Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Baroness Sanderson of Welton Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, when the Government first announced the national inquiry, they said that it would be an innovative—and, I thought, very interesting—new model, which would enable individual local investigations to be overseen by a national commission with statutory powers. However, this Statement, which I appreciate is not the end point, now seems to refer to a standard overarching inquiry which will identify priority areas for investigation and report the findings at a local and national level. The main body of work seems to be being carried out by the chair and whoever they may have to support them. I might be missing something, but this is exactly how IICSA operated. There is nothing wrong with that—it did a great job—but I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify whether there is, in fact, any difference in terms of structure between this inquiry and the one that went before it? As it stands, the only thing I can see is the introduction of a time limit, and that is a very good thing, but it is perhaps a little easier to do in this instance, given the great body of evidence we have already amassed over many years in this area.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question and the work she has done in this area. She will remember that in January, the Home Secretary announced a £5 million fund for local inquiries, and we are encouraging any local authority to bid for that resource if it still wishes to. The terms of reference for a national inquiry will be set when the chair is appointed. We want to consult and involve the chair in how that operation works and how we get the best information, knowledge and inquiries at a local level. I anticipate that the chair will be able to formulate the view of the inquiry’s operation in relatively short order once appointed, and that I will come back and update this House on how local and national issues are intertwined. There is that £5 million fund, and local authorities are currently developing examinations of their performance because of that fund. I am hopeful that, although we are moving to a national-based inquiry, the lessons at a local level will not be lost and, instead, will be intertwined into national conclusions from the future chair when appointed.

Child Sexual Abuse and Rape Gangs Inquiry

Baroness Sanderson of Welton Excerpts

Wednesday 18th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

One of the key recommendations from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, is to ensure that we have some ethnic minority data monitoring on offenders who have committed those offences. Some police forces have collected that, and some have not. We are accepting the recommendation, and we will be issuing guidance to police forces on collecting ethnic data. There are a range of people who abuse; there is a focus on grooming gangs from particular communities, but I say to the House that, in every particular community—white, Asian, Muslim and others—members of the community commit offences. We should not ignore the fact that people from a range of ethnic backgrounds commit offences; what we should be doing is monitoring it.

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, I appreciate that the Minister says that they are already looking for a chair. It is an interesting new model from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. How long do the Government anticipate it will take to set up that new independent commission and set its terms of reference before its actual work starts?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. We are trying to do that as quickly as possible. I cannot give a definitive date, but if I say to her that we want to get this started as quickly as possible, I hope she will understand that I am trying to do that. I will report back to this House in due course when that is possible to do.

Knife Crime: Stop and Search

Baroness Sanderson of Welton Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes an important point. In preparing for this Question, I asked about the disproportionality rates. I fully expected the Metropolitan Police and others to have the highest disproportionality rates, but, interestingly, some of the UK’s rural forces have the highest rates. It is really important that we look at the figures, which show that a particular force, which I will not name, has a disproportionality rate of 9.4, compared with the Met’s 3.1 figure. It is a really interesting table of statistics. Having asked for that information, I want to drill down with my colleague, the Police Minister, into which forces are underperforming in having a higher disproportionality rate, and look at how we can provide support and take action to understand why that is happening and what we can do to rectify it.

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, we will hear the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, next, and then my noble friend Lord McConnell.

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, are the Government in discussion with the police about the use of Section 60 powers—which, I should say, were extended under a previous Government? The HMIC’s last report on stop and search, in 2021, found that of all the Section 60 searches done in the previous year, only 3.7% found a weapon. Do such low find rates justify the damage that Section 60 searches cause to community relations?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for making that very interesting point. There were 5,145 stop and searches under suspicionless Section 60 powers last year, which fell between the jurisdiction of both Governments. That was a 20% increase on the previous year but represents just 3% of the 150,000 stop and searches that have been conducted. It is a very valid point and one that I will take away and look at in detail.

Child Sexual Abuse Inquiry: Recommendations

Baroness Sanderson of Welton Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for his question. Let me put it this way: one thing that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has committed to this week is to make sure that we have a mandatory reporting requirement for individuals who have child abuse reported to them, and indeed for perpetrators who report themselves to an authority. That will then have to be mandatorily reported to the police and to law enforcement authorities. Self-evidently, if there is a mandatory reporting of that incident, it will be a major failure of any police force not to investigate, and potentially take further action, reporting to the CPS, if they substantiate the allegations that have been reported mandatorily by an individual. The history of this is complex, but I hope that the recommendations made can be implemented. That is one of the early things that we want to do, which is why we are getting on with it, rather than having further inquiries that will delay matters to safeguard children.

