Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 2:15 pm on 23 January 2025.
I beg to move amendment 20, in clause 4, page 6, line 33, at end insert—
“(4A) Where the relevant person considers that the disclosure would be more detrimental to the child than not disclosing the information, this decision must be recorded.”
This amendment requires decisions made not to disclose information to be recorded.
The first thing to say about clause 4 is that we are extremely supportive of the principle of consistent identifiers. This is something we were working to deliver when I was in Government. I remember being in meetings about it when I was at the Department of Health and Social Care, discussing for example whether it would be possible to use the NHS number as the identifier. We are really keen that this happens. We have seen far too many young people fall through the cracks because of inconsistent identification, which means that problems are not connected and dots are not joined up. Government Members will not always hear me say this, but this is a very good and important idea, and one of which we are completely supportive.
Our amendments are therefore tweaks to ensure the idea works as well as it can. I will also ask some questions that do not have an amendment with them, but which I hope the Government will take away and think about so that this can work as well as possible.
To start with our amendment 20, I understand the reason for the safety valve in clause 4(3); however, I am wary. In practice, how can a single agency take the decision not to share information until it knows what other information its partner agencies hold about the same case and person? Surely there needs to be a level of trust and strong information-sharing protocols to allow sharing to happen. For example, there might be concerns about a child who has delayed speech at school, but without knowing that the mother has suffered years of abuse, been to A&E and never called the police, it is difficult to judge the situation accurately. What is the Minister’s answer to that concern about the safety valve? I hope one part of the answer can be our amendment. That is what it is there for.
Where information disclosure is not carried out because of a risk of detriment, something pretty serious is obviously happening. That information itself—that there has been deliberate, conscious non-disclosure—is very important. It is information from which we can possibly learn, and we certainly do not want it to just disappear into the ether and be lost. That is totally against the spirit of what we are all trying to do here. Our suggestion is that a conscious decision not to disclose for that reason should be clearly recorded, so that there is no confusion later about what happened or whether it was a conscious choice to not disclose, or just inaction or error.
Our amendment 21 would insert a new subsection (6A), in order to encourage those involved in taking such decisions to consider not just the welfare of the person whose information is being disclosed, but
“the welfare of others to whom the information may relate or involve”.
The person whose confidential information is being shared is not necessarily the only one whose welfare is going to be affected by that sharing.
The amendment appears to have two parts. The first is the requirement to consider the welfare of others to whom the information may relate. That seems quite reasonable; however, the requirement to take steps to promote the welfare of potentially anybody to whom the information may relate seems to me very broad.
I thank the hon. Lady for her thoughtful question. It is a very general point to say that people should take steps to think about their welfare. We are not asking people to move mountains or work miracles or anything like that—I cannot think of a clearer way of putting it. We want them not just to think about it, but to act on it, and there are two different amendments here.
I also have a question, which does not have an amendment attached to it, about proposed new section 16LB(9) of the Children Act 2004. The construction of this provision is a bit tortured. One can see, as it has been constructed, the different principles that are in play, but I would find it hard to parse if I were a frontline social worker—I find it hard to parse as an MP. I can envisage the lawyers in action trying to say two things. Some might say, “Don’t be scared of data protection legislation, share important information and look after the welfare of children”, while other lawyers would be saying, “But obviously, don’t break data protection legislation.”
So we end up with this slightly complicated sentence, which I think is trying to prioritise reassuring professionals about data protection laws, because we have seen some quite scary cases where people have been so busy complying with data protection rules that they have not used their common sense to do things that are extremely important. That point is for Ministers to ponder, rather than something we will attempt to amend now, because the world of data protection law is complex. However, the Ministers might want to look at that, and turn it around to put the onus on the principle that we have to think first about safety and not be scared off by over-enthusiastic interpretations of complex data protection law.
