Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for those questions. There is a significant amount of detail in the points that she has raised, and I hope she will understand and bear with me when I say that the Government are working through the broad objectives that we have set. The first three objectives I have mentioned are on mandatory reporting, the grooming aggravated offence and online work. These are the three major priorities.

I note what the noble Baroness said about the database. If she will allow me, I want to reflect in detail on that point. It is an important way in which information is put into the public domain and I do not want to commit today to things that we find are impractical or counterproductive downstream. I will note that point and follow up on it.

The noble Baroness made a point about convicted individuals from a particular nation. From the Government’s point of view, people who commit child abuse—whatever their race, ethnicity, background, sexual orientation or other things—should be held to account by the forces of the law and prosecuted accordingly when evidence is brought forward. In the event that she mentioned, of someone who has been convicted who has a nationality which is not British and has served a sentence in a jail in this country, the Government always reserve the right to deport that individual back to their home country in due course. The noble Baroness raised dual nationality issues. If she will allow me, rather than commit today on the detail of that extremely technical and complicated issue, I will take it back and discuss it, but it is an important procedure going forward.

I say to the noble Baroness and to all in this House that I want to focus not just on the nationality of any particular or potential groomers or offenders but on people who undertake grooming and offending and to make sure that we tackle that across the board. Individuals of whatever nationality should be held to account for their criminal actions.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, I recognise that I get very angry about this issue, and I hope the House will forgive me. I have worked for most of my life with this sort of activity. I started in Newcastle in 1970 in the then new children’s department as a family social worker. I have worked with victims of sexual abuse and of other forms of abuse in different ways, now through the voluntary sector. I really resent this issue now being used as a political football.

I am absolutely shocked at the Official Opposition and at people I have always regarded as good colleagues on the Front Bench opposite for the way they have been doing this. The reality is that all of us over the last 50 years have not done enough at each stage to make sure that we protect, particularly, young girls and women. The idea that the previous party that was in power for all that time is better than everybody else on it is shocking. We all have to accept that we have not done enough. In this House last year, I spoke about sexual exploitation at the Second Reading of a Bill and was seen as weird for doing it.

I really hope that the Government are going to take hold of action now. Those young women—I have been talking today to some of the organisations that are working with them—are still angry that not enough has been done to support them. We have to support them, and I hope the Government will do that.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend and for her persistent campaigning on this issue. It is important that we focus on the issue: how do we better protect children and survivors, how do we give them victim support and how do we prevent future criminal actions by individuals, whatever their race or ethnicity? We must also seek to prosecute individuals, whatever their race or ethnicity.

While I can make points about the review commissioned by the noble Baroness, Lady May, the seven years afterwards, the response and what has happened since then, I want to try to look forward. That means taking forward the three recommendations that we have agreed to and looking at the work we have done since July on the child sexual exploitation police task force. That was established by the last Government. We have now put some energy into the acceleration of its activity and saw a 25% increase in arrests around child sexual exploitation between July and September of last year.

There is much to do. I appreciate that history is worth looking at, and there are lessons for us all—including me, as I was a Home Office Minister a long time ago, in 2009-10. My hope is that we can use this to find common ground to tackle the issue. In doing so, let us make sure that we protect children and bring perpetrators to justice.