Speeches by Daby.

“The letter addressing the issues that the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston and the right hon. Member for East Hampshire have raised has been sent to Sir Christopher, your co-Chair, Ms Furniss, and I am sure it will be shared in due course.”

“Thank you for the question. I also acknowledge the great work that kinship carers are doing and they are very good at coming together to support each other as well. The Department offers the peer-to-peer support and some mentoring support as well through family rights groups.[1] The Department has been working on the p…”

“I am concerned because I want to hear the information and whether there is any pending effect on children’s welfare needs and families. I am interested to hear what it has to say and, if there is an impact, what that impact may or may not be. I want to ensure that children have the best care, which they need.”

“In the child poverty area there is a departmental meeting that is chaired by the Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions and Education, so at that level I imagine they would have been consulted on this. That information has not been brought to my attention to have those conversations.”

“I am not sure. To be very honest, we would need to wait until we hear what the announcement is to know.”

“We are looking into this, yes. This does raise concerns and it is something that we need to look into, absolutely.”

“Information like that is very concerning, because that places, as you are aware, more pressure on the local authorities to be able to find appropriate placements, and that in itself can be very difficult with the impact of driving up cost. It was put in local authorities and we will also be looking at through the Regio…”

“Not at present.”

“You are absolutely right, we are changing inspections in children’s social care and Ofsted is committing to removing the single headline. Ofsted has not started, but it is in the consultation process.”

“I will pass that to you, Fran.”

“That is not something I was aware of, to be very honest. Let me take that away and have a look at it.”

“What I mean is with IICSA and what the Department is looking at and how we continue to work with the Home Office on the recommendations. That is what I mean.”

“These are all still being worked out and looked at. It is still putting all the information together. It needs to be reviewed, we need to look at it and make sure that the protection factors are in place for children. I don’t know if you have anything further to say on that. I would like to take away what you are sayin…”

“What I am saying is that we don’t want any child to go hungry, so therefore we have the rollout of the breakfast clubs. That provides an opportunity for families or parents to take their child to school early to be able to have breakfast and therefore not to be hungry. If there is a situation where teachers recognise o…”

“Nobody does. That was the next word that I was going to say. Nobody wants children to go to school hungry. We want children to be able to focus on their learning; neither do we want children to have tooth decay or any issues associated with that. I hear the point that is made and the evidence. This is why education is …”

“We don’t want children to go to school hungry.”

“The plan is that where it is recognised by any of the agencies that the child or the family come into communication with—usually the school—they have a corporate parenting responsibility to draw attention to that. This is why the family hubs process is so key in getting this right, to make sure that we can put in the p…”

“We need to review and we need to carry on monitoring to make sure it is achieving its aims. I am due to meet with NSPCC as well, so I will take that up with it.”

“We don’t want any children to experience any significant harm or to be at risk of harm. The reason why we have brought in the areas we have done within the Bill is to ensure that we have other Departments that are key players playing their part, making sure they are putting all of the protective factors in place and ac…”

“Obviously this situation needs to be addressed where that is found. The Law Commission, as you will be aware, is undertaking an independent review of disabled children and social care legislation, with a report that is due in summer 2025. We will review this when it is brought to our attention. We will look at what the…”