Children, Schools and Families Bill

You will be pleased to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I shall not detain the House for long with the few comments that I wish to make. This far-reaching debate has come a long way from its starting point, when the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) seemed to tell us that we should substitute our discussion about the functions of the local safeguarding children boards with the concern that they should concentrate only on serious case reviews. I want to flag up to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State the importance that I attach to the many functions of the local safeguarding children boards, to the need to have proper resources to train the people who are affected by those boards and, particularly, to the need to have resources in schools to ensure that all teaching staff are properly inducted. I include temporary agency staff in that, because there is a lot of reliance in schools on such teachers, and I urge my right hon. Friend to comment on the national talks that he is conducting with the NASUWT. There are also employment and disclosure of information issues. The Independent Safeguarding Authority, with its new remit, must make its decisions in close consultation with the teaching unions, and we must ensure that temporary supply teachers are properly and thoroughly inducted into the way in which schools go about their responsibilities to implement the functions that we are discussing under this group of proposed changes.