Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse: Final Report

Before I call the Home Secretary to make this statement, I remind hon. Members that they should not refer to any specific cases currently before the courts and that they should exercise caution with respect to any specific cases that might subsequently come before the courts, in order not to prejudice those proceedings.

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement about the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. Last Thursday, the inquiry’s report was published. It concludes seven years of investigation into institutional failure across England and Wales to protect and safeguard children from child sexual abuse.

I want to thank the chair of the inquiry, Professor Alexis Jay, and her whole team for their fearless dedication and commitment in uncovering generations of horrendous societal, professional and institutional failings. I have written to Professor Jay and offered to meet her in the coming weeks to discuss her findings.

Above all, I want to extend my profound gratitude to the thousands of victims and survivors who have come forward to share their testimonies and experiences with the inquiry. That took immense courage. We will honour that courage by keeping their voices front and centre in everything we do and in overseeing a radical improvement in how this crime is dealt with and prevented. The whole House will be deeply moved by the reasons that victims and survivors gave for wanting to share their stories. They wanted their experiences to be acknowledged, to be listened to and to be taken seriously; they wanted to protect other children from suffering as they have suffered. Yet they also wanted not to be defined by this experience and to find, as one survivor put it, “life after abuse”. Madam Deputy Speaker, they are heroic.

Nothing—nothing—is more wicked than hurting a child, and there is no worse dereliction of duty than failing to protect a child. The report reveals horrific abuse of children. It makes for devastating and distressing reading. It finds that organisations have put their reputations ahead of protecting vulnerable children—either turning a blind eye or actively covering up abuse. That is inexcusable.

I am a father of three children and this report has made for very difficult reading. I cannot imagine the pain that victims have been through. Madam Deputy Speaker, I say this on behalf of the Government and all Governments who came before: to all the victims who have suffered this horrendous abuse, I am truly sorry.

I call the shadow Home Secretary.

I welcome the new Home Secretary to his post and thank him for the advance copy of his statement. I join him in paying tribute to the victims and survivors who pressed for the inquiry and who have shown great bravery and strength in telling their stories and speaking out to seek justice, to seek truth and to seek protection for others. I thank the inquiry team for their work.

This is a deeply serious report about one of the worst imaginable crimes, the sexual abuse and exploitation of children—the violence, pain and terror that they have described; the degradation, the violation and the consequences that they have felt throughout their lives; and the deep failure of the institutions and people in power who were supposed to protect them. It was a failure to listen, a failure to believe and a failure to act on the part of institutions that, through generations, were found to have protected their own reputation rather than protecting children and to have put deference to authority above the basic duty of care to children, whom they badly let down. I and my party join the Home Secretary and the Government in their deep apology towards those who were so badly let down by state institutions that should have kept them safe. We are truly sorry.

The inquiry recommends major changes in child protection and in support for victims. The Home Secretary has rightly committed himself to overseeing a radical improvement in the way in which this crime is dealt with and prevented, and that is welcome, but I have stood at this Dispatch Box and heard similar promises before. The Home Secretary’s response today is not strong enough and does not go far enough, because this is not just a historic inquiry; the report makes clear that child sexual abuse is endemic and increasing. There are children at risk today, and there are basic child protection issues that are getting worse and require action now, in advance of the Government’s full response to the inquiry.

I thank the right hon. Lady for her response to my statement. I repeat the message in the statement that I want to work across parties to do all we can to protect victims and, indeed, drive down this appalling crime.

The right hon. Lady raised a number of specific points, and I will, if I may, respond to her in writing, because I will then be able to give a more detailed response. However, one or two things did catch my eye as she was speaking. In particular, it is worth saying to Members who have not had a chance to read the report that 2 million pages of evidence were presented, and that there have been 107 recommendations and Thursday’s report contains a further 20. We have already started to implement many of those recommendations. I listed some in my statement so I will not backtrack, but, as I have said, I intend to respond to all this in full and within the inquiry’s own deadline, and as I have also said, I will try to expedite as many responses as I can. In particular, the right hon. Lady called for mandatory reporting; I noted that comment, and I will look at all those individual areas.

On prosecutions, the picture is a bit more complicated than has been presented in the right hon. Lady’s response. For example, the number of convictions for indecent image offences has increased by 39% in the past year alone. However, I accept that overall there is still a huge task to be done in the Online Safety Bill, which contains some very important clauses. I have not yet caught up with the Bill managers, but I know that it is progressing quickly and I want to see that happen. The figures are staggering, with 103,000 child sex offences recorded by the police in the last year alone. Much of this has gone online, and the right hon. Lady is right to pinpoint the measures in the Online Safety Bill as being extremely important.

As the right hon. Lady knows, I take a great deal of interest in the issue of asylum, including refugees—we have some living in our house, in fact—and I want to ensure that we do everything we can. I know that the Minister for Security, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), has made inquiries in the past few days on the priorities with regard to asylum-seeking children. With that, it will probably be most helpful to the right hon. Lady and to the House if I write to her in detail on all her points, and I will be happy to put that letter in the Library of the House.

When I set up this inquiry, I said that I thought the public would be shocked at the extent of child sexual abuse that was taking place in our country. I would like to thank Professor Alexis Jay, the other members of the inquiry panel and all of their team for their hard work in producing this report. I particularly want to echo the comments of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) in thanking all those who came forward to give evidence, which will not have been easy for them.

This report has shone a light on the horrific violence against children that has been taking place in the past and that also, sadly, takes place today. The Government now have an opportunity, on the back of this inquiry report, to make changes that will make a real difference, so I urge my right hon. Friend to ensure that all parts of Government take this report and treat it with utter seriousness, particularly the recommendation on mandatory reporting.

