are all trying to achieve the same thing: to improve outcomes for children who come into contact with children’s services. We are seeing improvements in the country, but they are needed across the board, and we are introducing reforms to ensure that children and families get high quality social work and support when they need it.
Children and Families Bill
Lisa Nandy Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who, like so many Members, is incredibly passionate about these issues and did an enormous amount to shape the Bill in its current form. Many Members here today are deeply frustrated that they have not yet had any opportunity to scrutinise some really important areas of the Bill, and I share their frustration. I will attempt to be as brief as I can so that as many of them can speak as possible while we make sure that we do this Bill and these children justice.
When we scrutinised the Bill on Second Reading, my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) and I said that it would come to be characterised as much by what was not in it as what was. That is the motivation behind our new clause 20, which would ensure that sex and relationships education is available to all children across the country. The nation has been shocked by child grooming scandals where young girls have been systematically exploited by older men—often men who they thought were taking care of them.
Research by the Children’s Commissioner has found that far too many young people—boys and girls—do not know what a good relationship looks like. Worryingly, it also found that many of them did not even understand the concept of consent. Our view is that we are failing to equip young people with the knowledge, skills and resilience they need to keep themselves safe. We must do much more to tackle child abuse, but more importantly we must prevent it from happening in the first place.
Young people are increasingly exposed to risks online. We think that the question is not whether we can afford to talk to them about issues as difficult as this, but whether we can afford not to. We think that all children should have the opportunity to access age-appropriate sex and relationships education. In a departmental report on personal, social, health and economic education, young people said that they valued the chance to express views safely and ask questions, and felt that that had improved their relationship with others. We believe that parents should retain the right to withdraw children aged 15 or under because they know their children best, but equally we know that the vast majority of parents would like their children to have access to sex and relationships education. For children whose parents do not talk to them about these issues, this could be critical in keeping them safe, especially given that a third of girls say that they have experienced unwanted touching. We are keen for the Government to support our proposed new clause 20.
Amendment 33, which stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West, seeks to ensure that we do not put speed before getting it right for children. It would ensure that children are not placed in fostering or adoption placements either before it has been decided that adoption is the plan or, in the Minister’s words, as early as the first week in care. We debated this at length in Committee, so I will not labour the point, but that debate gave me more cause for concern, not less.
It seems to me that placing children in fostering or adoption placements before the local authority has decided that that should be the plan is more disruptive for the child. Conducting an informal matching process, possibly within a week, before placing the child and then considering their wishes and feelings about whether adoption is suitable and the placement is the right one runs the risk of putting more people off adopting, as many Members have pointed out, and of more adoption breakdowns, which plays into children’s biggest fears that this for-ever home may not be the right one. As always, when we talked to children about this, they felt strongly that their views should be heard.
Lisa Nandy
I am sorry, but I cannot give way because a number of Back Benchers have sat through this entire debate and are desperate to get in. I wish the hon. Gentleman well in doing so.
In Committee, the Minister said that further statutory guidance would be provided to local authorities that are making this important decision. Although that does not alleviate all my concerns, the guidance will clearly be central to the practical effects of clause 1. Why have we not yet seen a draft of the guidance, and when will we see it?
Amendment 34, which stands in my name, relates to the consideration of ethnicity in adoption placements. The Minister expressed concern in Committee that placing ethnicity on the welfare checklist, as we are suggesting, will put undue weight on it. He said:
“As soon as one tries to specify particular elements of a child’s characteristics in an exhaustive list, one then starts to prioritise one characteristic over another.”––[Official Report, Children and Families Public Bill Committee, 12 March 2013; c. 205.]
I want him to consider briefly that the opposite may be the problem.
The Minister referred to research by Birmingham city council that looked at the experience of prospective adopters. It certainly emerged that a problem with practice—aggressive questioning, for example—and not with legislation had put people off. The research also demonstrated, however, that the majority of adopters—a staggering 90%—had expressed a strong preference to adopt a child with a similar ethnicity and that it was the failure to explore such factors with potential adopters that prevented children from black and minority ethnic backgrounds from being considered. In fact, in the one case in which a social worker did do that, the prospective parents went on to successfully adopt a child with a different ethnicity.
I reiterate that the amendment would not ensure that children were matched only with prospective adopters with the same background as them. Crucially, however, it would ensure that thoughtful consideration was given to ethnicity so that such factors were explored and we did not put off people from adopting a child who could otherwise find a loving home because they mistakenly thought that they would not be right for that child, which we think is a crying shame.
