Regulated and Other Activities (Mandatory Reporting of Child Sexual Abuse) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone and Baroness Twycross

2nd reading
Friday 17th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Con)]

My Lords, I warmly commend the noble Baroness for her tenacity in bringing forward this Bill. There is enormous respect and support for what she is doing.

I want to touch on the context. It was 50 years ago that we had the first public inquiry into child physical abuse, with the Maria Colwell case, when Maria Colwell was beaten and killed by her stepfather. Since then, we have had any number of inquiries on physical abuse, and we do not need any more. The lessons are always the same; why are they not implemented, and why are the dots not joined? With the reports of Herbert Laming, now the noble Lord, Lord Laming, and William Utting, the lessons are the same.

Then we came upon child sexual abuse, which frankly was unthinkable. I think that the House fails to realise that this was not a concept that people even considered, and we are not so far along the line in understanding how addictive it is. In the 1970s, I was asked to review the literature on paedophilia at the Institute of Psychiatry at the Maudsley. The view was that the trauma of reporting in a court case was so much more damaging to a family than actually trying to give them a little bit of counselling. Attitudes have changed beyond belief, and we should not judge the past by the present.

Why are people so resistant to reporting? I have personal evidence. I started working for Frank Field at the Child Poverty Action Group; then I wanted to become a psychiatric social worker, so I went as an unqualified social worker to a special boarding school for the Inner London Education Authority. I discovered that the headmaster spent all his time hanging around the girls’ bedrooms, the lavatories and bathrooms. This was horrific. I was 23, it was my first job—I wanted my reputation, so what could I do? I could do no other. I went to the head of my service, the school social work service for the Inner London Education Authority, but I was told, “No, Virginia—if they think that social workers are going to be reporting on things, they won’t allow social workers in the schools”. That was too much for me. My formidable aunt, Peggy Jay, a GLC member, said, “Go and see Lena Jeger”, who was a wonderful Labour woman. I went to see her—and what happened? The man was given a good reference and went to a school in Sevenoaks, Tunbridge Wells. I could do no other. My friend Patrick Mayhew—the late Lord Mayhew—was the MP, and I said, “If you ever hear anything, you must do something”. What happened? The man went off to a school in Canada.

We need to understand the resistance to reporting. It is damaging for the sport—and the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, is going to speak. You do not want people to think that athletics is full of sex abuse or that a school is full of sex abuse. You do not want people to feel that the Church is full of sex abuse—so we should just be sympathetic to the resistance.

On my next point, we must be careful of false reporting. We all remember the late Lord Brittan and the horrors that he had in the last years of his life—and Lord Bramall. I used to work with a young man who was very disturbed and had seen more than anyone should have done at 15. The first thing he did when he went to a children’s home was to accuse somebody of touching him up. What happens? The person immediately gets suspended. We all know about this from constituents in our schools. False accusations mean instant dismissal and a reputation destroyed, and it is almost impossible for that individual to get back. I am not condoning anything—the trauma, the loss of innocence, the loss of a childhood from child sexual abuse, as the noble Lord, Lord Mann, said. So many people in our prisons and so many drug addicts have had these terrible experiences. But, again, the IICSA story was such a dog’s breakfast. It had all the wrong chairmen. They should have stayed with the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and they finally got to Alexis Jay, who I hope will be a Baroness. She is a wise woman, who at last has sorted it out in an intelligent and practical way—and our job is to implement these recommendations.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)]

My Lords, while I appreciate how passionately we feel about this issue, the first two speakers have gone about 30 seconds over the advisory speaking time, so could noble Lords please be mindful of the advisory speaking time of four minutes?

Public Libraries

Debate between Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone and Baroness Twycross

Thursday 12th September 2024 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson of Welton, on leading the debate. Noble Lords will agree, I am sure, that she really demonstrated her commitment to public libraries through her independent review and her considered conclusions and recommendations, which I thoroughly enjoyed reading over the Recess.

I recognise the commitment to public libraries from the previous Lords Minister—the first Minister for Libraries—the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson. He managed to sum up quite a lot of issues in his short speech. It is almost impossible to deal with this issue in a minute, and I commend noble Lords on managing to do so. It is also quite difficult to write and scribble down notes on things that you want to reply to; I hope to get through everybody in terms of responding to at least one issue raised by each noble Lord, but I may have to come back to noble Lords afterwards.

Like many noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, going to the library was a regular and much-loved event during my childhood. I later relied on large-print books from the library when I was recovering from encephalitis as a teenager and was unable to focus on standard font size. My childhood love of books no doubt influenced my decision to undertake a PhD in Scandinavian literature, which remains one of the most enjoyable but probably least useful things I have done.

The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, noted the role of local government in library provision. The Government recognise the financial pressures facing local authorities after 14 years of Conservative cuts to local authorities. We are committed to giving stability back to council funding, but you cannot have cuts of this scale to local government finances without having a seismic impact on services, including public library service provision; we should take it as a whole. However, despite this, local authorities continue to invest in this vital cultural asset. Some £673 million was spent by upper-tier local authorities in England on their library services in 2022-23.

