Member

In this Bill we rightly talk at length about children who are home-schooled, but let me say that living in temporary accommodation must be at least as risky as being home-schooled. Through the brilliant work of Dr Laura Neilson, a GP in Oldham, we know the terrible fact that 74 children died in temporary accommodation over five years, where the coroner said that temporary accommodation was a major factor. We also know that 58 of those 74 children were under the age of one and died from sudden death syndrome, probably because they did not even have a cot of their own. There are far more children who die while living in temporary accommodation, but we cannot make that causal link that it was the main reason for their deaths. We know that 80 children in one year, or 3% of the total number of children who died that year, were living in temporary accommodation. How is it that we are not telling GPs and schools that this is happening to the families and the children under their care? I do not believe it is beyond the wit of the Government to be able to rectify this.