TORY ministers must demand better data on the use of restraints on young people in care to end the “brutal handcuffing of vulnerable children,” MPs and peers have urged.

In a letter to Children’s Minister Claire Coutinho, the cross-party group slammed the “worrying prevalence” of vulnerable children being restrained and handcuffed unnecessarily by so-called “secure transportation providers.”

They blasted instances of innocent children outside the custodial system being restrained in such a way when they are being moved around by the authorities.