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Child Protection: Shaken Baby Syndrome

My Lords, the noble Earl makes some important points. I shall pass on to my colleagues what he says about social workers, which is of course very much outside my remit. The guidance that I referred to today is for those being called to give expert evidence in criminal trials. As to the need to support families, that is something that this Government certainly believe in. We have talked in this House before about the Government’s respect action plan, a key plank of which is support to parents. We all know that there are situations in which parents, though a variety of external circumstances, can lose the control that they ought to have and therefore cause injury to their children.