Lowering the threshold at which professionals can share their concerns about children will help prevent tragedies such as the murder of toddler Daniel Pelka, MSPs have been told.

The Children and Young People Bill will allow health professionals to share data if they have a concern about a child's welfare, loosening the current restriction, which only allows data-sharing where there is a risk of significant harm.

The Bill was debated at stage one in Holyrood.

Children's minister Aileen Campbell said: "The Bill recognises that for some children we need to respond more quickly to the terrible risk of abuse and neglect.

"We are all familiar with the tragic stories from the media of children who were below the radar, for whom signals were not picked up and acted on, and for whom the need to act would only have been apparent to someone with access to all of the relevant information, which was spread amongst a number of different organisations.

"The recent tragic case of Daniel Pelka highlights the importance of professionals putting the child's interests at the heart of what they do and communicating their concerns."