Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich

Monday 20th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful for the noble Baroness’s support for mandatory reporting. She participated in the debate on Friday and will know that I said from this Dispatch Box that this is an urgent issue for this Government. We will bring forward proposals on mandatory reporting in very short order. She raises the issue of funding. Any implementation of any recommendations requires a consistent government approach and a review of how we are funding those approaches to those issues. I cannot give her a detailed answer now, but, as part of the review on what we do with the 17 other recommendations, we will put meat on those bones so that she and others in this House can see what resources the Government are putting into this area.

The noble Baroness raises the issue of the very important support of the voluntary agencies. It is important that, politically—I mean that in a non-party-political way—we give support to Barnardo’s, the NSPCC and other organisations, which are doing great work in both highlighting this terrible abuse and very much supporting development work on the ground. This is helping the Government’s case to reduce the amount of child abuse as a whole. So I cannot give that answer now, but I will return to this in due course.

[The Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich]

My Lords, I also pay tribute to victims and survivors in this regard, recognising that the failure to respond perpetuates and prolongs their suffering, and recognising—as noble Lords will all know—that the Church of England is facing significant challenges in putting its own house in order in that regard. I want to ask, therefore, a wider question on faith communities, all of which provide places of gathering and moral and social influence, and all of which strive to make those places as safe as possible. What conversations are continuing with leaders of faith communities to support them in that vital work?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I welcome the right reverend Prelate’s contribution. I think I can say to him that the Church has had difficulties, which he has acknowledged, and those difficulties might well have been resolved had some of the measures in the IICSA report been in place at the time. For example, had mandatory reporting been in place seven or eight years ago, it is very possible that some of the concerns that have arisen in the last few weeks and months in relation to the reporting of sex abuse in the Church might have been resolved.

I reach out to the right reverend Prelate, as I reach out to teachers, social workers and others who have a place of responsibility for the safeguarding of children, to say that the measures in the IICSA report, following the helpful inquiry led by Alexis Jay, are in areas where I hope we can work in co-operation with any authority, be it the Church, teachers or others, to see whether they impact upon the areas where the right reverend Prelate and his colleagues have had concerns.