The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Monday 6 January.
“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 in the home; repeated rapes or exploitation by grooming or paedophile gangs; threats and intimidation involving intimate images online; or 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, and 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 are determined to act, strengthening the law, taking forward recommendations from independent inquiries, and supporting stronger police action and protection for victims.
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, the abuse covered up within faith institutions, including the Church of England and the Catholic Church, or within family homes.
That report, alongside the coming to light of other appalling crimes, is why our party when in opposition called for a national independent inquiry into child sexual abuse and supported that work when it was launched by the previous Government. Over seven 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. The findings should be truly disturbing for everyone—they described the pain and suffering caused to victims and survivors, and the deviousness and cruelty and perpetrators. Nor is there any excuse for anyone not to recognise and act on the deep harm and damage of organised gang exploitation, abuse, sexual assaults and rape.
Ten years ago, two reports by Alexis Jay and Louise Casey in Rotherham found that 1,400 children had been sexually exploited, raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked across other towns, abducted, beaten and threatened with guns. Children had even been doused in petrol. Girls as young as 11 had been raped. Those reports a decade ago identified 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. 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’.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/9/14; col. 169.]
The then Home Secretary made it clear that
‘cultural concerns … the fear of being seen as racist … must never stand in the way of child protection’.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/9/14; col. 168.]
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse also ran a specific investigation strand into child sexual exploitation by organised networks, which ran for two years and produced a separate report in February 2022. It concluded that police forces and local councils were still failing to tackle this serious crime and set out further recommendations for change. But despite those 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 has been implemented. As the Act on IICSA campaign group from the Survivors Trust said this week, victims of child sexual abuse
‘cannot afford further delays in meaningful action … It is imperative to keep the focus on radical reform’.
Two different Conservative Home Secretaries said after the report was published that it was a watershed and should be the beginning of a new chapter for change, but that has not happened. We now need new impetus and action.
Since coming into office, the Safeguarding Minister has met with Professor Alexis Jay and survivors, and has convened the first dedicated cross-government group to drive forward change. To ensure that victims’ voices remain at the very heart of this process, we will set up a new victims and survivors panel to work on an ongoing basis with the interministerial group, to guide them on the design, delivery and implementation of new proposals and plans not just on IICSA but on wider work around child sexual exploitation and abuse. We will set out more details and timescales based on that work.
Before that, I can announce action on three key recommendations. First, I can confirm that we will make it mandatory to report abuse, and we will put measures in the crime and policing Bill—to be put before Parliament this spring—to make it an offence, with professional and criminal sanctions, to fail to report or to cover up child sexual abuse. The protection of institutions must never be put before the protection of children. I first called for this measure in response to the reports and failings in Rotherham 10 years ago. The Prime Minister first called for it 12 years ago, based on his experience as Director of Public Prosecutions. The case was clear then, but we have lost a decade and we need to get on with it now.
Secondly, we will legislate to make grooming an aggravating factor in the sentencing of child sexual offences, because the punishment must fit the terrible crime.
Thirdly, we will overhaul the information and evidence that are gathered on child sexual abuse and exploitation and embed them in a clear new performance framework for policing, so that these crimes are taken far more seriously. One of the first recommendations of the independent inquiry was a single core dataset on child abuse and protection, but that has never been done. We will introduce a single child identifier in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and a much stronger police performance framework, including new standards on public protection, child abuse and exploitation.