I also want to press the Ministers somewhat on proposed new section 16LB(7) of the 2004 Act. Once again, I understand why this safety valve is here. As I argued earlier, we must not undermine the need for speed in order to protect people. However, I wonder whether Ministers, as the Bill progresses, might decide that it would be sensible to have some way of recording when the identifier is not used because people do not know it or cannot find it in time. That might work in a similar way to our proposed amendment that would allow us to record decisions not to share information in order to learn from them. Particularly in the early years of this new, complex system, when it will be difficult to get some things right, understanding how well the system is working—or not—will be really important for improving it.
Something similar to that would also enable us to record, in each individual instance, whether an identifier not being used, as per our amendment, is an error, or whether it is a conscious decision because someone cannot find it, does not think they need to find it, or cannot find it in a timely way. We would propose an amendment today, but Ministers might want to decide, as the Bill progresses through Parliament, whether there is something to do there. I can see why they are creating the safety valve—if someone cannot find the identifier in time, they should do the right thing to keep kids safe, but recording when that is not happening is important. It would be antithetical to the spirit of what we are trying to do here if people routinely start not using it; that would take us back to square one.
I have similar questions about proposed new subsections (5) and (6). They feel like quite a big dilution of the single identifier principle. With subsection (5), for example, how is someone to know in advance if a decision to use the identifier will facilitate safeguarding, or if failing to do so will harm that? With subsection (6), how can someone judge if the sharing of information would make a child less safe unless they have a fuller picture from other safeguarding partners in the first place? It may be that there is no way to improve on this—I remember how difficult this all is from when I worked on it—but I encourage Ministers to think, as they take the Bill through Parliament, about how the system launches, how we make sure that things do not just disappear into black holes and, if the system is not fully operational for various reasons or because people are, perhaps consciously, not using it properly, how we understand that.
Finally, I have some specific information questions. I note that the Government plan to trial the use of the NHS number as the single identifier, which is something I referred to earlier. I do not have any objection to that. Can the Minister give the Committee a bit more information on those pilots? What is the timing? How many will there be? Which places will be chosen? How will we choose places?
I also have a question about how we keep information up to date. Let us take an example where a child’s record is updated by the local authority to reflect the fact that they are in a foster family, and the police note that in their files, but the child then returns to their family and the information on the police file is not updated, so they go to the family address and the child is not there. In that example, how do we make the system work in a joined-up way? How do we make sure the information is updated for everybody?
Also on information, what consideration has the Department given to children who might not have an NHS number, or indeed other numbers, for example migrant children or people who are home educated? I remember that it was always a challenge when we were thinking about this before. Specifically, up to what age will the identifier be used and will that be consistent across all agencies? Are we talking about 18 or 21-years-old for everybody? Earlier we were talking about continuing care leavers and things like that.
Finally, I must press the Minister on when this will be implemented. It is not at all an easy thing to do. It is a big undertaking, as the Minister knows. The Department for Education’s explanatory notes for the Bill say that specifying the agencies that must use the consistent identifier by regulations means that agencies will be required to use the number only once they have the appropriate systems in place to make it an effective tool in supporting children and families. Where have we got to with that? Are agencies ready to use it? Which are more ready? Which are less? If agencies are not ready, when roughly do we expect them to be?
I think we all want this thing to move as fast as possible—consistent with it being done well and being safe, of course. I am not having a go at the Minister; I appreciate that this is not an easy thing to do. However, can the Minister put some sort of timeline on what she expects to happen when, and when the consistent identifier will get rolled out, particularly given that this is something that we all agree is incredibly important?
I appreciate the spirit in which the hon. Gentleman has set out his questions. To clarify, amendment 20 would require the relevant person to record their decision to withhold information if they considered disclosing it to be more detrimental to the child than not disclosing it.
