Tackling Child Sexual Abuse

Baroness Verma Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful for the work that the noble Baroness did on this issue while in government.

The new child protection authority will be established to prioritise vulnerable children by making the child protection system clearer and more unified and by ensuring that there are ongoing improvements. It will try to achieve the points that the noble Baroness mentioned. By the end of this year—which I know seems like a long time to noble Lords and Baronesses—we will consult on how we establish the child protection authority and what its functions and responsibilities will be in more detail.

We have responded to the IICSA recommendation to establish the authority, and therefore it will be done. However, it is important that we consult widely on what it is, what its powers are and what areas it covers, so I cannot pre-empt that in answering the points that the noble Baroness made today. There will in due course be opportunities for full consultation and, ultimately, for this House to determine, with the House of Commons, the format and responsibilities of that body.

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, this problem has been going on for decades. I am really disappointed that my party did not do enough when we were in government, but those victims are not being well served. Having a national inquiry is absolutely a must. There are many areas that are still not being looked at with the sort of rigour that we should be looking at them with, and my noble friend Lady Berridge mentioned the example of charities.

At the end of it, there are big cultural issues in some communities that we need to address, but we also need to address why institutions were not coming forward to make sure that there was no favour against the victims. I think that victims will feel incredibly let down if we do not give them a rigorous inquiry. I do not have much faith in local inquiries; I come from a city where these issues have been going on for decades.

I hope that the Minister can take on board that some of us are really concerned about places that are not checked regularly, where this sort of behaviour is still going on, under the protection of saying, “Well, we did not quite get it because we did not understand the culture”—and that is regardless of the faith or ethnicity involved.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I hope that the noble Baroness will bear with me. I understand that there is a case to be made for a national inquiry, but the view that the Government have taken is that the IICSA recommendations, made over seven years—which were put to the previous Government and are now being implemented over the next 12 months by this Government —are the basis of what would come out of any national inquiry. There are issues to address, and we have tried to ensure that there is an independent review of the policing response in the areas that the noble Baroness has mentioned. If there are issues about the culture, or how those charges or investigations took place, they will be looked at.

There is the pot of money that we put aside for local authorities to determine a local response, if they wish, and they can apply for that. We are putting in place a framework that will made be public very shortly. We are trying to ensure that the victims, which the noble Baroness rightly put at the heart of her contribution to the House, are served well, which is why we want to ensure that we do not drag out, over a long period, things that we can do now.

The review of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, will report shortly with immediate responses about what happened in certain local authority areas; undoubtedly, it will be painful reading and will create further debate. There will be the police and inspectorate reports on the current positions that we have talked about to date. The legislation currently before the House of Commons, on the recommendations that will come forward shortly, will put in place, by the end of this year, a range of measures that will, I hope, prevent the creation of future victims.

I understand why both the noble Baroness and her Front Bench have called for a national inquiry, but I believe that the response needs to be made now. That is why we are trying to put some energy—through my ministerial colleagues in the House of Commons—into this area to deliver some urgent outcomes. We are always open to further lessons. This is not the end of a process; it is an ongoing process. The key thing should be to prevent future victims, to prevent systematic abuse and to hold those people who have abused to account.

India and Southeast Asia: Free Trade Agreements

Baroness Verma Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Anelay for this debate, which is incredibly timely and important. I have been involved with business-to-business with India for over three decades. I was a non-executive of the Leicester Asian Business Association as my first dip into business-to-business.

A fast-moving geopolitical movement is going on around us, so it is critical that we secure deals with India, the country with the largest population on the planet: 1.4 billion people. Both countries are well-respected convenors for many other nations, as we have seen—India in its own region, in the south-east Asia region, and the UK with its convening powers across Europe, as recently seen by Prime Minister Starmer, and with our allies such as America and others. At this critical moment, we know that by securing this FTA we will start to leave some of the extra dependency that we have had on a very few countries and engage with a much wider region. Therefore, we really need to encourage this deal to be done as quickly as possible.

I want to address the strengths of why the UK is best placed to be with India on this deal. First, as the noble Lord, Lord Sahota, said, the relationship goes back many years. It is now also a relationship that is coming together because we have a diaspora here that is incredibly important to both India and the UK. I do not think the diaspora of nearly 2 million people that we have in this country is fully utilised for its soft power strength. I urge the Government to look at how they can further engage with the diaspora links to get some of those nuances, which sometimes become stalling blocks, to unlock.

I am president and founder of the India APPG. It has been one of the most popular APPGs in Parliament, because India recognises the importance of our parliamentarians as we recognise the importance of engaging with India. There are so many areas where I think we can strengthen our relationship outside the FTA. Some of those are the defence sector, tech, research, developments in space, higher education and, of course, sustainable green technologies.

We have so many envoys in other countries; it is beyond my understanding why we do not have dedicated envoys for a country as big as India from the UK. I know that Ministers have a big job, and our high commissioner and deputy high commissioners are brilliant, but they are tasked with a lot to do in a large country. Trade envoys are therefore critical. I am sure my noble friend Lord Vaizey will say that it is the soft power that you take with the trade envoy role that helps to continue cementing this partnership—this relationship. I said it over and over again when my party was in government; I do not know why it did not happen. I now ask this Government to see whether they can take a leap and a jump and please encourage trade envoys there. We are a country at the front line of convening; let us utilise our strengths.