Amendment 35 is designed to ensure that we do not unwittingly create misconceptions for parents. We agree with the Government, as we said at length in Committee, that it is critical to most children to have an ongoing, good-quality relationship with their mum and dad, but we are concerned about the practical impact of clause 11.
I will not rehearse all the debates that we had in Committee, but the Minister was right to say that he did not want to be too prescriptive about what involvement meant. That is why our amendment would define what involvement is not, in line with the explanatory notes. It is important that that is put in the Bill and that no room is left for doubt, given that there have already been headlines in this country and that misconceptions have been created. I hope that the Minister will accept that amendment.
I do not need to rehearse why new clause 19 is so important, as it would prevent the harrowing and aggressive questioning of young witnesses in court. This morning, we received the welcome announcement that the Government are trialling pre-recorded cross-examination in Leeds, Liverpool and Kingston upon Thames. I am sure that the Minister appreciates the urgency of this matter as more child grooming cases are brought to trial. Will he say when the pilots will start, how they will be evaluated, whether there will be any measures alongside them to prevent the aggressive questioning that we have heard so much about and how soon they will be rolled out?
As I am sure the Minister is aware, the implementation of section 28 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 alone will not be enough to support vulnerable witnesses. New clause 19 also proposes specialist court sittings for children who have been sexually abused, with trained judges and barristers, and the restriction of multiple cross-examinations. Will he say whether there will be a cap on the number of lawyers who may cross-examine a witness? I would be grateful if he could give more information about that.
I tabled new clause 18 notwithstanding our strong opposition to the under-occupation penalty, known to some as the bedroom tax. We are extremely concerned that that policy will put people off taking care of children whom they otherwise would have looked after because of the financial implications. We want to ensure that, at a time when Ministers share our concerns about the acute shortage of foster carers and adopters, we do not make the situation worse. We were struck by the evidence from Adoption UK about the problems for prospective adopters and special guardians, which was provided by Grandparents Plus. We are very concerned that the National Housing Federation estimates that the discretionary housing fund will fall short by £100 million.
We thought that the Minister had allayed our concerns about foster carers in Committee until it transpired the following day that the Government’s second change of heart meant that only one foster child would be covered, despite the fact that many foster carers look after more than one child. I was grateful for the Minister’s assurance that he would monitor the impact of the policy. Given that it has come into force and that he assured us in Committee that it would be monitored from April, will he say whether the Department has begun the monitoring programme, how it is going about it, whether there is any independence in the evaluation and, if so, who is conducting it? What, if any, evidence has been collected over the past two and a half months, and when does the Department expect to publish a report? Will he ensure that the report is made available to Members of the House as soon as it is published, given how important this matter is to many Members from all parts of the House and given that it affects vulnerable children in every constituency?
Finally, amendments 36 and 37 would ensure that children’s views and sibling arrangements are taken into account when courts scrutinise or change a care plan. Although we support the Government’s efforts to focus courts on the long-term aspects of care plans, we are concerned that, in the real world, the acute pressures on social workers, independent reviewing officers and guardians will mean that important aspects may be missed. Does the Minister have anything concrete to report from the discussion that he was holding with independent reviewing officers about how he will alleviate that pressure? Court scrutiny has helped social workers to ensure that they have access to resources and has changed care plans to allow sibling contact. I was grateful for the Minister’s assurances in Committee that there is nothing to prevent courts from looking at this matter, but given the pressure that family courts are under, especially after the legal aid cuts, we think that it is too important to leave to chance.
I am grateful for the opportunity to set out those points, but immensely disappointed at the lack of scrutiny that we have given these aspects of the Bill today. I would now like to give other people the opportunity to contribute.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I rise to speak to new clause 20 as a parent of two boys, one of whom is still at school and one of whom left recently. I also want to speak for the many parents in my constituency who, like me, are concerned about the provision of sex education in this country.
I am pleased that new clause 20 proposes to redefine sex education as “sex and relationships education”, although I would have put it the other way around, with the emphasis on relationships rather than sex. After agreeing on the wording, I part company with those who tabled the new clause.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lisa Nandy Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Michael Gove
My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. First, I thank Darren Henley for his report on music education, which we have had a chance to implement and which has helped influence our own approach to the national curriculum in music. We want children to learn to appreciate, but also to create, which, of course, involves learning composition skills. We also want to make sure that that is done in harness with the new music hubs that are being created. “Hubs” is not a pretty word, but they are a beautiful thing, because they are bringing instrumental tuition to many more young people.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
Recently the Children’s Commissioner found that girls and boys too often do not know what a good relationship looks like, so, as part of a broad and balanced curriculum, why is the Secretary of State refusing to make sex and relationships education compulsory in our schools? Is he aware that this vacuum is currently being filled in some areas by extremist groups, which are targeting vulnerable young girls with racist literature that claims to keep them safe? If he is as horrified by that as I am, is it not time to act?
