Mr Neil Gerrard (Walthamstow, Labour)

I add a few comments to the points that the hon. Gentleman made about information to local authorities. I accept quite a lot of what he said about the need to ensure that, if we reach a point where benefits are withdrawn, when clearly some consideration has to be given to what happens to the children, the authorities who are responsible for taking that child into care or for making some other arrangement for the support of that child know what is happening.

Support from NASS, the National Asylum Support Service, could be withdrawn. There could also be cases where families are supported by a local authority social services department and the point is reached when it is told to withdraw that support. Clearly, in that second case, one would expect that to be relatively easy—the local authority would be told not to continue support. When someone else has been providing the support, it might not be so easy.

The situation could also arise where a local authority has to make a decision and the child is moved to somewhere else. As we know, that can cause problems. NASS is much better at informing local authorities of children who are newly arrived in their area as a result of dispersal. The problem has not been entirely overcome but the situation is much better than it was. At the other end of the process, the information is not necessarily passed on.

What happens at present when children are put into the dispersal system or families are removed from the country? Often, a school does not know about it. All it knows is that a child who has been attending the school is no longer attending. That creates a problem. That child can be regarded as missing. After the recent unpleasant incidents that have led people to think much more carefully about the protection of children, the precautionary approach would generally be taken.

A school or a welfare officer might report a child to the police as missing because they have no other information about what happened to that child. I know of cases where a child has been reported as missing to the police because the school does not know what has happened to them. The welfare officer does not know what has happened to them and has to assume the worst because he cannot take the risk of not doing so. In fact, the family has been removed

from the country or has been moved somewhere else in the NASS system. The information might have gone to the receiving authority, but not necessarily to the authority from which they had been moved.

Such communication issues are important. Although the Minister has said that we would want to reach that point only rarely and that the Government do not intend the operation of the clause to remove support from lots of children and their families, the point will be reached sometimes if the provisions enter into law. If the point is reached, it is vital that the information be passed, whether or not that is in the form suggested in the amendment. We must not have children slipping through the system or teachers and welfare officers getting unnecessarily concerned about children simply because they have moved somewhere else.

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