2. Business Statement and Announcement

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:25 pm on 9 January 2018.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 2:25, 9 January 2018

The Member raises a hugely important point, and I know in her short debate the issues arising from the book and so on were very comprehensively gone through. I think the Cabinet Secretary at the time, the late Carl Sargeant, went through all of the actions at that time that we'd taken, both to learn from past abuse and to act to ensure we prevent similar mistakes reoccurring. I think it's enough to say that we're continuing to be vigilant and putting listening to children at the heart of our policy, practice and guidance. We're determined that children should have a voice. Even if they are adults now, they should have the voice that they should have had when they were children at the time. We want to continue to emphasise that the duty to report children at risk and the duty to report adults at risk are intended to ensure that any safeguarding concerns about children or adults are reported and properly investigated.

I understand that one of her constituents has legal aid to take the matter forward and I'm very pleased to hear that. That's to take the matter forward against a successor authority. So, there are legal arrangements in place to make sure that an authority continues to hold the legal responsibility for the things that have happened in the past. I think she raises an important point: it's not for us to comment on individual cases, but it is something that we can look at when we look at general access-to-justice issues across the piece in Wales, which have been considerably undermined by the Tory cuts to legal aid and the access-to-justice issues that we're all aware of. I think it would be really interesting to talk to the Member outside of the Chamber about some of the issues specifically raised and see if there are very specific things we ought to put in place to ensure that people do get the very best advice when taking these things forward.