We absolutely agree that practitioners should record the reasons for their information-sharing decisions. However, that should happen irrespective of the reason for sharing or not sharing particular information. The current, non-statutory information sharing guidance for practitioners and managers issued by the Department for Education covers this point, making it clear that practitioners should keep a record of their decisions, including their rationale. Rather than legislating on this issue, it is our intention to cover it in statutory guidance, which relevant persons would be required to have regard to in relation to these matters.
I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman raised a range of other issues and questions about clause 4 more generally, and I will respond to those in the clause stand debate.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 43, in clause 4, page 8, line 20, at end insert—
“(11A) The Secretary of State may, by regulations under subsection (10), require every designated person to use a consistent identifier in relation to all children.”
Amendment 45, in clause 4, page 8, line 23, leave out lines 23 to 26.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Sir Edward.
For clarity—after some mix-ups this morning, for which I apologise—these are probing amendments that we are not seeking to press to a vote today. We have tabled them to get on record some responses from Ministers about how the single unique identifier will be used.
As the shadow Minister has pointed out, there is widespread agreement that clause 4 is absolutely necessary and long overdue. Failure to share information effectively has been identified, over many years, as one of the key barriers to keeping children safe, to providing joined-up support to meet their needs and to conducting research across the children’s system. Professor Jay’s report on child sexual abuse brought that, and the failure of agencies across the system to share data, into stark relief. In the Committee’s evidence session on Tuesday, the Children’s Commissioner cited the same example as Professor Jay gave me when I met her last week: teenagers in a particular area had a very high prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases and that data was not shared with relevant agencies, although it clearly should have put up a red flag.
I strongly welcome the clause and pay tribute to the Children’s Charities Coalition, which has done a lot of work and research in this space. Amendment 44, in my name, would expand the criteria that require a designated person to use the consistent identifier in the information that they process. As the Bill stands, it requires consideration of
“safeguarding or promoting the welfare of” the child. As we have all said, those criteria are vital, but they could be interpreted as relating only to acute risk. We want to insert the word “wellbeing” into the Bill to seek to ensure that the broader needs of the child would be taken into account when considering the provision of joined-up support across the children’s system.
Will the Minister explain why the Bill limits the use of the consistent identifier only to “safeguarding” and “welfare”, and state how broadly she envisages those being defined? For instance, would sharing information about a disabled child with health and educational needs but no social care needs fall into this category? Will she also give an indicative timeline for when local services will be required to start using the consistent identifier in their systems?
Amendment 43 seeks to provide clarity where we think there may be ambiguity in the Bill, by ensuring that all babies, children and young people are assigned a consistent identifier regardless of whether they have been identified with any safeguarding or welfare concerns. I think that is the intent of the Bill, but the amendment seeks to clarify it. We know that, for years, professionals, charities and commissioners have called for this measure, and we need it across all our systems to be able to manage the interactions between the different services and to share information efficiently and securely. I would be grateful for the Minister’s confirmation on that point.
Amendment 45 would enable the use of a consistent identifier for research and commissioning purposes. The subsection that would be deleted by the amendment appears to explicitly exclude the use of anonymised cohort data for those purposes. This probing amendment questions why that use is being ruled out. I recognise that I, and many others, have always raised concerns that data sharing should be done safely and in an appropriate way.
I worked for a brief period in the organisation formerly known as NHS Digital; I used to walk around with a lapel badge that said, “Data saves lives”. Data does save lives and is so important for not only safety but research and commissioning. If data is de-identified and shared safely, we can use it for certain cohorts of children who are at risk of poor outcomes, such as children with special educational needs, looked-after children or children missing from education. It would allow commissioners and researchers to analyse such children’s needs, risk factors and outcomes across different services, and provide a much more complete picture of the needs of children and young people, identifying gaps in provision and interventions that could be used. It would also support the development of new, qualitative indicators to measure impacts. I would welcome the Minister’s comments on the Government’s rationale for the Bill’s specifically not allowing that use.
