Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I find it astonishing that there was apparently so little information and knowledge. The programme suggested that the man around the house was barely evident; although some evidence emerged, it did not seem to figure much in the action that was taken. The financial pressures on funding for local authorities must be a factor in all this. Another worrying aspect that emerged from the programme—I think that finance was a factor in this respect too—is the so-called optimistic future strategy: the idea that people should hope that somehow the family could look after the child in future and look forward to that instead of looking at what was happening in the present. Focusing on a point in the future meant that what was happening to the child at the time was missed or, indeed, ignored. I am concerned that that strategy is yet another attempt to disguise what people are really about, which is trying to keep the child in the family to avoid the expense of taking it into care. The pressures on local authorities not to do that must be financial at root. In future, whatever happens, we should provide the resources to ensure that children are not kept in dangerous families when they should be taken into care. I hope that my remarks have been helpful to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench.