Baroness Benjamin
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Grooming Gangs: Independent Inquiry
Baroness Benjamin Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
It is an important issue that has been raised. I can give my noble friend the assurance that we will keep that matter under review. We have taken initial action in response to the initial inquiry, and we will continue to look at it in future.
Referring back to the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, I may say that the Department for Transport will legislate to address the important issues raised in the report, tackling the inconsistent standards of taxi and private hire vehicles. The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 includes the provision to set those national standards. I apologise for not giving her that answer immediately—it is not my direct brief—but I hope that helps the House.
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, in 2011 or 2012, I asked a Question on behalf of Barnardo’s—and I declare an interest as vice-president—about child sexual exploitation and how children were encouraged by their abusers to delete the evidence on their mobile phones that could lead to prosecution and that the children were not believed by the authorities. What provisions are in place today to collect such evidence that could prosecute evil perpetrators of child sexual abuse?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The point the noble Baroness has made is extremely important. In the 14 or 15 years since she asked that Question, the police’s ability to collect information and to analyse data in a way that can lead to prosecution has significantly improved. There is a range of mechanisms now where deleted data can be recovered. If there is an evidential trail, that can be looked at. I have just taken note of a range of government reviews about how we can manage and use particularly AI to improve the analysis of information, so that the manual element is still there at the end but there is a great deal of consideration of how we can collect that information and analyse it in a much better way. So I hope that, since she asked that Question, the situation has improved.