We are in danger of going backwards on child protection
The roll call of vulnerable children who have lost their lives as a result of serious failures in child protection is a long and shameful one. It includes Sara Sharif, ten, murdered by her father and stepmother; six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, murdered by his father and father's partner; and toddler Star Hobson, who endured months of abuse at the hands of her mother and her mother's partner.
The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, being debated in the House of Lords, is an attempt to prevent such appalling cases from recurring. It contains some broad but welcome thinking about empowering those who work with children, including teachers, to break the cycle of late intervention, a repeated failing identified in child neglect cases. Welcome too is the pilot
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