THE government has launched a national review into the murder of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes. 

The six-year-old was tortured, poisoned, starved and murdered by his stepmother Emma Tustin, 32, and father Thomas Hughes, 29, after social services found “no safeguarding concerns.” 

Tustin was sentenced for 29 years for murder and child cruelty and Hughes was jailed for 21 years for manslaughter after encouraging the killing of his son. 

Announcing the review today, Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi said that the government would “not rest until we have the answers we need.”

He said: “We are determined to protect children from harm and where concerns are raised we will not hesitate to take urgent and robust action.” 

The review aims to determine what improvements are needed by the agencies that came into contact with Arthur in the months before he was murdered, and will be led by the National Child Safeguarding Practice Review panel. 

It upgrades an existing local probe launched shortly after Arthur’s death in June 2020. 

But Child Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza warned today that reviews were “not a quick fix,” and urged “decisive action now.” 

“There are two things that I think we absolutely have to do and do now,” she told the BBC. 

“One: Arthur raised concerns, he was not a baby, he was six years old, he raised concerns and the system did not hear him. 

“We must listen to the voices of children and secondly, no doubt with these reviews and national reviews that are absolutely right that they happen, they tend to make the same recommendations … it’s not a matter of system recommendations, it’s a matter of delivery.”

The six-year-old died from a head injury inflicted by Tustin after she shook him and banged his head against the floor after poisoning him with salt. 

A vigil was held at 1pm today outside the Solihull home where he died. 

Government cuts have also been blamed for failures by social services to pick up on cases of child abuse in the wake of Arthur’s murder. 

Cross-bench peer Herbert Laming, who led the inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie, a child also killed by her carers, said on Saturday that “marked” cuts has meant abuse cases are being missed. 

Mr Laming added that the lack of funding has reduced front-line services to “something of a crisis service, rather than a preventive service.”