Michael Gove
I am absolutely horrified by the extremist activity that the hon. Lady alludes to and if she could share that material with me, we will make sure that action is taken.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lisa Nandy Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)
My hon. Friend is right to point out that the issue is not just about the legislation, but about how the reforms will be implemented on the ground. That is where the pathfinders are so crucial.
A progress report—an independent evaluation of how pathfinders are developing—will be published tomorrow. There has been good progress in the local offer and its development, in the engagement of parents and in the transition into adulthood, as well as in personal budgets and in the continued assessment process becoming more co-ordinated. Of course, pathfinders will continue to inform our legislation and the code of practice and regulation that will follow once we move into the consultation part of the process.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
I want more people from all walks of life to come forward to adopt children, and when they do I want them to be welcomed with open arms and given all the help and support they need. Does the Minister share his predecessor’s view and recognise his Department’s own guidance, which states that adopted children may well need their own bedroom when they join a new family? If so, will he promise them and this House that no prospective adoptive parent will be refused permission to give a child a loving home because of the bedroom tax?
Mr Timpson
I know that the hon. Lady has taken an extremely keen interest in this very important issue. Of course we need more people to come forward to adopt, because we have a huge shortfall, and that is a national crisis that we need to address. That is exactly what we are doing through our Children and Families Bill reforms, which will help to drive up the interest and confidence of the many people who want to adopt and enable them to do so. One of the reasons we need to do that is that more children require adoption as their best route into permanency. We need to ensure that the people who come forward have the requisite skills and capability to provide a loving home. I am sure that as we move into Committee and hear evidence tomorrow on the adoption reforms we will enjoy discussing this issue further.
Children and Families Bill
Lisa Nandy Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
We welcome the coalition’s first Bill to focus on children and families. We especially welcome the fact that the Bill focuses on some of the children who are facing the greatest challenges, such as those with special educational needs and those in the care system.
We believe that the provisions on shared parental leave that build on the maternity and paternity leave entitlements of the last Government, and the measures to improve post-adoption support, are an important step forward for children, and we warmly welcome the introduction of child arrangement orders. However, we have heard considerable concerns from hon. Members throughout the debate about the real-world effect of some of these measures, and they need much greater scrutiny before the Bill becomes law. That is particularly true of the provisions on special educational needs, as highlighted by the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham); the exclusion of children with disabilities from care plans; and the potential postcode lottery of the local offer.
We share concerns raised by the Select Committee on Adoption Legislation in the House of Lords about the practical implications of removing the requirement to consider ethnicity when placing a child for adoption; about prescribing children’s best interests in primary legislation; and about the unusual, if not unique, attempt to impose strict time limits on care proceedings in primary legislation. The needs of individual children must remain paramount, both in principle and in practice. While we welcome the efforts made by the Minister so far to accommodate the concerns that have been raised with him, we believe that the Bill can be significantly improved in those areas and we will seek to work with Ministers to achieve changes as the Bill makes progress.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) outlined, the Bill contains some good measures, but we believe that it will come to be characterised less by what is in it and more by what is not. It is a Bill about vulnerable children and families, but it says nothing about the problems facing young carers, trafficked and migrant children, and children who have been abused and ill-treated. We know that action is needed in these areas, but where is the action and urgency for those children? In the words of 10-year-old Paige, as reported by Save the Children:
“It doesn’t get any better. It gets worse and worse as the days go on.”
Where is the strategy for children such as Paige, after the dismantling of the Every Child Matters framework?
In line with the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey), we will consider how to ensure that the Bill introduces more support for children who have been abused and ill-treated, and who face the prospect of the courts. We will consider how to ensure that the needs of children in the wider care system are not neglected. We are concerned that the Bill is unbalanced. The focus on adoption is welcome, but it should not come at the expense of attention on other children in the care system, the majority of whom are in foster care placements, at a time when we have a shortage of nearly 9,000 foster carers. We share the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), who spoke compellingly about the situation facing children for whom kinship care is and should be the right option.
We want to know what the Government intend to do to ensure that children can remain with their birth parents where that is in their best interests. We are very concerned about the stripping away of support for those children at a time when families are under huge pressure up and down the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) has uncovered the huge cuts that have been made to the early intervention grant and she highlighted the disappearance of more than 400 Sure Start centres since the last election. Recently, the Government took even more of the early intervention grant to pay for their adoption reforms, as my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) pointed out. For some children, remaining with their birth family is the right option: where is the support for them?