I have one final comment on the use of the single unique identifier: it will work only if there is investment in the systems so that they are able to share that data. I know from talking to my own local authority about the barriers to sharing information. Sometimes there is an unwillingness among agencies to share information, but sometimes it is just that the systems cannot talk to each other. We now have the technology to be able to do that. In order to implement it and use the single unique identifier to the best effect, we have to provide the agencies with the means to share information for the safety, welfare and wellbeing of our children and young people.
I appreciate the spirit in which the probing amendments have been proposed. Amendment 43 would provide the Secretary of State with the power to make regulations, providing that each designated person must attach a consistent identifier to the records of every child without being limited by a particular purpose. I absolutely share the desire of the hon. Member for Twickenham to ensure that as many children as possible are able to benefit from a consistent identifier. We are very conscious of the need to ensure that the identifier has complete coverage, from birth to 18.
On timelines, I appreciate the urgency with which Members wish to see the consistent identifier come into play. Obviously, it is not yet legislated for—we very much hope it will be. But we are piloting the use of the NHS number, which is assigned to all UK-born children at birth or, for children born outside the UK, when contacting the NHS, so we deem it to be universal. The exact services, systems and data shares that store and move the number will have to be developed during the piloting. Regulations will stipulate the agencies that must use the number when recording and sharing information for the purposes of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. I will give a little more information about the timeline of the pilot and intentions on implementation when I move the clause stand part, because I am conscious that the Opposition spokesperson also raised those concerns.
I turn to amendment 44, which seeks to amend the scope of the duty by including a reference to promoting the wellbeing of children. The legislation will enable statutory guidance to be issued, which relevant agencies must then have regard to. That will outline the type of information that may be relevant to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, including information that relates to their wellbeing, so that practitioners are able to more easily apply the legislation in practice. The legislation has very much been framed to co-exist with other child social care legislation, so “welfare” would cover the wellbeing of the child.
Amendment 45 seeks to remove the stipulation that a consistent identifier must be used when it is likely to facilitate safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children directly. I appreciate the hon. Member’s concern that it limits the use of a consistent identifier, in particular for research purposes; I know that stakeholders have been calling for that. The measures make provision for the Secretary of State to specify which agencies must use the consistent identifier. When it is introduced, it is intended that it could still be used for research purposes if that is authorised in accordance with UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act.
We have purposely prioritised linking use of the consistent identifier with safeguarding and welfare functions, and will be testing the benefits and implementation of that through our pilot. If additional benefits are realised, we can obviously explore the provisions further. For the reasons I have outlined, I hope that the hon. Lady will be happy to withdraw her amendment.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
To improve the safeguarding and welfare of children and to stop families and children from falling through the cracks of public services, clause 4 seeks to address long-standing issues that hinder information sharing.
Current legislation permits information sharing to safeguard and protect the wellbeing of children, but user research has identified that practitioners often feel confident only where there are serious child protection concerns. As a result, information is often held by different agencies, and practitioners are left unaware of crucial data that could provide evidence for the whole picture of a child’s wellbeing, health and safety. That gap in knowledge can make it difficult for professionals to support families, and make it harder for families to be aware of their entitlements and to access the support that they need.
The clause gives professionals a clear legal basis to request and share information with other relevant professionals for the purposes of safeguarding or promoting the welfare of a child. It also enables the Secretary of State, by regulations, to specify a consistent identifier for children. Agencies specified in regulations will be required to use the number when recording or sharing information about a child for the purposes of safeguarding or the promotion of welfare. The measures aim to ensure that practitioners share relevant information confidently and consistently.
As I mentioned, the Department will pilot the implementation of the consistent identifier and introduce it nationally at a later point. We will test its ability to facilitate the linking of data across datasets. The changes made by the clause aim to ensure that information about a child and their family is shared effectively and that risk is correctly identified and understood.
In response to the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, I should say that information sharing is a two-way duty. The duty, along with the consistent identifier, will help to bring together multiple pieces of information so that practitioners can make informed decisions. As I said, it is standard practice to record decision making, regardless of whether information is shared, and we will ensure that that is covered in the guidance.