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, with IICSA, as with every other major public inquiry, there is no structure in place to monitor the formal response to recommendations. That is true for Grenfell, IICSA, infected blood—all of them. Would the Government consider maintaining a publicly accessible record of recommendations made by all public inquiries, together with the Government’s response, as recommended by Sir Martin Moore-Bick and the Select Committee of which I was a member?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness; she makes a sound point. I will reflect on wider public inquiries, as it is a cross-government response, but I can say to her from the Dispatch Box that we have started to respond to the recommendations from IICSA on Monday and will continue to respond. That will be for public record, public examination and public accountability of Ministers on the issues that we agree to address.

Technology Rules: The Advent of New Technologies in the Justice System (Justice and Home Affairs Committee Report)

Baroness Sanderson of Welton Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble and learned Lord. As others have before me, I compliment the chair of the committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on her comprehensive opening remarks—no easy feat with this report—and her very fair and decent approach throughout the committee’s inquiry. I also compliment our secretariat on its hard work and guidance.

There are many topics we could cover—and have covered—in this debate today: the technology itself, the dangers of inherent bias and predictive policing and the implications for civil liberties. However, for the purposes of today, I will concentrate on the pace at which new technologies are developing, particularly within the police—which I, and perhaps the Minister, notice seems to be an emerging theme—and pick up on some of the Home Office’s responses to our concerns.

As my noble friend the Minister will know from the report, when we began this investigation, we did it on the understanding that, despite the concerns I have just mentioned, AI is a fact of modern life. We acknowledged that it can have a positive impact in improving efficiency and finding solutions in an ever more complex world.

However, in terms of the justice system, and more specifically the police, we became alarmed at the relatively unchecked proliferation of new technology across all 43 forces. As has been mentioned, we made a number of recommendations to combat this: a central register, kitemark certification, mandatory training and better oversight.

I know that these are significant steps and that they have costs attached, but they were carefully thought through and, to be honest, we were not expecting to be quite so roundly dismissed by the Government in their response. They seemed to imply that we had failed to appreciate the value and necessity of AI tools in today’s policing environment. In particular, the response highlighted the use of CAID—the Child Abuse Image Database—which brings together all the images found by police and the NCA, helping them to co-ordinate investigations.

In one sense, the Government are right to make much of CAID because it was game-changing. For instance, a case with 10,000 images that would typically have taken up to three days to review could be done in an hour, thanks to CAID. Perpetrators could be apprehended more quickly, officers protected from the effects of viewing these images and more focus placed on identifying the victims. As someone who worked on child sexual abuse and exploitation at the Home Office when CAID was introduced, I assure the Minister that I completely understood—and understand—the value of new technologies in certain instances.

However, in the context of the report, I just do not think that it is a very helpful example. The Home Office itself helped to develop CAID in collaboration with the police and industry partners. Once piloted, it went live across all police forces and the NCA. To suggest that that is the norm would be misleading, and it should not be used as a reason not to address the clear problems that we identified in a system where all 43 forces, as has been mentioned, are free to individually commission whatever tools they like in a market that is, as we said, opaque at best and the Wild West at worst, in which the oversight mechanisms are, frankly, inadequate. The Home Office may think that we are overreacting, but the truth is that it would be hard-pushed to make that case because without a central register, as we suggested, it is impossible to know who is using what, how and to whom.

If we dig a little deeper, the Minister may see why we are concerned. Some of this has already been mentioned. On procurement, we heard from a police representative who said that procurement is not the comfort zone of all police forces. When the tools they are procuring may have consequences for human rights and the fairness of the justice system, as we have been talking about, never mind taking into account the complexities of the technologies market, where providers are reluctant to share information on the basis of commercial confidentiality, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, that is truly worrying.

Then there is the problem that, as the NCC Group told us,

“many claims made by [Machine Learning] product vendors, predominantly about products’ effectiveness in detecting threats, are often unproven, or not verified by independent third parties.”

There are the salespeople who—in an understandably overzealous way in a burgeoning market—according to one developer,

“take something they do not understand and shout a number that they do not understand”.

I would add that in many cases they then make it available to officers who do not understand it either. Incredibly, the police are not required to be trained to use different AI technologies—this is one of the things I found most shocking in our report—including facial recognition, because they are procured at a local level.

All this does not feel like a solid foundation on which to deploy such highly sensitive tools and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has already alluded to, there are some in the police and in the market who agree with us. At the excellent conference at the Alan Turing Institute last week, one speaker representing the police pointed out that in order to become a detective you have to pass an exam, and that the same should be true for technology. Another from a different force said: “Artificial intelligence is not on the tip of the tongue of the public yet, but we don’t want it to be another frontier of failure.”

