Today Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Committee on Education, Families and Young People Baroness Walmsley welcomed the Government’s announcement that the controversial children’s database ContactPoint will be scrapped.

Liberal Democrats opposed ContactPoint from the start. At the last Lib Dem Autumn Conference a motion was passed calling for an end to the database and to invest the money in alternatives to help staff more effectively.

Commenting, Baroness Walmsley said: “It is very important that we improve our child protection services and make sure that no abuse or neglect can fall through the cracks. However, ContactPoint was not the answer.

“We have campaigned against this database for a very long time. It was a waste of time and money that staff neither wanted nor needed. The privacy and security implications of such a large collection of personal data were another headache that those working to protect vulnerable children could have done without.

“Now we need to look for ways we can help the professionals do their jobs properly.”