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 am today joining the campaign for a full public enquiry and urging everyone to contact their MP’s calling for them to do the same.

I believe 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.

Today it was confirmed that Haringey has inadequate childrens services yet a desk top research inspection awarded Haringey three stars – despite no knowledge of what is really going on in a children’s department? How is that possible? Then there are other issues such as - 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 and other services are outsourced, how do we ensure a strong level of accountability and communication?

These issues are ones that matter across the country. 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. Please contactour MP’s and urge them to add their signature.

It takes just a few moments to contact our MP’s David Chaytor (Bury North) and Ivan Lewis (Bury South) 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.