B

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 19 December 2024

Debate

Home Schooling

Contribution

I thank my noble friend for her question. The reality is that we do not yet know the detail of the specifics related to Sara Sharif, because, on the advice of police, the local child safeguarding practice review was not to be undertaken until after the completion of the trial. I would be reluctant to put any blame on any individual. In terms of next steps, I would like to take this away from Sara Sharif, because this is about how we protect all children who are at risk of harm. This is about how we can deliver stronger, multi-agency working protections, which we are doing. Statutory guidance reinforces multi-agency working across the whole system of help, support and protection. Recently introduced national multi-agency child protection standards and our new child wellbeing Bill will build on this. I also raise the fact that, as part of the legislation, we are introducing the unique signifier information, which will make it easier for multi-agency working to work. Some 56% of cases failed, and children slipped through the net, because one agency could not link up with another, so we need to introduce the single unique child identifier.

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