Emma Lewell-Buck MP was appointed shadow minister for children and families in October. Lewell-Buck was first elected to parliament in 2013 when she won the South Shields seat vacated by David Miliband. In her time in parliament, the former child protection social worker has campaigned on food poverty and recently spearheaded Labour's opposition to controversial proposals to allow local authorities to be exempt from children's social care duties.
The ‘exemption clause' proposals in the Children and Social Work Bill were recently defeated in the House of Lords. Do you think the government will now drop them?
"It's an embarrassing defeat for the government, but I think it will reinstate the clauses when the bill comes back to the House of Commons after the third reading in the Lords on 23 November. That would be unwise considering the groundswell of opposition to it - almost every children's organisation is against this. It would be bloody-minded of the government to go down that route."
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