Baroness Barran (Con)

My Lords, we on these Benches are very supportive of Amendment 61 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton. Of course, there is detail to be worked out, although we have already heard some encouraging ways through about how to use this anonymised data in practice. Clearly, if it could be aggregated and anonymised in whatever cut—so to speak—that would help us interrogate it and get some answers to some of the systemic issues that exist in child safeguarding and welfare. We are interested in both parts of the noble Lord’s amendment: namely, research and commissioning. Having a better understanding of the patterns of safeguarding issues, which children are most likely to be affected and what works would be invaluable for practitioners and policymakers alike. As my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe said, understanding what does not work and where the glitches are in the system is equally valuable. The more transparency we have on these issues, the better the commissioning of services will be. This made me think back to my noble friend Lady Spielman’s Amendment 69 on open data standards, and I know the Minister said that work is going on in that regard. If that was successful, it could be shared for some of the same purposes as Amendment 61 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton. I wonder whether that might be another way through, if the Government are unable to accept his amendment.