Young Runaways (Sexual Exploitation)

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Ann Coffey

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Ann Coffey]

I know that there is a particular problem in some seaside towns. The hon. Lady is absolutely right that we have to have good local partnerships based on good data if we are all to help to overcome the problem. I agree with her.

It has been said that children living in care, particularly residential care, are more vulnerable to targeting by the perpetrators of sexual exploitation. I want to welcome the recent announcement by the Minister of an action plan to tackle child exploitation. It is important that it focuses on the link between running away and child sexual exploitation. Not all children who run away will be sexually exploited. However, all children who are sexually exploited will run away or go missing at some point. Either they will start running away as they become sexually exploited, or they will become sexually exploited as a result of running away.

I also welcome the fact that the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, whose headquarters I visited recently, is to take responsibility for missing children. I await with interest its thematic assessment on the extent of child sexual exploitation. I hope that the fact that CEOP will have responsibility for missing children and sexual exploitation means that linking the two issues is now Government policy. I am pleased that there is an interdepartmental ministerial group on missing persons with a lead Minister involving the Department for Education, the Home Office and the Department of Health. That is crucial if there are to be more effective partnerships at a local level.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on runaway and missing children and adults, I have met Ofsted, the Missing Persons Bureau, CEOP, Greater Manchester police, the Association of Chief Police Officers, West Mercia police, local safeguarding children’s boards, the Children’s Society, Missing People, Railway Children and others. A number of common concerns keep appearing: the ongoing problem with collecting and sharing accurate data; the fact that not all local authorities are adhering to the statutory guidance for children who run away or go missing; and the different priority given to missing children by local safeguarding boards, which are responsible for co-ordinating all actions by local agencies.

On data collection, police forces vary in how they collect and analyse data on missing episodes, making for inconsistencies across the country. Poor data mean that local safeguarding boards will be badly informed. Accurate data would enable an intelligence-led response in each area to find out why children are running away, where they are going and what help they need. This would uncover patterns to prevent future sexual exploitation and enable convictions. I know that the Minister is aware that the collection and evaluation of data is a problem. He has rightly said that gathering data and evidence is the first major step to tackling child sexual exploitation and grooming. He is also right to say that the sexual grooming of children in the UK is a much bigger problem than has previously been recognised.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has just highlighted an extremely important issue, and I will be interested to hear how the Government intend to resolve it. The Minister is from the Department for Education; the Department of Health is involved; and the police, which are the responsibility of the Home Office, are also involved. The devolved Scottish Government have police, health and social care responsibilities; in my area, Wales, we have the Welsh Assembly; and in Northern Ireland there is another devolved Administration. Yet, in the UK context, child exploitation will cross all those borders. I want to know who holds the reins of responsibility for gathering information across the whole of the UK, because those who wish to indulge in exploitation will not worry about the fact that the Department of Health and the Department for Education happen to apply to England only.

[Ann Coffey]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point in relation to the UK as a whole. I, too, will be interested in the Minister’s response.

Looking at the data held by the Department for Education on children missing from care for longer than 24 hours, there is a huge discrepancy between figures on missing children reported to the Department by local authorities and the information that I have gathered separately from police forces. I asked a parliamentary question in March about how many looked-after children in each local authority area were absent for more than 24 hours, but the answers that came back did not correlate with the figures provided to me by local police forces.

Figures provided to the Department for Education by 152 local authorities show that in England in 2010 a total of 920 children were missing from their agreed placement for more than 24 hours. However, figures that I obtained from Greater Manchester police, Kent police and West Mercia police reveal that, in those areas alone, more children in care went missing for longer than 24 hours in 2010 than the 920 recorded by the Department for the whole of England.