While Westminster debates youth minimum wage delays, a different story about Britain's young people has been quietly unfolding in family court data. Authorities invoked emergency powers to obtain information on missing children 930 times in 2023, compared to just once in 2022.

That's a 92,900% increase in a single year. (Source: Ministry of Justice, Family Court Statistics -- Family_Court_Tables__Jul-Sep_2024_ -- Table_4)

The numbers tell the story of how we got here. In 2022, the 'Authority to obtain information on missing child' power was used exactly once. It was an obscure legal mechanism, buried in family court procedures, rarely needed.

Then something changed. By 2023, family courts were using these emergency information-gathering powers almost daily. That's more than two orders every single day of the year, weekends included.

These aren't routine custody disputes. This legal power exists for when a child has vanished and authorities need to compel third parties to hand over information. Phone companies. Social media platforms. Banks. Schools. Anyone who might know where a missing child has gone.

The timeline reveals the scale of what's happening. From one case to 930 cases suggests either a massive spike in children going missing, or authorities finally waking up to powers they'd barely used before.

Each order represents a child whose whereabouts are unknown. A family in crisis. Resources stretched across police, social services, and courts to track down young people who've disappeared from the system.

The cost implications are staggering. Every missing child case involves multiple agencies, emergency court hearings, and urgent investigations. If each case costs the taxpayer even £1,000 in court time, police resources, and administrative work, that's nearly £1 million in emergency spending on missing children cases in 2023 alone.

But the human cost matters more. Behind each of these 930 orders is a child who slipped through the cracks. Some may be vulnerable teenagers who've run away. Others could be caught in custody battles where one parent has taken them without permission. Still others might be children trafficked or exploited.

The data doesn't explain why the numbers exploded. It doesn't tell us whether more children are going missing, or whether courts simply started using powers they'd ignored for years. What it does show is that 2023 marked a turning point in how seriously the system takes missing children.

While politicians argue over youth wages and parliamentary renovations, nearly 1,000 families discovered what it means when a child disappears and the state mobilises its emergency powers to find them.