We are committed to implementing the consistent identifier as soon as possible, but we recognise that it has to be delivered proportionately and where it will have an impact. Before mandating its use by certain agencies, we need to explore information governance, privacy, technology choices, and the associated costs of its implementation and use. We are committed to starting pilot activity from April 2025, subject to the passage of the Bill, and will provide further timings once the pilot findings are known.
In response to the hon. Member for Twickenham, I should say that a disabled child would likely be considered a child in need, and so would benefit from the information-sharing duty and a single unique identifier. We need to ensure that systems can talk together, and that is why we are piloting: so that we can see the full cost of the measure and how it can be put in place so that it is as effective as possible in supporting children.
On the basis of today’s debate, the reassurances and the significant difference that the measure will make to the safeguarding of children, I commend the clause to the Committee.
I rise in support of the clause, for all the compelling reasons that the Minister gave in her rationale. We talked earlier about the value of multi-agency working, and the sharing of information is fundamental to that. As she outlined, there have been too many cases in which the heart of the problem was the lack of a way of identifying that two agencies were talking about the same child. The unique identifier will help to address that. These are never things that we are likely to disagree about on party political lines.
However, the clause raises some big questions, which I hope the Minister will take in the spirit in which I mean them. The first may sound like a semantic question, but I think it is important. It relates to the phrase “Duty to share” on page 6, line 19. The word “share” can mean different things, and its common English usage has probably changed somewhat over the past 20 years or so. “Share” used commonly to mean something held in common between two parties, but more recently—this has a lot to do with social media and the internet—it has come to mean “pass something on to a wider group”. Those are different things. I think that we are using the word “share” in the title of the proposed new section more in the sense of disclosure than of holding in common, but I would be grateful for some clarification. Although it is a semantic question, this will be primary legislation created by Parliament and precision is therefore important.
What is the link or overlap with mandatory reporting? Is what we are talking about today exactly the same as mandatory reporting or something different? The existing statutory guidance on safeguarding says:
“Anyone who has concerns about a child’s welfare should consider whether a referral needs to be made to Children’s Social Care and should do so immediately if there is a concern that the child is suffering significant harm or is likely to do so.”
It is not a legislative requirement, therefore, to report abuse, but there is the expectation that people who work with children will do so, unless there are truly exceptional circumstances. Of course, people in particular roles also have additional codes of conduct set by their professional regulatory body.
The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse of 2022 put forward the mandatory duty—which, to be clear, I support—and in 2023 the previous Government committed to introduce a mandatory duty to report sexual abuse for those working or volunteering with children, although the Criminal Justice Bill then fell with the Dissolution of Parliament before the election. Historically, people have identified problems with the concept of a mandatory duty to report sexual abuse—the same principle applies more generally to neglect and other forms of child abuse—and it has not only been people in government; for a very long time one leading children’s charity had a stance against mandatory reporting, citing the possible effect on the relationship between a child and a trusted adult and on the child’s willingness to open up to that adult, given what doing so might trigger. I am sure that the Government have been through the issue in a great deal of detail, as it is a serious and difficult area, so I wonder whether the Minister might say a little more on that point.
The matter of the practicalities of sharing information takes us back to the semantic question. It is stated in lines 24 and 25 on page 6 of the Bill that the proposed new section applies where a person
“considers that the information is relevant to safeguarding or promoting the welfare of the child.”
There is a question about whether we are talking about disclosing a particular piece of information that is directly and specifically relevant to an individual child—an incident, or an observation made by a social worker or teacher with eyes on that child—or whether we are talking about data more generally. For example, do we mean that if there is a particular indicator in a dataset that is relevant to the question of safeguarding for all children in the local authority area, then the entire dataset should be shared with other agencies?
