---

Child Protection

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman severely underestimates the purpose of this debate. This is not a partisan issue. This is an urgent issue that affects all hon. Members, and it is about the most vulnerable members of our society. We set up our commission on social workers dealing with child protection in that vein, to try to produce solutions to deal with a failing child protection system. We have instigated this debate—the Government did not do so—because we wanted to draw attention to the continuing problems and allow the House to debate them. So far it has been denied that opportunity. We could have a whole debate on the example of Scandinavia. As the hon. Gentleman knows, members of the shadow children's team and I have visited Denmark and Finland in recent years to look at the child protection systems there. There is a high degree of alcoholism in Denmark, especially among parents from Greenland, and that demands the sort of interventions that should perhaps have happened in Doncaster, but did not.