Member

In R v Birmingham City Council, the High Court was clear that decisions involving children at risk must rest on demonstrable harm, not administrative suspicion, and that intervention must be necessary and proportionate. Reclaim Rights for Children, a coalition deeply engaged with the lived realities of these families, warns that this Bill fundamentally risks distorting the purpose of child protection—from supporting families to policing them, from partnership to suspicion. It cites extensive data, which we can share with officials, that Section 47 investigations have tripled in the past 15 years without any evidence of reduced harm. Professor Andy Bilson’s research shows that these powers are increasingly used not as shields for genuinely at-risk children but as nets cast over families who are disabled, living in poverty or simply struggling, families that the Government I am sure really care about. These families need help, not heavy-handed intrusion.