Assuming it is the former, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston has already said, lines 11 to 15 on page 7 suggest that there could be a difficulty in terms of the balance. That part of the text states:
“A duty under this section to disclose information does not operate to require or authorise a disclosure of information which would contravene the data protection legislation”,
but we all know that often when people say, “Such and such wasn’t shared with another agency”, the reason given is data protection. I do not necessarily have the answer to how the Government should do this, but to the extent that it is possible, it would be helpful if they could create some clarity so that that balance could be understood.
My hon. Friend also referred to lines 31-33 on page 6, which mention that
“the duty imposed by subsection (2) does not apply if the relevant person considers that the disclosure would be more detrimental to the child than not disclosing the information.”
That is very difficult for any individual. From the point of view of being inside one agency—in this case a school—making a judgment without knowing what the police or social workers may know is very difficult. But it is helpful that the provision gives the legal basis.
This also raises the question of what the threshold is. We talk about a child being at risk, and obviously there are degrees of that. We also know how, sadly and sometimes tragically, these things can quickly escalate. It is not totally clear and probably never can be, on the face of a Bill or in an Act of Parliament, at exactly what stage a child might deteriorate and at what point the duty kicks in. These are questions the Government will have to go back to.
Being able to share information, in whichever of the two senses, is to a large extent dependent on there being a unique identifier. I support this idea, which builds on work that was already under way before July last year, but there are some big issues that the Government—not just the DFE, as it goes beyond its boundaries—have to think about.
We have talked previously about using the national insurance number for other applications, on the grounds that every adult has one, but it turns out that the database of national insurance numbers is not quite as perfect as everybody assumes. The national health service number was not designed for the purpose we are discussing, so what stress-testing of the system have the Government done? Historically, and until recently, most NHS records were paper-based. That creates a set of governance issues that is very different from the ones we have with databases today.
The hon. Member for Twickenham asked an important question about the extent to which data would be available for anonymised cohort analysis. There are currently conversations in other parts of Government about the use of NHS datasets, en masse, to empower artificial intelligence; my God, with this cohort of children that raises some very important—but not conclusive, because there are arguments both ways—discussions about morality and so on.
Will the database reside inside the NHS system? Or is there going to be something new that uses the NHS number? If it is something new, there will be big budgetary requirements—it would be a very large new IT project with very demanding security requirements. There is also the question of how to interface with the police national computer or other security-related databases.
It is largely possible to guarantee that the same NHS number does not go to two different individuals, but I am not 100% sure it is possible to guarantee that the same individual does not get two different NHS numbers at different times, because there are different points at which someone may receive an NHS number. At birth is, of course, when it ordinarily happens, but it can happen on immigration or at the moment of first treatment. In the case of first treatment, getting an NHS number will not be high in the minds of families, and of course the NHS will not refuse to treat somebody in those circumstances, but there could be issues there. Particularly if a child was born abroad, moved here, re-emigrated and then remigrated, we can imagine circumstances in which the same child could have two different numbers.
For the avoidance of doubt, I do not expect the Minister to come up with answers to all these questions now. The point I am making is that they are big questions and the Government will have to come back again and again on some of the implications.
Once we have a database of every child in the country, there are a lot of other things we could do with it, some of which could be very useful. Elsewhere, for example, we are debating online safety and age verification to try to protect children from material they should not see. This kind of identifying term could be used for that purpose. There might be some benefits to that but boy does it also throw up a lot of questions in a country where, historically, we have not had a single list of every child in the country.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston alluded to this question. If someone had an NHS number—a unique identifying number—when they were born, they would still have it when they were 12, 17 or 18, so what is the implication for adults of the existence of the database? This is not the place to have that debate, but although there could be some great advantages, there could also be disadvantages. There will certainly be privacy questions. This country has had a debate about identity cards multiple times, and it has ended up being incredibly complex.
