§ Mr. John Garrettasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if she will introduce legislation to grant social workers the right to see children who they suspect may be subjected to ill treatment.
§ Dr. OwenThe Children and Young Persons Act 1933 already empowers social workers and others who have reasonable cause to suspect that a child is being ill treated or neglected to obtain a warrant from a justice and go with a constable to remove the child to a place of safety. To extend this right of access to cases where there were not reasonable grounds for the belief that a child was being abused would raise serious questions of civil liberties. The urgent need, which we have stressed in all recent guidance, is to ensure that the professional training of all those who may encounter child abuse equips them to recognise the risk to a child at an early stage and to take appropriate action.
§ Mr. John Garrettasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if she will introduce legislation to require local authority inquiries into the ill treatment of children who are under the supervision of social services departments to be held in public.
§ Dr. OwenNo. There are arguments both for and against holding inquiries in public and I do not accept that those held in private cannot be effective. As I said in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Moonman) on 14th July—[Vol. 895, c,380–1.]—I regard the establishment of inquiries as a function of the responsibilities of local authorities in the first instance, and this must include the discretion to decide whether hearings shall be in public. I would expect all inquiries to publish a sufficient account of their findings to allay public anxiety and to enable the lessons to be learned from these tragic cases to be widely known and acted upon.