The Bill fails to address some of the stark challenges that children face. This is their Bill—it is not our Bill or the Government’s Bill. It is for and belongs to the one in five children who go to school hungry, without decent shoes, without decent clothes and without basic essentials; for the estimated 1.5 million children who, according to Action for Children, are growing up in neglect; for the record numbers of children in the care system; and for the nearly 9,000 homeless families, 2,000 of whom are languishing in bed and breakfast accommodation, up by 51% in the past year.
At a time like this families need support more than ever, but the safety net is being eroded, creating a perfect storm for some children. The Bill is completely silent on the wider problems. The cuts to local authorities are particularly important, because parts of the Bill require social workers to take on an even bigger and more responsible role—for example, in the court process, and in deciding to place children in fostering for adoption arrangements before the court has made a decision. Those are crucial decisions for children, yet nearly eight in 10 social workers say that they are overburdened. The situation for independent reviewing officers—often the voice of children—is just as difficult. Without action from Government, the reforms could easily work against, not for, children’s best interests.
That is why we warmly welcome the strengthening of the role and remit of the Children’s Commissioner for England. At a time when the reality for some children is very bleak indeed, as illustrated by the bedroom tax, and their needs are easily overlooked by other parts of Government, children need a strong voice. We therefore support the Government’s measures to strengthen the role of the Children’s Commissioner. We will seek in Committee to further strengthen its powers, its remit and its independence.
While we welcome some of the measures in the Bill that help the people who matter most to children—the key adults in their lives—through the shared parental leave provisions and the post adoption support provisions, we have concerns about the capacity of an overstretched, hard-working children’s work force to meet those rising needs. We will therefore seek to improve the Bill in Committee, so that the system gives more support to families—not just to parents who have children with special educational needs, but to siblings and others who play an active role in helping a child at home. We want to be sure that the pathfinder schemes for personal budgets provide concrete proof that they will result in better outcomes for children before they are rolled out. That is our key test for the Bill: does it improve the situation of the children whom it seeks to help?
We are concerned that too often the Government are not child-focused; that too often they see children through the eyes of adults, not adults and adult systems through the eyes of children. It is why we are concerned by measures—for example, the time limits on court proceedings, as we heard from the Chair of the Justice Committee—that seek to prescribe the solution for individual children. We have heard a great deal about them in the course of the debate. It is important to retain individual flexibility for individual children, and we will seek to press the Government on that point in Committee.
We heard concerns from all parts of the House about attempts to define children’s best interests in law. We heard a welcome assurance from the Minister that that is not about seeking to define parents’ rights against children’s rights, but our concerns remain. We share the concerns of the Children’s Commissioner, and many of the organisations working with children, that this sends a dangerous signal that the paramountcy of children’s welfare is being diluted. While we agree strongly with the Government that parental involvement is in the best interests of children, so too are other relationships with grandparents, siblings, step-parents and friends. That is what children say matters to them, and we believe that they ought to be listened to and treated as individuals when decisions that affect them are made.
We will seek to give children a long overdue voice and ensure that the Bill reflects their priorities, not the Government’s, and the stark reality of the situation they face. While we will support strongly the Minister’s efforts where they improve the lives of some children, today we are laying down a challenge to the Government: work with us to improve the lives of more children. At present, many children are silent and invisible in the Bill, and do not have the childhoods that they, or we, would wish or expect. We lay down a challenge to Ministers to work with us during the passage of the Bill to do better by them.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lisa Nandy Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Timpson
Part of the purpose of the working group that we set up following the report from the all-party parliamentary group and the accelerated report from the deputy Children’s Commissioner was to consider how we could better record the data on all children who have some contact with the care system, and that includes trafficked children. I will think carefully about what my hon. Friend has said in conjunction with that work, and I should be happy to discuss it with him further.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
It is said that one of the main reasons children go missing from care is a lack of time, love and attention from those who care for them. However, the Government have presided over dramatic cuts in children’s services at a time when more children are entering the care system, along with—according to the former children’s Minister—a “downgrading” in the Department of issues involving children. Given that more than 50% of social workers are describing their case loads as unmanageable and 88% say that children’s lives may be put at risk by the cuts, can the Minister tell me who will be able to spare those children the time, love and attention that they need, keep them in the care system and keep them safe?