One way in which we could help to build confidence is statutory specialist ethics committees, which would not only increase community involvement and understanding but help to create an institutional culture of accountability, something that we already know needs to be improved. I am afraid to say that that was another recommendation dismissed by the Home Office.

I am not blaming the police here. There are some brilliant forces, such as West Midlands, which have spotted the benefits but also the pitfalls, and which are working hard to get ahead of them. Without more commitment from the Government, though, I fail to see how the current system leads to anything but another frontier of failure. As people have said throughout the debate, at some point under the current free-for-all, when a police force that has not put in the protections that, say, West Midlands has, it feels inevitable that something is going to go very wrong.

It is not as though the Government are not doing anything. The Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, which is based in DCMS, is piloting the public sector algorithmic transparency standard. We on the committee would all agree with that, and, genuinely, people around the world are looking at it. Can the Minister tell me, if you compare the work that is going on in DCMS with the response to our report, how closely do officials in the Home Office work with their counterparts in DCMS on this? This pilot includes some police forces, and it does not feel as if the two marry up.

Again, as others have said, I know that probably quite a few people may wish to put this report on the shelf and watch it gather dust. However, I think we all know that in practice, that is unlikely to happen because the concerns raised within it will surely become more apparent down the line.

Finally, we heard a great analogy at the conference last week with regard to training for those using AI. The speaker said: “For a car to be allowed on the road, it’s got to have an MOT, but the driver also has to have a licence.” I am afraid that at the moment, with regard to these technologies, we do not have either.

Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse: Final Report

Baroness Sanderson of Welton Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate obviously makes some good points. I will outline what the Government are doing to ensure that all sectors and leaders of society are working together to tackle child sexual abuse. In his opening speech in the other place, the Home Secretary comprehensively outlined the cross-party and multiagency dimension to all of this. We are transforming the way that local safeguarding agencies work together to ensure a more effective response in safeguarding children.

The Children and Social Work Act 2017 introduced significant reforms, requiring local authorities, clinical commissioning groups and chief officers of police to form multiagency safeguarding partnerships. All of the new partnerships were in place by September 2019, but we know that there are still improvements to be made to the quality and consistency of the local partnerships. We are working with local partners to understand and address those challenges in ensuring effective independent scrutiny, engaging with schools and other relevant agencies and distributing funding.

I reiterate that the Government are firmly committed to supporting all institutions that play a role in safeguarding children to develop robust safeguarding strategies that are carefully monitored, ensuring the safety and protection of children, regardless of where they live and spend their time.

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, I worked with the right honourable Member for Maidenhead in setting up this inquiry. At the time, plenty of people said it should not have been launched: they said it was all in the past and that there was no point in raking it all up again. Then they said that the terms of reference were too broad and that it would never end. I am pleased to say that they were wrong on all counts.

I congratulate Professor Alexis Jay on her brilliant stewardship of this inquiry and on her hard-hitting report. As she did in Rotherham, she has revealed truths that mean we can never look at society in the same way again. There is too much to say here, but I will cite a couple of important statistics in the report that have not been mentioned. In any year group of 200 children, it is estimated that 10 boys and more than 30 girls will experience sexual abuse before the age of 16. The number of sexual abuse offences recorded by the police where the victim was a child under the age of four has risen by 45% in recent years. So, as noble Lords have said, this is not in the past; it is very much in the present, and it will continue to wreck lives if we do not do something to stop it.

Having worked on the inquiry’s Truth Project, I have listened to the accounts of victims and survivors. Although everyone’s experience is different, the damage is always the same: families torn apart, lives forced in a different direction and feelings of shame, anger and hurt. We should thank all those who came forward to ensure that what happened to them does not happen to future generations. Thanks to Professor Jay, it does not have to; she has given us the answers.

As I said, it is a brilliant report, but it can only ever be as good as the action that flows from it. So I thank my noble friend the Minister for the Statement, which reflects the deeper understanding that we now have of this issue. But could he assure the House once more that the Government will look quickly and seriously at its recommendations and ensure that all the relevant departments across government play their part in implementing them? As we saw from the interim report, if they do not work together, we cannot drive through the change that is very much needed.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for her remarks and commend her for her efforts when she was working with the right honourable Member for Maidenhead. I am grateful for the opportunity to commend the former Prime Minister for her extraordinary work on this.

