Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sarah Newton)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. I wholeheartedly congratulate the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) on securing this debate and raising an issue that is so incredibly important. It is good to see so many people in the room today, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), who chairs the Women and Equalities Committee. I cannot tell Members what a privilege and honour it was to be asked to take on this role as Minister. I cannot think of a better job in government. I will be working with people across all political parties on preventing harm to children in our society.
Sexual exploitation of children, whether online or offline, is an appalling crime. I know that the hon. Member for Rotherham has campaigned tirelessly against it, and I do not think I need to tell the House how determined and committed the Government are to tackle it robustly. I would like to give my assurance to hon. Members of my personal commitment to this. On only my second day as a new Member of Parliament back in 2010, a paedophile ring was unearthed in my constituency. I represent a beautiful, coastal, rural part of Cornwall. I grew up there and I went to school there. The community where that happened is where my family lived and I was deeply shocked. I have been on the journey of seeing what a devastating crime this is, not only for the people directly involved but for the whole wider community. I am utterly determined to use my time in this post to do everything to prevent it.
The Government are committed to improving the safety of children online and have a strong track record of working with the industry and the charity sector to achieve this. The UK Council for Child Internet Safety, which is co-chaired by Ministers, is a multi-stakeholder forum representing more than 200 organisations that are committed to internet safety. It brings together the Government, industry, law enforcement agencies, academia, charities and parenting groups to work in partnership to help to keep children and young people safe online. Its achievements include the roll-out of free network-level filters for the vast majority of broadband customers and automatic family-friendly, public wi-fi in places where children are likely to be. It has also developed guidance for providers of social media and interactive services to help them to make their platforms safer for children and young people under 18, and another for parents and carers whose children are using social media.
The hon. Lady mentioned children accessing pornographic information and images online. The Government have consulted on this and are introducing measures in the Digital Economy Bill to prevent access to pornographic material online without age verification. I am sure she will agree that this is a really important step forward. We will carefully monitor the implementation of the age verification measures.
Sarah Champion
I am sure the Minister is aware that almost any 12-year-old in the country can get round any blocks and devices to try to prevent them from accessing content. Will she consider piloting that verification with some young people, so that we use their experience to make sure it is as robust as she says?
Sarah Newton
It is a really good idea to get children involved as the implementation goes ahead and I will take that away.
We are clear that abusive and threatening behaviour online, whoever the target, is totally unacceptable. We expect and demand that social media companies have robust processes in place to address inappropriate behaviour on their sites, including the provision of clear reporting channels and prompt action to assess reports and remove behaviour that does not comply with their terms and conditions.
As we have seen today, there is an even more insidious threat facing children online: sexual exploitation. Our response to that is rightly robust and includes action by law enforcement agencies against online offenders, developing new capabilities to find and safeguard victims, and working with the internet industry to remove illegal images. All police forces and the National Crime Agency are now connected to the child abuse image database—CAID—which reduces the time taken to undertake investigations and identify victims. A new victim identification suite has been established by the National Crime Agency with access to CAID. In 2015-16, UK authorities identified more than 450 victims from abuse images, more than double the number in the previous year.
The hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts)—I am sorry if I mispronounced the name of her constituency—rightly questioned the resources for digital forensic teams in forces around the UK. These are operational matters for local police officers, but I am aware that real improvements have been made in the prioritising of resources for this work. Officers have been working with the NCA to use the tools that are constantly being developed. It is an area where we have to be vigilant all the time through the use of technology to enhance identification and processing. I will be keeping a careful eye on that and working on it with the police and crime commissioners.
We were talking about financial resources. In 2015-16, the NCA received an additional £10 million of investment for further specialist teams to tackle online child sexual exploitation. That enabled a near doubling of its investigative capacity to tackle such exploitation. A joint NCA and GCHQ team has been established to target the most technologically sophisticated offenders.
Our law enforcement response is delivering effectiveness against offenders. In 2015, 2,861 individuals were prosecuted for indecent images of children offences, a 27% increase on the previous year. In co-ordinated activity in the nine months ending last November, undertaken by the NCA and 40 police forces, 399 children were safeguarded and 682 individuals were arrested, all of whom were suspected of making, distributing and/or possessing indecent images of children.
The NCA also works to protect children and young people from abuse. The Thinkuknow education programme provides resources for use with children and young people, helping them to identify the risks that they may face both online and offline, to understand how to protect themselves and to know how to seek further support. In 2015-16 alone, just over 1.5 million primary and just under 2 million secondary school children received face-to-face education sessions from Thinkuknow’s network of more than 130,000 professionals, and the number of children and young people reached through Thinkuknow was over 205,000 more than in the previous year. Thinkuknow’s educational resources, including films, cartoons, lesson plans and websites, educate children about keeping themselves safe from sexual abuse and exploitation.
As several hon. Members rightly pointed out, schools have a critical role to play in protecting children from the risk of abuse online. E-safety is now covered at all key stages in the curriculum, including key stages 1 and 2, reflecting the fact that younger children are increasingly online. I will very seriously consider the recommendations made by the hon. Member for Rotherham today about what more can be done in that curriculum development.
Safeguarding is now a key consideration in all Ofsted school inspections. As part of their assessment of safeguarding, inspectors need to consider pupils’ understanding of how to keep themselves safe from relevant risks such as exploitation and extremism, including—