Speeches by O'Brien.

“I agree with everything the Minister is saying—it all sounds very sensible. She may be coming to this, but on this point about where MASHs already exist, do these new teams replace them? Are they likely to have similar members? What happens to the existing bodies when the new one is created?”

“I have two specific questions, although there may be no answer to the first—it may be for regulations, and there may be no decision yet. If a large local authority such as Birmingham wants to have more than one of these things, can it do so? My other question —which Iaised before the break—is about substitutes. What ha…”

“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 rec…”

“The Opposition do not have amendments to this clause, but we do have some questions. This change is generally a very good idea and we welcome it. I have sat where the Minister is sitting, so I am conscious that, even when a Minister wants to answer all the questions posed by the Opposition, it is sometimes impossible—b…”

“Yes, Sir Christopher. Amendment proposed: 18, in clause 1, page 2, line 26, at end insert— “(10) Nothing in this section permits an extension to the 26-week limit for care proceedings in section 14(2)(ii) of the Children and Families Act 2014.”—(Neil O'Brien.) This amendment clarifies that nothing in this section shoul…”

“I know that the Minister is trying to get us the impact assessments and is completely sincere about that. Will she undertake to get them while we are still in Committee?”

“Thank you, Sir Christopher. I will include it here—I just wanted to double-check. Although I have asked lots of questions about it, we totally agree with the spirit of the clause. In fact, in February 2023, the last Conservative Government published a strategy and consultation on reforming children’s social care called…”

“I thank the hon. Member for the intervention. A lot of us will have seen such situations where there is not a minute to lose. To complete my sentence, the woman was about to have—I think—her third or fourth child. This is not to criticise her, but a child would not have been safe with her for a single minute. The prior…”

“I will give way; I have finally managed to get my train of thought in order again.”

“Members will know that we are extremely supportive of this principle and agenda. We generally welcome the clause and think it is sensible, but we of course have questions, and we have tabled an amendment. Members know that a huge amount of good multi-agency work is already going on to safeguard children, and it has the…”

“I beg to move amendment 19, in clause 3, page 5, line 3, at end insert— “16EC Report on work and impact of multi-agency child protection teams (1) The Secretary of State must report annually on the work and impact of multi-agency child protection teams. (2) A report under this section shall include analysis of — (a) th…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. As this is the first amendment on the first day of our line-by-line consideration, I will briefly say that although the Opposition have lots of serious questions about the second part of the Bill, there is much in part 1 of the Bill that we completely …”

“I have nothing to say about these amendments. I will reserve my comments for our amendment, which is in a different group. I completely understand what the Minister is doing. Amendment 1 agreed to. Amendment made: 2, in clause 3, page 3, line 36, leave out “the director of children’s services for”.—(Catherine McKinnell…”

“My right hon. Friend asks a really good question, and I intervene to sharpen that further. He asks whether the new teams are displacing or replacing the MASHs. Does the Government think that the MASHs that exist now will still be running alongside these new teams, or does the one turn into the other? On the point about…”

“I have already talked about our general support for clause 3, as well as some of the issues around the geography, content and cast lists of the teams, which brings me on to funding. On Tuesday, we asked the Local Government Association about the new burdens doctrine and whether there would be clarity on funding for the…”

“Q Can you unpack that a little bit? Lynn Perry: Yes, certainly. I will raise the third area and then I will come back to that, if I may. The third area is mechanisms for ensuring that the voices, wishes, feelings and experiences of children and young people really influence the provisions in the Bill, and to put those …”

“Q I want to ask you about a few other issues, including pay and QTS. As a headteacher, you have used academy freedoms, and you have also worked in a global shortage subject, mathematics. I do not know what you think of the Bill more generally and whether there are things beyond what we have talked about already that yo…”

“Q So an amendment to bring those two things back into line—the stated intent and the actual Bill—would be sensible. David Thomas: Yes.”

“Q Can I ask you about the very general powers in clause 43 that give the Secretary of State the ability to intervene on a whole range of subjects? The explanatory notes to the Bill talk about using that to intervene on relatively micro things like school uniform. Do you think that untrammelled power is desirable, or wo…”

“Q David, welcome and thank you for joining us. I want to ask you first about the national curriculum and its imposition on all academy schools. We have heard about the use of that flexibility as a form of freedom—where schools are being turned around, they might do something different for a while and diverge from the n…”