Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)

I am sorry to interrupt the Minister on one point that she raised. I can hear that she feels that the accountability point is probably going to be okay, but, to combine a couple of things that she mentioned, the team can call on the right skills at the right time. That is obviously a major argument for this team. The only skills that the police really bring, because they are not child protection experts or experts in children’s development, is the ability to investigate crime; they bring nothing else to the table, really, apart from the fact that they are generally, I hope, innately nice people and reasonable people. I am not saying that they have no skills—that is really not my point—but the professional skills they bring to the table and the professional powers which are invested in them by law are all about how they investigate. If the team turns to them and says, “So it is your turn now to go and see this father”, or this mother, actually, that is not for them to call; that is for the police to call. That is the fundamental thing. While I am on my feet, and to save a later interruption, although the Minister may be coming to it, on the point that has been identified about the gap in knowledge where each of the agencies holds data that the others may not have access to, that is why the MASHs were created. That is why we have people sat in groups around the country, as has been mentioned already. That is what they are supposed to be doing. It may be that this report has concluded they are not doing it as well as they could, but I am not sure this team is going to fill the gap. That is what the MASHs were really intended to do. My final point is on the evaluation, which I know the Minister said is going to be published. The only piece of data I will be really interested in is how many fewer children got hurt or died, or whose development was not interrupted, or to what extent the satisfaction of the families involved was enhanced, as a result of this team’s intervention. They are the two core issues: basically, did kids get protected more by getting hurt less, and can we prove it? The rest, I am afraid, is a bit soft, in my view.