Annette Brooke, the Liberal Democrats' children's spokeswoman, called for dedicated liaison between housing and health and social services departments after seven-year jail sentences were handed to parents David Askew and Sarah Whittaker, who admitted five counts of cruelty to children last week.
Despite local knowledge of their living conditions and an awareness at the eldest child's school that she was neglected, the family were not supervised by social services.
Their five children - who were aged three, four, eight and one-year-old twins - were suffering from extreme malnutrition and living in squalor when they were discovered by emergency services in June.
One of the twins was hours from dying of starvation while his parents lived in comfort in the same house.
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