Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse: Final Report

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I join him in paying tribute to the 7,300 victims and survivors who gave testimony to the inquiry, and who have shown great bravery and strength in telling their stories; but there will be many thousands of other victims who did not feel able to come forward. I hope they too will feel that this report is a substantial and serious attempt to understand the extent of institutional failure to protect children over many decades.

This report, seven years in the making, is of immense importance. It offers practical solutions and a solid, rational oversight of a crime that is alternately ignored or sucked into conspiracy theories, which we see through organisations such as QAnon. The report shows the true banality of evil, and it is all the more powerful for that; I pay tribute to Professor Jay for producing it.

This is a report about one of the worst imaginable crimes—about the sexual abuse and exploitation of children and the institutional cover-ups when the abuse came to light. These institutions were there to protect children but instead they acted to protect their own institutional reputations.

The report raises concerns about current child protection arrangements. First, it refers to the explosion in online-facilitated child sexual abuse, including the grooming and rape of children and babies. The Home Secretary did not mention this in his Statement, but can the Minister confirm that the online harms Bill will complete its passage through the Commons next week and be accelerated straight to the House of Lords? Can the Minister also confirm that the National Crime Agency will not have to make the 20% staff cuts which it has been asked to draw up in the recent past?

Secondly, the report says that

“significant reductions in funding of public services”

after 2010 is one of the key factors that has had

“a deleterious impact on responses to child sexual abuse.”

Does the Minister accept the damage done by the scale of the cuts in child protection? What can he say about protecting our existing arrangements in the forthcoming spending review?

Thirdly, the report is clear that organisations still do not take child protection seriously enough. What is the Home Office’s position on a mandatory duty to report child sexual abuse? The Labour Party has been calling for it since 2014, and it is worth noting that former Prime Minister Theresa May, who initiated this report, supported this key recommendation of the report.

Fourthly, the report is clear about the failings in the criminal justice system. The charge rate on child sexual abuse has dropped from 32% in 2015 to 12% last year. There are many other examples of failures in the criminal justice system too, but surely child sexual abuse should be the top priority.

Fifthly, the Home Office has responsibility for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, yet the independent inspectorate found just last week that they were being placed into unsuitable hotels where the staff did not even have DBS checks, and hundreds of children have gone missing. What action have the Government taken since the Minister saw those reports over the weekend?

This report is clear about the systemic failures, past and present. We in the Labour Party have been part of the problem. My right honourable friend Yvette Cooper apologised on behalf of the Labour Party for its part in that failure. Too often, there has been a deference to power, which has overridden a duty of care.

I spoke about the banality of evil. Noble Lords will know that I sit as a magistrate in London. Magistrates would not normally deal with these types of offences but several times in my experience as a magistrate in family courts, youth courts and adult courts, I have had witnesses and defendants make very serious child sex-related accusations when we were dealing with far lesser charges in the court process. We as a court system need to be alert to people reaching out for help when they are in the court system. We owe it to the thousands of survivors who have spoken out.

I have two final points to make. The first and very important point is that this is not a historical problem; it is happening today. My question to the Minister is: what is being done to ensure that children know where and how to report abuse? Secondly, I repeat a point made by many Members in the other place: can the Minister give an undertaking that there will be regular reports to Parliament on how the Government are implementing the recommendations in the report?

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. This seven-year Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse sheds light on extraordinary and appalling institutional failings. I want to thank the right honourable Theresa May MP for establishing this inquiry in the first place, as well as Professor Alexis Jay, the chair, and her panel, and, most of all, the survivors and victims who selflessly came forward because they wanted to prevent what had happened to them happening to anyone else.

This is a catalogue of failure to protect children, failure to listen to children and failure to believe children. There must be a change of culture, both in society and in those institutions which put their reputations before protecting children. We on these Benches are also truly sorry. All Governments have failed these survivors and victims, along with the police, health and social services, and local authorities. We have all let down the victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.

The physical and emotional damage these children have suffered has led to a lifetime of suffering. The Home Secretary said that the perpetrators will be “caught and punished” and that “all available levers” in his power, including the police and criminal justice system will be used to bring offenders to justice. Can I ask the Minister how that will be brought about when there is a lack of police resources, the police are already overstretched and the Crown Prosecution Service does not have enough lawyers? The proportion of criminal cases overall resulting in prosecution is falling and there are serious backlogs in the courts. Will the Government increase the resources to the criminal justice system, for example, those available to the police and Crown Prosecution Service? Will the Government ask those institutions to prioritise child sexual abuse cases?

It is right that we should say sorry to the victims and survivors, but we should also not forget those falsely accused whose lives and reputations were seriously damaged as the police lurched from not doing enough to the opposite extreme. Those making false allegations damaged genuine victims as well as those they wrongly accused. Every victim must be protected, cared for and believed while the police engage in an objective search for the truth.

I shall mention three specific issues. First, will the Government introduce an effective statutory duty to report child sexual abuse?

Secondly, when it comes to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, as has already been said, they are being placed in inappropriate accommodation in hotels where those looking after them have not been DBS checked. More than 100 have gone missing. In going missing, they are vulnerable to sexual abuse. In the Home Secretary’s Statement, he said that

“there is no worse dereliction of duty than failing to protect a child”,

but the Home Office has not been protecting these children by allowing them to go missing. What are the Government doing to ensure that this is stopped?

Thirdly, on prosecutions, the Home Secretary talked about the number of convictions for possession of indecent images of children increasing by 39%. But what about the number of children being rescued from abuse and the children in those indecent images? What about the prosecutions of those producing the images, not just those in possession of them?

There were 2 million pages of evidence and 107 recommendations. It will take time to fully process and action all those recommendations. That must not be lost in the current political turmoil. Child sexual exploitation is endemic and increasing. As the report says:

“this is not just a national crisis, but a global one.”

Urgent action is needed to reverse the increasing numbers of children being abused. Can the Minister confirm that the Government will regularly update the House and not wait until all the recommendations have been addressed?