Andrew Selous: ...with is not leading to good outcomes for those children. Education inclusion officers—I have some of the best—struggle to get Traveller children into school. There are also concerns about child welfare. There is also a third group that we should remember: those who are sub-let to on these sites. Many have come to me reporting intimidation, violence, summary rent increases, and failures...
Tim Loughton: ...in their family to join them in the UK when it is in the child’s best interests to do so. That point about the child’s best interests must be absolutely paramount, as it is the basis of all our child welfare legislation in this country. After years of conflict, many of these children have been orphaned or do not know where their parents are, but they may have grandparents, aunts and...
Edward Timpson: ...welcome the introduction of the power to innovate set out in the Children and Social Work Bill. This is a critical part of the journey set out in my Independent Review of Child Protection towards a child welfare system that reflects the complexity and diversity of children’s needs. Trusting professionals to use their judgement ?rather than be forced to follow unnecessary legal rules will...
Eilidh Whiteford: ...for former partners to perpetrate further harm. Section 24 of the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006 refers to orders made under section 11 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995, and rightly puts child welfare and children’s interests as a priority. The law states clearly that when a court is considering the welfare of a child in relation to parental rights and responsibilities, it must take...
Steve McCabe: ...agencies, the whole area of children in care and the question of support for adopted children and their parents, especially in relation to mental health issues, which a great many people and child welfare organisations consider a major cause of concern.
Gordon Marsden: .... That is about 35% of the 2010 budget. Blackpool has also had to cope with rising demands in areas such as children’s services, whether because of increased numbers of referrals from high-profile child welfare investigations, or because of transience both from outside and within Blackpool as some families have to move several times because of poverty or family break-up. To meet those...
Caroline Nokes: .... It is also sound public policy and will lead to children being less damaged by their parents’ separation. However, even considering only the benefits of shared parenting from the perspective of child welfare, volumes of research show that shared parenting is hugely beneficial to children, especially when a father is separated from his daughter. Contact is more likely to decline if the...
Andrew Slaughter: .... My hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Jim Dobbin) used his local knowledge and his expertise to talk about the terrible events in Rochdale, which perhaps were the most serious child welfare cases that have occurred recently. Many hon. Members spoke from experience about cases in their constituencies. The hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire and several others...
Alison Seabeck: ...that there are such delays with child benefit and other child-related tax benefits, and that they are finding themselves in severe financial hardship. The system is allowing bureaucracy to win over child welfare. It is time for us to have a debate on this matter, so that I do not have to go to a Minister every time it happens.
Charlie Elphicke: ...in legislation the principle that children have the right to know and have a relationship with their parents. The way in which modern families live indicates strongly that that is what best serves child welfare. I recognise that the judiciary and the legal system are, as always, about 30 years out of date and are astonishingly weak-kneed when it comes to ensuring the rights of children to...
Sharon Hodgson: ...who are going missing? If he does agree with that, why are the Government still refusing to legislate on guardianship, despite such legislation having been called for in an EU directive and by many child welfare groups?
Nick Herbert: ...to each others’ objectives. The changes will also ensure that PCCs hold chief officers fully to account for the way in which they carry out their duties to co-operate in safeguarding and promoting child welfare under the Children Act 2004. Our amendments will ensure that PCCs have the right powers to hold chief officers to account; they ensure that PCCs can obtain the right information...
Meg Hillier: ...hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire to talk them through where we are now, and keep them apprised of developments, particularly on alternatives. Hon. Members have touched on a number aspects of child welfare. Section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, which was introduced last November, placed a statutory safeguarding duty on the UK Border Agency. That has given...
Mark Field: ...reviews or the Badman report was from the start a superficial exercise designed to allay public concern-a bid somehow to make good other failures with frenetic activity; or, worse still, that child welfare concerns were being used as a cover for a Government obsessed with monitoring and targets to interfere in a sphere over which they currently have little influence. Home educators...
Sally Keeble: ...to my amendment 32, which says that when local authorities make assessments of need, they should look specifically at the housing conditions in which children live, given the close link between child welfare and housing, as set out in Every Child Matters. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will address that point in her one-minute winding-up speech.
Frank Dobson: ...of people who were born, or who lived, died or are buried, in my constituency. They include Captain Coram, who established the Foundling hospital and who is described on his statue as "Pioneer of Child Welfare". What better obituary could anybody want? Mary Wollstonecraft, author of "A Vindication of the Rights of Women", lived in Somers Town. She died there giving birth to her daughter,...
Richard Benyon: ...steps have the Government taken since to follow up the recommendations of that report, which recognised the severe concerns of places such as the London borough of Southwark, where a large number of child welfare issues relating to this issue are starting to manifest themselves? What may appear culturally okay to some communities is certainly not okay when it is causing serious child...
Barry Sheerman: ...are paper-based. As I listened to the chief inspector's evidence yesterday, I had the impression that Ofsted's system, which is not bad for the purpose of evaluating schools, has been transported to child welfare, where it is less appropriate. I told the children's commissioner that I found it surprising that, given that there are only 150 local authorities, there was not a member of the...
Jim Knight: ...to learn in a safe environment, the state has a responsibility to make sure that minimum standards are met if they are not supervised by their parents so that they learn in safe premises, where child welfare and protection standards are met and where their education meets minimum standards. Where home education takes place in a pooled setting, and the child's education is not supervised by...
Bernard Jenkin: ...needs in Essex schools, despite the fact that Essex is spending above the standard spending assessment on education. I look at the vast overspend on personal social services, particularly child welfare services, in Essex county council, which is not being funded by the Government because they are spending £7.4 billion on the European Union for no reason at all, instead of tackling these...