The big question is what the unique identifier can be used for as an index term to interface with and therefore link to other databases. For child protection purposes, if that cannot be done, it is not worth that much—they have to be able to be linked all together. That raises some difficult questions for children, and potentially for adults if the numbers stay with people as they turn 18.
Ultimately, some of this governance stuff covers not only the Department for Education but the Department of Health and Social Care and the Cabinet Office. I would love to know, even at this stage, about the involvement the Information Commissioner’s Office and its future involvement.
I have already asked most of my questions, but I want to add some simple ones to those. First, I may have missed this in the conversation, but is the intent that the system will be for people up to the age of 18? Secondly, what are the Government’s initial thoughts about people who do not have NHS numbers?
Thirdly, I wish to sharpen and bring out the point I was making in my questions about all the different get-outs from the system. The case of Victoria Climbié is the ultimate example: she had eight different identifiers with her name spelled differently every single time. The worry is that the system needs not to have too many holes in it—although it needs some, otherwise everything would grind to a halt.
At the bottom of page 7 of the Bill, proposed new section 16LB(5) of the Children Act 2004 says:
“Subsection (4) applies only so far as the designated person considers that the inclusion of the consistent identifier is likely to facilitate the exercise…of a function…that relates to safeguarding”.
That is one out. Proposed new subsection (6) says:
“Subsection (4) does not apply if the designated person considers that” it would be “detrimental” to include it, which is another out—and perfectly sensible in a way. Proposed new subsection (7) says that the person does not need to comply if they do not know the consistent identifier and it would slow things down. So there are quite a lot of outs.
We will not press our amendment to a vote, and the Minister is right to say that the statutory guidance requires a record of why decisions have been made at the local level, but I am sure that the Department and officials would want to set things up in such a way that a national report can be built out of that data, to figure out what is going on at a local level.
Finally, let me explain what I was going on about with the complexity of parsing proposed new subsection (9), which says:
“A duty under this section does not operate to require or authorise the processing of information which would contravene the data protection legislation (but the duty must be taken into account in determining whether the processing would contravene that legislation).”
That is quite a complicated sentence that I find difficult. I would be supportive of Ministers if they want to give frontline professionals more legal protection so that they think, “I don’t need to worry about data protection first—I need to worry about the safety of children first.”
I totally accept that Members’ comments have all been made with a view to making sure that the legislation can be as effective as it needs to be, and that we all share the desire to ensure that it serves to safeguard children.
The right hon. Member for East Hampshire asked whether the information-sharing duty is the same as mandatory reporting. The duty in the clause and the mandatory reporting are intended to address different problems. The information-sharing duty underpins how existing multi-agency partners, along with schools and early years providers, can share—I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s philosophical reflection on the word “share”—and request information among themselves so that they can build a full picture of a child. They can then use that to assess risk and put in place appropriate support and intervention.
The mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse is due to be introduced in Home Office legislation. It will impose a duty on professionals to report instances of child sexual abuse, and will also impose criminal sanctions on those who prevent others from reporting abuse. The duty in the clause and mandatory reporting have different purposes and different legislative frameworks.
The right hon. Member for East Hampshire asked about the terminology and the meaning of the word “share”. In this context, the sharing of information covers the exchange of knowledge, data or insights with others, and it can happen in a number of ways.
On the specific question of whether information about an individual child or dataset is relevant, we intend the duty to be about supporting individual children day to day, to ensure their safeguarding and to make sure that they and their families get the support they need.
The right hon. Gentleman thoughtfully raised a range of important questions and kindly acknowledged that I would not be able to respond to them all in this debate. We will take them away and work them through, and that will feed into how we pilot this idea and test the system so that we get this right, as he rightly highlighted.
The single unique identifier in the NHS system will apply to children up to the age of 18. The right hon. Gentleman asked what would happen to a child without an NHS number; that will have to be considered as part of the pilot, which is why we are undertaking one. This is an important change. We do not underestimate the challenges of delivering it, but we are determined that it will make the difference to children and to safeguarding.