New Disclosure and Safeguarding Mechanism for At-Risk Children
This petition gathered 110,028 signatures between 5 August 2025 and 5 February 2026, according to the Parliament petitions site. The Government responded on 7 January 2026. MPs debated it in Westminster Hall on 13 April 2026.
The petition
The petition's creator is not named in the Petitions site's published record. Quoted in full from the UK Parliament petitions site.
New Disclosure and Safeguarding Mechanism for At-Risk Children
We propose a statutory safeguarding framework that facilitates proactive information sharing where a child is at risk due to a parent or caregiver’s known history, even when current laws may not trigger disclosure.
• Introduce a Child Risk Disclosure Scheme (CRDS) that operates similarly to Clare’s and Sarah’s Laws but is focused on the broader risk history of caregivers.
• Require statutory services (police, social care, health) to disclose relevant past history to the child’s parent or legal guardian when a risk is identified.
• Establish multi-agency response protocols, particularly where child contact, custody, or unsupervised access is being considered.
• Empower professionals to raise safeguarding alerts and initiate family court safeguarding interventions where known risks exist, even if not currently under active investigation.
The Government's response
The Government published its response on 7 January 2026; the petitions site lists the Department for Education as responsible. Its summary:
We are delivering significant reform across children’s social care, policing and the family court system to better safeguard children and stop them falling through the cracks of services.
The opening 361 words of the 738-word response:
Keeping children safe is a priority for this government, and this is why we are delivering the most significant overhaul of children’s social care in a generation. We deeply sympathise with calls to more effectively safeguard children and we recognise that fostering a culture of proactive information sharing amongst safeguarding professionals is critical to the early identification of need and risk, hence the facilitation of better support provision to prevent escalation.
Through our landmark Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, we have set out to improve multi-agency information sharing, introduce a responsive family help system, and sharpen the child protection system. These reforms, taken together, are intended to better safeguard children, and stop them from falling through the cracks.
It is only when safeguarding partners have a fuller understanding of a child that they can effectively assess risk and take the most appropriate action. Rightly, the proposed Child Risk Disclosure Scheme highlights the importance of empowering and encouraging safeguarding practitioners to proactively share information relevant to a safeguarding concern, including where information relates to a risk posed by another person in a child’s life. Whilst the Government is not minded to introduce the elements of a Child Risk Disclosure Scheme requiring police to disclose information to parents and guardians, proposals to strengthen multi agency responses and earlier safeguarding help are already included in the package of reforms we are taking forward.
We are introducing a new Information Sharing Duty as set out in clause 4 of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. By legally obliging statutory safeguarding partners to share information across agencies where there is a concern relevant to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, we are ending misconceptions about when information can and cannot be shared. Crucially, this extends to the sharing of information about other individuals for the same purpose, enabling practitioners to act and inform families as appropriate.
We are also exploring means of reducing friction in sharing information across agencies through technological improvements. This includes delivering on our manifesto commitment to introduce a consistent identifier for children, to allow data to be shared more efficiently and accurately by linking records together to improve join-up across services.
Read the full response on the petitions site.
Where the signatures came from
Signatures came from 650 constituencies. Measured against each constituency's electorate at the 2024 general election, the most came from Blaydon and Consett, with 118.5 signatures per 1,000 electors (8,353 in all).
109,685 of the signatures were from the UK and 343 from elsewhere, by the location signers gave.
| Constituency | Signatures | Electorate, July 2024 | Per 1,000 electors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blaydon and Consett | 8,353 | 70,487 | 118.5 |
| North Durham | 6,142 | 73,226 | 83.9 |
| Easington | 3,810 | 69,395 | 54.9 |
| Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor | 3,038 | 72,215 | 42.1 |
| Bishop Auckland | 2,971 | 70,745 | 42.0 |
| City of Durham | 2,856 | 70,583 | 40.5 |
| Houghton and Sunderland South | 2,866 | 78,448 | 36.5 |
| Washington and Gateshead South | 2,260 | 70,972 | 31.8 |
| Jarrow and Gateshead East | 1,798 | 70,272 | 25.6 |
| Sunderland Central | 1,904 | 76,145 | 25.0 |
| Region | Signatures |
|---|---|
| North East | 54,260 |
| North West | 9,689 |
| Yorkshire and The Humber | 8,746 |
| Scotland | 8,576 |
| East Midlands | 4,623 |
| West Midlands | 4,522 |
| South East | 4,435 |
| East of England | 3,855 |
| South West | 3,656 |
| Wales | 3,645 |
| Northern Ireland | 1,566 |
| London | 1,478 |
Debate in Parliament
MPs debated the petition in Westminster Hall on 13 April 2026. Read the debate in Hansard. House of Commons Library debate pack.
Source and receipt
- https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/731497.jsonUK Parliament Petitions API · read 2026-10-15 · SHA-256
dd054d720db13884… - The petition on petition.parliament.uk
The petition's words are its creator's and the response is the Government's; this site quotes both and gives no view on either. Signature counts can still change while a petition is open. To report an error, send a correction request.