Introduction – serious crime
Child sexual abuse and exploitation are the most vile and horrific of crimes – involving rape, violence, coercive control, intimidation, manipulation and deep long-term harm.
The information from the crime survey should be chilling to all of us. It estimates that half a million children every year experience some form of child sexual abuse – violence and sexual violation within the home, repeated rapes or exploitation by grooming or paedophile gangs, threats and intimidation involving intimate images online, abuse within institutions that should have protected and cared for young people. Cruel and sadistic crimes against those who are most vulnerable.
All of us have a responsibility to protect our children.
Perpetrators must be punished and pursued. Victims and survivors must be protected and supported.
But these crimes have not been taken seriously for too long and far too many children have been failed. That is why this government is determined to act – strengthening the law, taking forward recommendations from independent inquiries, supporting stronger police action and protection for victims.
Reports and recommendations
There is no excuse for anyone not to take these crimes seriously. Brave survivors speaking out have shone a light on terrible crimes and the failure of institutions to act – be it in care homes in Rochdale, Asian grooming gangs in Rotherham or Telford, abuse that was covered up within faith institutions including the Church of England and Catholic Church, or within family homes.
That report alongside other appalling crimes coming to light is why in opposition our party called for a national Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse and supported that work when it was launched by the previous government. Over 7 years, that inquiry –expertly led by Professor Alexis Jay – engaged with more than 7,000 victims and survivors, processed 2 million pages of evidence and published 61 reports and publications.
Its findings should be truly disturbing for everyone – describing the pain and suffering caused to victims and survivors, the deviousness and cruelty of perpetrators.
Exploitation and gangs
Nor is there any excuse for anyone not to recognise and act on the deep harm and damage from organised gang exploitation, abuse, sexual assaults and rape.
Ten years ago 2 reports by Alexis Jay and Louise Casey into Rotherham found that 1,400 children were sexually exploited, raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked across other towns, abducted, beaten, threatened with guns, even children who had been doused in petrol, girls as young as 11 who were raped. Their reports identified then a decade ago, a failure to confront Pakistani heritage gangs and “a widespread perception that they should “downplay” the ethnic dimensions” for fear of being seen to be racist.
When those reports came out, those failings in Rotherham were condemned across the board by both government and opposition in this House, and as I said at the time “it is never an excuse to use race and ethnicity or community relations as an excuse not to investigate and punish sex offenders.” And the then Home Secretary made clear “cultural concerns and fear of being seen as racist must never stand in the way of child protection.”
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse also ran a specific investigation strand into child sexual exploitation by organised networks – it ran for 2 years and produced a separate report in February 2022 which concluded that police forces and local councils were still failing to tackle this serious crime and set out further recommendations for change.
Failure to act
But Madame Deputy Speaker, despite these different inquiries drawing up multiple recommendations, far too little has actually been done. None of the 20 recommendations from the independent inquiry into child abuse have been implemented.
As the act on IICSA campaign group from The Survivor’s Trust has said this week, victims of child sexual abuse “cannot afford further delays in meaningful action”.
And they said that it is now “imperative to keep the focus on radical reform”.
Two different Conservative Home Secretaries said after the report was published that it was a watershed, should be the beginning of a new chapter for change. But that has not happened.
Government response
We need now new impetus and action.
Since coming into office, the Safeguarding Minister has met with Professor Alexis Jay and survivors and convened the first dedicated cross government group to drive forward change.
And to ensure that victims’ voices remain at the very heart of this process. I can tell the House we will set up a victims and survivors panel to work on an ongoing basis with the inter-ministerial group and guide them on the design, delivery and implementation of new proposals and plans, not just on the IICSA inquiry but on wider work around child sexual abuse and exploitation and we will set out more details and timescales based on that work.
But before that I can announce action on 3 key recommendations.
First, I can confirm that we will make it mandatory to report abuse and we will put the measures in the Crime and Policing Bill that will be put before Parliament this spring. Making it an offence with professional and criminal sanctions to fail to report or cover up child sexual abuse.
The protection of institutions can never be put before the protection of children.
Madame Deputy Speaker, this is something I first called for in response to the reports and failings in Rotherham 10 years ago. Something that the Prime Minister first called for 12 years ago, based on his experience as Director for Public Prosecutions. The case was clear then, but we have lost a decade and we need to get on with it now.
Second, we will also legislate to make grooming an aggravating factor in the sentencing of child sexual offences. The punishment must fit the terrible crime.
Third, we will overhaul the information and evidence that is gathered on child sexual abuse and exploitation and embed it in a clear new performance framework for policing so these crimes are taken far more seriously.
The independent inquiry recommended as one of its first recommendations, a single core data set on child abuse and protection but that has never been done.
We will introduce a single child identifier in the Children and Wellbeing Bill, and a much stronger police performance framework including new standards on public protection, child abuse and exploitation.
We are accelerating the work of the Child Sexual Exploitation Police Taskforce, set up rightly under the previous government, and there has been a 25% increase in arrests between July and September of this year. That sits alongside the Tackling Organised Exploitation Programme, which is using advanced data analytics to uncover the complex networks involved in these crimes. The data on ethnicity is now being published but we will work further with them to improve the accuracy and robustness of the data and analysis.
Further investigations and local inquiries
And we will continue to support further investigations that are needed, including police investigations and local independent inquiries and reviews which can expose failings and wrongdoing in local areas and institutions, as we have seen in Telford, Rotherham and Greater Manchester.
We support the ongoing work commissioned by Mayor Andy Burnham, including into historic abuse in Oldham, which has led to new police investigations, arrests and convictions.
To build on those findings, the leader of Oldham Council has confirmed this week that work to set up a further local independent inquiry is already underway, including liaison with Oldham survivors. We welcome and support this work, which will put victims’ voices at its heart.
Madame Deputy Speaker the Telford inquiry was particularly effective because it involved victims in shaping the inquiry and they were involved at every stage. Tom Crowther who led that inquiry has agreed to now work with the government and with other local councils where stronger engagement with victims and survivors is needed or where more formal inquiries are required to tackle persistent problems.
But we should also be clear that wherever there have been failings or that perpetrators of terrible crimes have not been brought to justice, the most important inquiries and investigations should be police investigations to track those perpetrators down, to bring them before the courts and to get victims the protection that they deserve.
Online grooming and abuse
Finally, Madame Deputy Speaker, we have to face the serious challenge that the fastest growing area of grooming and child abuse is now online. We will also take much stronger action to crack down on rapidly evolving forms of Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse and grooming online, including to tackle the exponential rise in AI-facilitated Child Sexual Abuse Material, and we will set out a significant package of measures to strengthen the law in this area in the coming weeks.
Conclusion
For many years there has been broad cross-party consensus not only on the importance of this work but that the interests of victims and survivors must come first.
There will be different views about the details of the policies that are needed, but every one of us across this House has supported action to protect our children. That is all our responsibility to keep them safe for the future. I hope that members across the House will work with ministers and with the victims and survivors panel that we are setting up to change protection for the better and to make sure that it is perpetrators who pay the price.
I commend this statement to the House.
