Sexual Offences

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord makes a very good point: unless we can understand the root causes of this, it is very difficult to tackle it. There have been several similar cases of the abuse of children. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has said:

“I will not let cultural or political sensitivities get in the way of understanding the problem ... I’ve instructed my officials to explore the … characteristics of these types of gangs and if the evidence suggests that there are cultural factors that may be driving this type of offending, then I will take action”.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, according to the Sunday Times, the Chancellor of the Exchequer thinks that the police would help their case for more money if they were more responsive to local residents and investigated crimes such as burglary, rather than labour-intensive investigations into historical sexual offences. Does the Minister agree?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I have to apologise to the noble Lord because, although I read the Sunday Times, I did not read that particular article. But nobody can be in any doubt about the commitment of this Government commitment to tackling this type of abuse, and in particular that of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. Child sexual abuse has been declared a national threat and the Government are investing millions of pounds to enable officers to actively seek out and bring these types of offenders to justice. Last February, the Government published our tackling child sexual exploitation progress report and we have announced a £40 million package of measures to protect children and young people from sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking, and to crack down on offenders. This has included £7.5 million for a new, ground-breaking centre of expertise that will identify, generate and share high-quality evidence of what works in preventing and tackling child sexual abuse and exploitation. We have put a significant increase in resources into the NCA, leading to a near doubling of the CEOP command’s investigative capability, and an additional £20 million has been committed up to 2020 to maintain this. There is a further £20 million of transformation funds going into the regional organised crime units, which do a superb job in bringing to justice perpetrators who target children online.