Children, Schools and Families Bill

The hon. Lady is right. It was because people in this House, and people with expertise and direct personal experience, including my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley, raised particular issues, that the matter is on the agenda. I fear that the hon. Member for Stone may want to broaden the agenda further than I, and probably those on both Front Benches, would seek to do. I am happy to consider a further amendment at any point, but I hope that we now have enough clarity to move forward. Let me turn to the safeguarding issues that were raised—some hours ago, as it now seems—by the hon. Members for East Worthing and Shoreham and for Mid-Dorset and North Poole, and then by my hon. Friends the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central (Jim Cousins) and for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Joan Walley). The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham contextualised this by looking back over the past year. He pointed to the fact that we have just passed the anniversary of the tragedy of the death of baby Peter and that we have had, since then, other individual acts of cruelty and suffering that are very distressing. He referred to our frustration and upset that this should have happened in Haringey after the death of Victoria Climbié, which was now 10 years ago, pretty much to the day. I think that the hon. Gentleman gave credit to some of the progress that has been made in the past year, although probably insufficiently so. We have had today the publication of Ofsted's second inspection report, following the first joint area review inspection a year ago, which gives a good report on Haringey children's services and the progress that has been made in the past year. I would like to put on record in the House my appreciation to the leader of the council, the director of children's services and the chief executive for the progress that they have made, which Ofsted has recognised today, while not for a minute suggesting that we are out of the woods. There is still more to do to ensure that children are fully and properly safe in Haringey, but there has been real progress there. There is also the work of the social work taskforce, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, under the chairmanship of Moira Gibb. This has been seen, by the taskforce itself, and by the wider social work world, as a real watershed moment—that was the language that it used to describe the extra investment, support, challenge and training that are now going into the social work profession. The hon. Gentleman talked about a collapse in morale, but in the past few months more people have come forward in response to our advertising and said that they wanted to be considered for training as social workers than at any time for many years. That shows that out of a tragic situation and tragic circumstances, there is a fuller understanding of the role that social workers play. I was particularly heartened when The Sun, not a supporter of the Government these days, ran an editorial in September praising the work of social workers. That was one reflection of the changing mood over the past year. It is not right to say this is a time of only bad news for social work. In fact, out of a tragedy a year ago, and, I would like to think, through cross-party effort—at times it has not felt as cross-party as one might have thought it would be on such a sensitive issue as child protection, but let us put that to one side—we are in a stronger position than we were then. That is not least because of the work of the social work taskforce following Lord Laming's excellent report published almost a year ago.