Child Sexual Exploitation: Grooming Gangs

Lord Pickles Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, Operation Stovewood is a victim-focused investigation carried out under a strategy known as the survivor pathway, with a dedicated team of independent sexual violence advisers. In addition, when taking forward the consideration of prosecution, the CPS has regard to the victims’ code and to guidance on how it should approach and deal with victims in that context. Over and above that, we have the statutory provisions of Sections 16 and 17 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, whereby victims and other witnesses who are vulnerable or potentially intimidated can have their evidence taken by video recording and be cross-examined via a television link.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords, this whole sorry business led to the collapse of the political and official authority in Rotherham, and that was one reason why, during my time as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, I put in commissioners. Does my noble and learned friend agree that we need to look beyond the immediate victims and towards future victims, and consider the conditions that have been created, which can be addressed only by dealing with particularly vulnerable families? Will he tell the House what the Government are doing, in co-operation with the local authority and voluntary organisations in Rotherham, to increase the esteem of young girls and to find ways of dealing with the root cause of this problem?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My noble friend is entirely right: we need to look not only at the consequences of these abhorrent crimes but at the causes if we are to prevent further victims emerging. In that context, the Home Office is taking forward work on a number of fronts to improve our understanding of group-based child sexual exploitation and how it manifests in different ways throughout the country. Therefore, steps are being taken at both national and local agency level to see what can be done not only to protect vulnerable children in this context but to deter and indeed disrupt persons becoming engaged in such devastating crimes.