HC Deb 18 April 1996 vol 275 cc592-3W
Mr. Peter Bottomley

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how much of the Jillings report to Clwyd county council he will require to be published. [25343]

Mr. Hague

The Government's overriding objective is to ensure the safety and well-being of children in care in north Wales. It was for this reason that my predecessor, in the light of the child abuse trials in Clwyd, asked Miss Nicola Davies QC in May 1995 to consider whether a public inquiry was needed and, if so, what form it should take. Miss Davies reported to me in November 1995 and I published her conclusions and recommendations in December.

At the same time, I announced the appointment of a team headed by Ms Adrianne Jones to undertake the examination of management practices and procedures in social service departments in north Wales that Miss Davies had recommended. Ms Jones is due to report to me at the end of May. I shall publish her findings and will seek to ensure that the new local authorities adopt procedures that conform with current best practice.

Quite separately, Clwyd county council commissioned its own independent panel of inquiry in March 1994. It comprised a team of social work professionals chaired by Mr. John Jillings. In exercising its statutory powers, Clwyd county council did not need to consult my Department about this decision or about the procedures the inquiry would adopt.

I understand from a press release that Clwyd county council considered Mr. Jillings' report, or a draft of it, at its meeting on 26 March. My Department subsequently received from Flintshire county council, one of the successor authorities, a version of the Jillings report which, it was told, did not incorporate all of the 200 or so factual corrections which Clwyd county council had requested. At the same time, it received a copy of legal advice commissioned by Clwyd county council which concluded that the report could not be published.

I believe that it would be in the public interest for the successor local authorities to seek urgently to produce a version of the report that can safely be published. It is a matter of regret that those who commissioned the inquiry apparently failed to ensure that it would be undertaken in a way which would make its conclusions publishable. I have therefore written today to the leaders or chairmen of the five successor authorities to Clwyd county council requesting that they: (1) Let me know whether the version of the independent panel's report, which my Department currently holds, incorporates all the 200 or so corrections that Clwyd county council requested, and is the final version formally signed and presented by the panel members; (2) Let me know at once what, if any, action Clwyd county council formally resolved to take on the report, and whether any such resolution may now be taken as representing the wishes of its authorities; (3) In consultation with the independent panel, seek urgently to produce a version of the report that can safely be published; (4) Make a final and full version of the report available to the investigating and the prosecuting authorities so that they can consider whether it contains sufficient grounds to justify reopening investigations, and to Ms Adrianne Jones so that she can consider its relevance to the review of existing systems that she is undertaking for me.

I am placing a copy of my letter to the local authorities in the Library of the House.