Member

I am not completely comfortable—actually, you never are in child protection—with the Minister’s response on how we protect against delay and an obstructive family member with very young children. These are such finely balanced decisions and the idea that they might turn up next week and so on could delay things. So, when the Minister writes to us following this debate, could she set out what data is already collected or planned to be collected once this is mandatory? It would be interesting to understand the average length of the process and whether there is a difference in outcomes for families offered the process much earlier, at the time a child protection plan is set up, rather than at a pre-proceedings stage. Obviously, we need to stay agile and make sure that we protect children as well as possible. When listening to her remarks, I wondered whether that was a way through, but obviously she needs a moment to think about it.