---

Business of the House

Will my right hon. Friend intercede with the Home Secretary to come to the House to make a statement and lead a debate on the facilities and processes involved in tracing missing persons—especially missing children—and the results that are achieved? The first Adjournment debate that I held in this House took place on the second anniversary of the disappearance of Vicky Hamilton, a 15-year-old girl from Falkirk in my constituency. Ironically, she disappeared from Bathgate bus station, which is now in my constituency area of Linlithgow. She went to school with my children and lived in our community. She has never been traced and yesterday her father launched another private-sector initiative to find her, with the EMCOR group putting photographs of missing children on 450 of its vans. Another initiative involves the charity PACT, which was founded by Lady Meyer. I hope that people know that they can phone 0808 100 8777 if they have any information about missing children, or that they can look at the website www.missingkids.co.uk. However, the problem is that, despite the private initiatives, people do not understand why 100,000 children go missing every year in the UK, many of whom are never traced. I believe that we should have a debate to bring the matter to the public notice, and ensure that we have a consistent approach to it. Vicky Hamilton would have been 30 today, but let us hope that other children can be returned to their parents.