A number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, referred to library closures over the last decade or so. The noble Baroness, Lady Janke, cited the figure 800. I will comment on the need for accurate data in due course, but I understand from officials that they believe it to be more accurate that around 276 static libraries have permanently closed in England since 2010 and have not been relocated or replaced. I am not underestimating the impact that closure has; as a new Minister being briefed on this subject, I found even the figure 276 quite shocking.

My noble friend Lord Watson cited the BBC report that libraries are most likely to have closed in deprived areas. We have not seen the BBC analysis behind that story, and I would welcome the opportunity to review the data. I welcome the specific example given by the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, of the threat to the library in her area.

The Question posed by this debate relates to a new library strategy, and I heard the strength of feeling in the debate around this. I understand it was a commitment of the previous Government, which was informed by the noble Baroness’s review. I will feed back the strength of feeling around that.

It was noted that the Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism, Sir Chris Bryant, covers libraries as part of his brief. The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, noted that he has quite a lot of responsibility, but I take this opportunity to reassure noble Lords that he is also a passionate advocate of libraries, which he recently described as “cultural diamonds”. He said:

“They enable readers’ imaginations to sparkle, they support thousands of local groups, they provide advice to businesses and charities, enabling them to flourish, they give individuals who might otherwise be lonely or cold a space to open up. We lose them at our peril”.


I agree that we lose them at our peril. The Minister will engage with library sector organisations and leaders in the coming months to discuss the challenges in the sector and reflect on priority policy areas and how best to support the sector going forward.

I will feed back the proposal from my noble friend Lady Rebuck that libraries should be central to the opportunities mission, as well as the point made by my noble friend Lady Wilcox about the Welsh report to the Minister, and my noble friend Lord Liddle’s point about potential innovation.

Public libraries are a vital public resource, helping to inspire, educate and entertain people of all ages and backgrounds. The range of outcomes they help to achieve is substantial and varied. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, said, there is also a lack of awareness of what libraries provide, including, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart, said, MPs’ surgeries. However, I note the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, who argued that libraries should stick to their core purpose—which highlights that there is no unanimous view on this point.

Libraries are open to everyone at no cost; they are one of the last non-transactional spaces in our communities. The celebration of books and promotion of literacy will always be at the heart of public library services, but public libraries also need to be responsive to the needs of their local communities and deliver the right mix of services to meet local needs and priorities.

In relation to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, when we are celebrating libraries, we should also thank and celebrate the many volunteers and community groups. However, as the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, highlighted, volunteer-led services cannot and should not replace professional provision and cannot replicate it to the same extent.

There has been a decline in library visitor numbers and the figures are quite stark. I was quite shocked by the fall in the numbers, but it is important to reflect that some people access library services in different ways and through different means than by walking through the door. We need more robust, meaningful and consistent data in order for councils to make sound decisions on their library provision and to respond quickly to the needs of users. Having been briefed on the issue, I think it is quite clear that there is an issue around the data, as highlighted by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson. DCMS has been working with Arts Council England and public library stakeholders with the aim of strengthening the data collected on library use and engagement. This should support both local and national government to identify trends in user needs and advocate more effectively for the power of public libraries.

Libraries are an inclusive venue and a trusted resource in communities. Recent Ipsos veracity index research shows that librarians were considered the third most trusted profession, behind nurses and aeroplane pilots. I was not sure why they were behind aeroplane pilots, but that is probably because we have to have that faith.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans asked whether the Government would commit to an integrated rural strategy. The previous Government highlighted the vital role public libraries play in sustaining community networks in rural areas, to offer a range of activities and support services to meet local needs and bring people together. DCMS will continue to work with the Local Government Association, Arts Council England and Libraries Connected to ensure best practice on rural libraries.

Libraries help give people the skills and knowledge they need to succeed through books and by tackling the digital divide, enabling digitally inclusive communities and supporting people by providing free wifi access, hosting and organising local cultural activities and working on collocating with other local authority services and agencies such as citizens advice and the post office. Libraries are crucial partners in providing vital support to families and developing children’s language development, reading skills and confidence from early years onwards. DfE research shows that reading for pleasure grows self-confidence, strengthens community participation and improves knowledge and understanding of other cultures.

The noble Lord, Lord McInnes, highlighted the lack of books in many low-income households, and the issue of school libraries was raised by my noble friend Lady Blower. I will ensure that my noble friend the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, gets a copy of the debate to pick up the points raised around education that pertain to her brief. I am also happy to raise the point of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, around school libraries.

There are excellent examples of libraries working in partnership with others to deliver reading and literacy initiatives specifically aimed at children and young people, including the Reading Agency’s summer reading challenge and the BookTrust’s—

[Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Con)]

With her excellent points, will the noble Baroness very briefly allow me to invite her to visit the Wiener Holocaust Library, a much better place for the Holocaust memorial learning centre than Victoria Tower Gardens?