Member

Amendment 29, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, concerns the type of support the Secretary of State will require multi-agency child protection teams to provide to the local authority by regulations. I want to reassure noble Lords that this power is strictly limited to the provision of support related to the local authority’s discharge of its duties under Section 47 of the Children Act 1989—in other words, the child protection provisions—and that the regulations this amendment seeks to remove are subject to scrutiny under the affirmative procedure. In addition, the support and operational functions of these new teams will be set out in regulations following a consultation informed by input from sector experts, safeguarding partners and evidence, as I have said, from the Families First Partnership programme.