Those statistics are genuinely appalling, particularly when they are put in those terms. I have read them as percentages, which perhaps seem rather dry, but to give numbers is harrowing. The Government have made it clear that they are determined to work across agencies and across departments; that work will be ongoing, and all relevant departments will be involved in it.

Something the Home Secretary said bears repeating: when asked about a Minister for children, he said:

“We all … have to be Ministers for children”.


I think he is right.

Sarah Everard: Home Office Inquiry

Baroness Sanderson of Welton Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I think the House agrees that trust and confidence in the police must be restored. We wish this inquiry to proceed at pace and to get to the nub of the various issues that it will look into. If the Home Secretary is not satisfied that a non-statutory inquiry is fulfilling those commitments, she can convert it to a statutory inquiry, but I must say that I think the whole House seeks the same end from this inquiry.

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, on a slightly separate, but related, matter, what are the implications of the Sarah Everard inquiry for the Daniel Morgan inquiry, which reported in June, described the Met as institutionally corrupt and found numerous failings? Some work has already begun but, given the potential for overlap here and the Morgan family’s long wait for justice, will the Government consider including the delivery of the panel’s recommendations in their cross-government task force?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right that there is inevitable overlap here. HMICFRS is already inspecting the Metropolitan Police Service in relation to vetting and countercorruption, at the Home Secretary’s request, and findings from this will feed into the broader inspection that she has asked HMICFRS to undertake across all forces. There is work ongoing in the Metropolitan Police Service and in the Home Office to respond to the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel recommendations, and the Home Secretary has already committed to provide an update in due course. Of course, any relevant evidence from this work can then be considered by part 2 of the independent inquiry, which will look more broadly at standards in policing.

Police: Body-worn Videos

Baroness Sanderson of Welton Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I totally agree with the noble Lord that space between online circulation of video and the police reactively putting the video online creates a vacuum for speculation and can undermine the criminal justice process, so I think speed is of the essence. For that reason, I am very grateful to the noble Lord for asking the Question.

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, on a separate but related issue, in her HMIC report, Wendy Williams recommended that all forces should record the entirety of all stop and search encounters by September of this year and that external scrutiny panels should have access to that footage. As the use of stop and search has increased, public confidence in the process is more important than ever. Can my noble friend the Minister confirm whether police forces across the country intend to implement these recommendations?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. As always, Wendy Williams’ report has come up with some very insightful recommendations. My noble friend will know that the use of body-worn video during stop and search is an operational decision for forces. The Home Office supports it as a tool for increasing transparency and accountability. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary reinforced that in her speech to the Police Federation conference early last month when she said that the Home Office would be

“looking carefully at strengthening the system of local community scrutiny and the value of body-worn video, because transparency”,

as the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, said, “is vital.”

Policing and Prevention of Violence against Women

Baroness Sanderson of Welton Excerpts

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]]

The noble Baroness will see some of the things that we have done in relation to perpetrator strategies and approaches, DAPOs, DAPNs and stalking protection orders. These are all measures to nip problems in the bud and prevent them from escalating into what could end up as full-on violence.

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that one of the key things to make a difference to policing and the prevention of violence against women will be the Domestic Abuse Bill? It has been greatly improved by Members across this House, giving police clear new tools and challenging current norms of behaviour. Is it not now imperative that we get it on the statute book?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]]

My noble friend is absolutely right, and it has been a pleasure to work with her, given all her experience—of course, she was part of the team that was at the heart of that Bill’s inception. It is crucial that we get it on the statute book; she is absolutely right that we have all worked together to achieve it. It has been much improved and, as so many noble Lords have said, it is a landmark Bill.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Sanderson of Welton Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 15th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strasburger (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who has made several powerful speeches during the passage of this Bill. I shall speak to Amendment 81 in my name. It requires the Government to devise a perpetrator strategy to prevent, identify and assess perpetrators. It would increase the number of rehabilitation programmes and better tackle attitudes before they lead to a crime. It goes without saying that it is far better to prevent repetition of domestic abuse before it occurs. Even better, we should aim to prevent abuse happening in the first place.

At a time when violence against women is sadly in the headlines once again, we have a duty to do all we can to prevent crimes that can be entirely predictable, as we have heard, and often follow a multitude of warning signs, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, illustrated in her four examples and as other speakers have done. Domestic abuse is a crime hidden in people’s homes. Behind the doors of ordinary homes, tens of thousands of victims live in pain and fear with their own families. Domestic abuse is a terrible, secret crime.

Several noble Lords have used the phrase “murder in slow motion” because when domestic abuse reaches its logical end, often after years, the murder is so very predictable. And yet it still happens, time after time—women mostly, dying after years of injury at the hands of the men they loved. The Bill sets out to help those victims when they leave their abuser and report them—when they have had enough.

