Learning the lessons from Baby P

The tragic death of Baby P has saddened and angered people across the country. To learn the full lessons of this tragedy, we need a public inquiry and so I'm asking you to lobby your MP to support one. You can easily send a message to your MP via www.writetothem.com. (The site will also tell you who they are, if you don't know.)

To his credit (and - I will admit - somewhat to my surprise!), the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls, took the right immediate steps after the convictions, ordering an urgent investigation and ensuring there were changes at the top of Haringey Council.

But there are many wider issues that Baby P's death has raised. Issues such as what use is a desk research inspection that awards Haringey three stars - but has no knowledge of what is really going on in a children's department? Is our inspection approach the right one? Is the emphasis on following procedures and ticking boxes really a good regime to hold children safe? How has the merger of education and social services at a local level been working? Where health services have been outsourced, has there been a breakdown of accountability? Certainly the local health trust seemed to think that the concerns I'd raised were not a matter for them once the services has been contracted out to someone else.

These issues are ones that matter across the country - albeit in slightly different forms in England, Scotland and Wales. And that's why we all need a public inquiry to get to the bottom of them.

So far 39 MPs have signed an Early Day Motion (EDM - a sort of Parliamentary petition) calling for one. You can check to see if your MP has signed at http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=37045&SESSION=899 and if not - please do contact them asking them to add their signature.

It takes just a few moments to look up your MP and send them a message via www.writetothem.com.

It is important that the coming Christmas break doesn't mean this issue just slips off the agenda. And important too that we show that the political system can take people's angers and concerns - and channel them into a productive outcome.