Lynne Featherstone

Meet Becky (World at One Reporter) at 9am to discuss my constituent’s case and campaign with regard to Munchausen by Proxy issues. The issues in this case – the man and his family were wrongly suspected of harming their child but persecuted along the way with accusations, lack of support and guidelines and procedures just not being followed.

The prevailing attitude from the Minister and thus the Government is that it is hard cheese if parents wrongly accused have a bad time – that’s the price of protecting our children. Bollocks! The Government have not a clue how prevalent this is. They keep no numbers – they don’t even try to collect this information. I have no idea if the small number of cases in the Consensus Report are the totality of those affected or the tip of the iceberg.

Of course protecting children comes first – but without a properly commissioned piece of research into the numbers involved, we don’t know how many parents are wrongly accused. Or how many genuine cases there are. Or how parents going through the process can be supported and what measures can be taken. And there is no proper analysis and audit of the procedures, complaints and whether they are being followed or not. We just don’t have a clue.

Prime Minister’s Questions sees the usual barney between the boys. You voted against this, you said that! I cannot bear the stupidity of this game.