However, Amendments 73 and 81 seek to prevent the crimes happening in the first place, so that victims do not have to leave and perpetrators can see what they are doing and choose to stop before another tragedy, of which there are so many, ending in injury, pain or death. We need to step in before children who witness this tragedy grow up and take everything they have learned into their own relationships, playing out the same tragedy again 20 years down the line.

Good-quality perpetrator programmes help those who assault, coerce or frighten those closest to them to stop. The best programmes help perpetrators realise that they do not do it because anyone makes them; they do it because they choose to, and they can choose not to. Good perpetrator interventions have stunning success rates, which I and other noble Lords have already rehearsed in this House. How can we possibly fail to do everything we can to stop the pain, the destruction and the transfer of this tragedy down through the generations? The Government must do everything they can to discover the best of these programmes, roll them out over the entire country and fund them in such a way as to make them a part of a well-used and reliable method of reducing this sickening secret crime.

We must do more. In their sex and relationships education classes, the children of this nation must be taught not only what good relationships look like and how to treat their future partners with respect, but also what an abusive relationship looks like. Then they will be able to recognise when a relationship of their own, which may have started well, begins to sour. Once we have shown them what it looks like, we should tell them where they can get help, what they can do, how they can stop it, or how they can escape it and who they can call.

In Committee, the Minister responded to this amendment with an assurance that a perpetrator strategy will be included within the forthcoming domestic abuse strategy. It has also emerged that a total of £25 million of initial funding is available. However, the Minister’s statement was rather short on important detail and I hope she will be able to fill the gaps in her reply. I invite the Minister to tell the House the Government’s position on the following matters, for all of which I provided her with advanced notice.

Will the Government not only fund behaviour change interventions but stimulate changes across public service delivery to better detect and prevent abuse in the first place? Will the perpetrator strategy set measurable targets? Will the Government lay out plans to stimulate social change to end any lingering tolerance of abusive behaviour? Will the Government commit the Home Office to work with other departments to shape the perpetrator strategy and ensure their buy in? Will they consult experts outside government across public services and the specialist women’s sector?

Will the perpetrator strategy contain clear guidance on quality for commissioners to ensure that there is no risk of public money funding poor practice? Will the perpetrator strategy set out the Government’s funding intentions for the next three years? Above all, will the Government no longer allow perpetrators to fly under the radar and abuse time and again? We must stop asking: “Why doesn’t the victim leave? Why doesn’t she keep her children safe?” We must start putting responsibility to change on those who are being abusive, until the abuser can ask himself: “Why don’t I stop?”

I look forward to the Minister’s response. If necessary, I will test the opinion of the House, depending on what she has to say.

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendments 73 and 81. I applaud the intentions of both amendments but will raise a couple of practical points. I hope that they do not seem inappropriate after the shocking testimony of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the very powerful and moving speech by my noble friend Lady Bertin.

In relation to establishing a register, the aim of adding serial abusers and stalkers to ViSOR is to make it easier for agencies across the country to identify and monitor perpetrators. In principle, this seems sensible. It puts the burden on the perpetrator, not the victim, and, given that many high-harm perpetrators are repeat offenders, it could help manage the risk. However, there are concerns from some working on the front line as to whether it would achieve that goal in practice.

ViSOR is a vital tool for the police, prison and probation services, but its effectiveness depends on the quality and timeliness of the information recorded within it. If we are to extend it, then there must be questions about who goes on it, how long they stay on it and, given the potential size and complexity of such a database, how we ensure that it is fit for purpose. Will it be able to do the job for which it is intended? No one has yet found satisfactory answers to these questions. As I said, I applaud the intention, so I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister could outline some of the alternative ways in which the Government can and will strengthen oversight in relation to perpetrators.

The call in Amendments 73 and 81 for a perpetrator strategy is more straightforward. Thanks to the innovative work of SafeLives and its partners in the Drive project, we know that targeted intervention programmes work. As they say, domestic abuse is not inevitable. We can and must stop it recurring and, indeed, occurring in the first place. I question whether we need to call for this on the face of the Bill, given that the Minister has already assured us that it will be part of the forthcoming domestic abuse strategy. However, like others, I do not question the need for it. As recent events have shown us, the focus should be on the perpetrator, not the victim.

Like others, I put on record my deepest sympathies for Sarah Everard’s family and friends. We all hope that something good can come out of something so unfathomably bad, but we should never forget that at the centre of this national debate is a very personal tragedy and a private grief.