I thank my right hon. Friend for all that she did in setting up the inquiry. This has involved seven years, 725 witnesses, 20 reports across 15 investigations, 24 research reports and, as I mentioned, the processing of 2 million pages of evidence. It is extremely important that we take all this information and ensure that we act on it, and I give an undertaking from the Dispatch Box today to honour the spirit in which she set up the inquiry in the first place.

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson, Stuart C. McDonald.

I, too, welcome the Home Secretary to his place and, like him, I want to thank the members of the inquiry and their staff for their incredibly thorough and painstaking work over many years. Like everybody else, I think the most important thing is to pay tribute to all the survivors who participated courageously in recounting their own horrific experiences. They did so seeking acknowledgement and accountability, but also in the hope that children in future would be protected from the same dreadful ordeal. As the Home Secretary says, it is now incumbent on all of us to work constructively to make those aspirations a reality.

Obviously there is a lot to consider, and while it is good to be able to question the Home Secretary on the report today, I think many of us would appreciate the opportunity for a full debate in this Chamber in due course, or at least regular updates on the progress being made on implementing the report’s recommendations. Most of the recommendations are focused on England and Wales, but as the report notes, this is a global crisis and a similar inquiry is ongoing in Scotland.

I want to highlight the growing concerns outlined in the report about how child sexual exploitation is being facilitated by modern slavery and trafficking. There has been a lot of concerning chatter in recent weeks from the Home Office about the future of modern slavery laws. Given that sexual exploitation is the second most common reason for children being referred into the national referral mechanism, will the Home Secretary acknowledge the importance of modern slavery laws in protecting children from abuse and commit to making those laws work better, rather than tearing them up completely?

I echo what the shadow Home Secretary said about the recent worrying reports of asylum-seeking children going missing from hotels on the Home Secretary’s watch. We are now talking three figures, so will the Home Secretary say a little more about what is being done to look into why that is happening and how it can be stopped? What progress has been made on rolling out the use of independent child trafficking guardians? Finally, given the time constraints and the fact that we understand the Online Safety Bill will return to the House next week, what discussions is he having with colleagues about the implications of this report for that Bill, including in relation to age verification?

I know work is being done. I think there was a report five years ago and there are separate, ongoing reports in Scotland, with many cross-cutting themes. The hon. Gentleman rightly asks about modern slavery laws, many of which we have my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) to thank for. I reassure him that any changes made for the specific purpose of ensuring that potential loopholes are closed will not have an impact on the main purpose, just as he describes.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for reminding us that the Online Safety Bill will return very shortly. I am ensuring that its findings, many of which were in the interim report, will be covered in the Online Safety Bill. I will return to him in writing on his comments about asylum seekers in hotels.

I welcome my right hon. Friend to his place. He will know that his role comes with huge responsibilities, especially for protecting children, which is why I welcome his statement and the comments of the shadow Home Secretary. I welcome this excellent final report, of course, and I thank Professor Alexis Jay, the victims and survivors, and Professor Jay’s entire team for producing it.

The Disclosure and Barring Service is referenced some 84 times in the report. In 2020, when I led a commission into child sexual abuse and exploitation, we discovered a number of issues relating to the DBS, particularly the ability of convicted child sexual abusers to avoid detection by simply changing their name. This loophole has still not been closed by the Government, so I urge my right hon. Friend to work with his colleagues in the Ministry of Justice to close it as quickly as possible.

My right hon. Friend has occupied my post and is very knowledgeable about this subject. There are concerns about the DBS, and I asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies), to look into this urgently. That work is already under way, so I will report back to the House.

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, Dame Diana Johnson.

I, too, pay tribute to all the victims and survivors who gave testimony to the inquiry, and to the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) for establishing it in the first place. We can all agree that victims and survivors have waited far too long for this inquiry and for robust action to be taken against child sexual abuse. We must not waste any more time. Will the Home Secretary commit to bringing forward, in this Session, any legislative changes that are needed, particularly on mandatory reporting?

The right hon. Lady has expertise in this area, so I thank her for her point. As I said, I want to act as quickly as possible. She will appreciate that this report was seven years and £184 million in the making, so there is an awful lot of information for us to look at and consider, and we will come back to the House with our response. I would rather go through that process systematically, to ensure we get it right, than make a promise from the Dispatch Box that I do not know I will be able to fulfil. I reassure her and all Members that I will be doing it with the utmost speed and determination.

I welcome my right hon. Friend to his place and commend him for his response to this report, as well as thanking my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) for establishing the inquiry in the first place.

The victims’ stories make horrific reading. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will be aware that, when it comes to the detection and tackling of child sexual abuse and exploitation, a critical role is played by children’s social workers, the overwhelming majority of whom do outstanding work in the most difficult circumstances, but we can do more to support them. Will he work with the Secretary of State for Education to look once more at Martin Narey’s report on how we can improve social workers’ education, and to see whether more resource can be devoted to ensuring that the work of Frontline, the organisation that brings the brightest and the best from higher education into social work, can be expanded?

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The report is difficult reading, as we see when we start to read some of the testimony, and he is absolutely right on that. I also agree with him on the need to pay tribute to the vast majority of frontline workers and social workers who do an extraordinary job. He is probably familiar with the independent Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse, which was funded by the Home Office and set up in 2016, and which has been helping to provide and strengthen the ability of professionals to identify sexual abuse. To answer his question directly, I will undertake to work with the Secretary of State for Education and pull together Secretaries of State and Ministers from across the Government to make sure that we work on this issue and stamp out the sexual abuse of youngsters.