Mr Timpson
We must ensure that the child protection system that we have is as effective as possible. We are implementing the Munro reforms, which the hon. Lady’s party supports, both in relation to the statutory guidance on safeguarding and working together and in relation to better trained and higher quality social workers. We want protection to be in place for every child who needs it, but we must also provide the care that children require once they are in the care system. I want what the hon. Lady wants, which is the best possible care for all those children, and I hope she will join me in supporting Eileen Munro’s work so that we can ensure that it is provided.
Examination Reform
Lisa Nandy Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)
I want to start by reflecting on the details and the worryingly selective nature of the motion. It is clear that it has been written by somebody who is, sadly, unaware of the fact that the planned reforms of qualifications for 16-year-olds have been welcomed by organisations such as the Institute of Directors, the British Chambers of Commerce and the Engineering Employers Federation.
The motion completely ignores the fact that Simon Walker, director general of the Institute of Directors, has stated:
“We welcome Michael Gove’s new exam reforms. This announcement will undoubtedly help to shore up confidence in the British education system. Business leaders want a stronger curriculum and more rigorous exams, and these measures are welcome progress towards delivering that.”
Sadly, the motion also ignores the wise words of Dr Adam Marshall, director of policy at the BCC, who has stated:
“Unfortunately, in recent years too many new employees have lacked basic skills and required remedial training for inadequate literacy and numeracy. Employers must be assured that qualifications reliably reflect a given level of skill, and will welcome an end to artificial grade inflation and planned changes to increase rigour.”
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in the consultation for the Education Committee’s report on the English baccalaureate certificate, which was heavily subscribed to by people and organisations outside the House, not a single response was overwhelmingly supportive?
Chris Skidmore
I want to add to that in what I am saying. A responsible Opposition would not cherry-pick individual examples of what is happening with the EBC, but would reflect in their motion the fact that there is support for it. I intend to recognise the support that has not been recognised in the motion or in this debate so far.
Steve Radley, director of policy at the EEF, the largest manufacturers’ organisation, said of the Government’s planned reforms:
“Employers will broadly welcome the need for greater rigour, particularly in English, maths and sciences, having long complained that ever greater academic attainment levels have not produced young people with economically valuable skills ready to enter the workplace.”
Whoever wrote the motion is seemingly unaware that the Wellcome Trust has stated:
“We welcome the proposal to improve the quality and rigour of examinations at Key Stage 4. There is real potential to modernise the curricula with expert input and to ensure a continuous progression to A-levels and further qualifications.”
It added:
“We welcome changes to qualification content that will improve the quality of examinations and provide more challenge for the most able students.”
The author of the motion, whoever they are, does not appear to realise that it is not just the major organisations that represent business that welcome the Government’s—
Oral Answers to Questions
Lisa Nandy Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Michael Gove
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing this case to my attention—I shall look at it more closely. It is vital that all recognise that those who agree to foster children are responsible for bringing love and stability to some of the most damaged children and young people in our society. We should do everything possible to support them.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
The Children’s Commissioner’s recent interim report was reportedly dismissed by senior Government Ministers as “hysterical” and “half-baked”. According to news reports, Government sources said:
“It is difficult to overstate the contempt the Government has for the methodology and analysis”.
Does the Secretary of State want to take this opportunity to reject those comments; to join me, the NSPCC and Barnardo’s in welcoming that important report on child sexual exploitation; and to tell hon. Members what concrete steps he plans to take immediately to ensure that the 16,500 young people identified in the report as at immediate and high risk of exploitation are protected before harm comes to them?
Oral Answers to Questions
Lisa Nandy Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)
7. If he will establish an independent body to review the relationship between big pub companies and tied landlords.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
11. If he will establish an independent body to review the relationship between big pub companies and tied landlords.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
20. If he will establish an independent body to review the relationship between big pub companies and tied landlords.
Jo Swinson
I understand that a wide range of organisations have expressed concerns, which is exactly why we have written to the industry to ask for its views on how this is working. We want to proceed on an evidence-based approach and once we receive the evidence we will report back to the House.
Lisa Nandy
In Wigan, we are proud of our small breweries, AllGates and Prospect, whose beer will be in this place very soon. An independent inquiry would allow us to consider the impact of restrictions on their trade and, in particular, the impact on our local economy, given the breweries’ importance to Wigan. A commitment today from the Minister to establish such an inquiry would go a long way to restoring confidence in the industry. Will she make that commitment?
Jo Swinson
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. She does a wonderful job in championing her local breweries and the BIS Committee was very positive about the relationship that family brewers have with tenants. I may have to disappoint her by not giving her the commitment that she asks for today, but the Government are open-minded. As I have said, when we receive the industry’s response, which we have asked for by 23 November, we will consider the matter further.