Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Robathan Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Mike Penning
Crime in my hon. Friend’s constituency —he is a friend of mine—has gone down by 19% since 2010.
Mr Andrew Robathan (South Leicestershire) (Con)
T8. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will know that in one part of the United Kingdom, namely Northern Ireland, the writ of the National Crime Agency does not run. What discussions has she had with the Minister of Justice and others in the Northern Ireland Executive about extending the NCA to Northern Ireland? In particular, will she speculate on the opposition from, for instance, Sinn Fein, to cracking down on serious crime?
Karen Bradley
The restrictions on NCA activities in Northern Ireland clearly create a major gap in tackling serious and organised crime, put additional pressures on the Police Service of Northern Ireland and inhibit the recovery of criminal assets. Organised crime groups on both sides of the Irish sea cannot be properly investigated. We are committed to resolving this fully, and fully support the proposals that Northern Ireland’s Justice Minister has put to the political parties—proposals that provide the transparent accountability that they seek.
Child Sex Abuse (Rotherham)
Lord Robathan Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Mrs May
The hon. Lady has raised a number of issues of concern generally in relation to these matters. I absolutely agree with the first point she made, which I have alluded to in my statement and in my replies: what underlay this was a feeling that somehow it did not matter and that because of where these girls came from—in some cases it was boys, but in the overwhelming number of cases it was girls—nobody needed to do anything about it. That is absolutely appalling, and we must reject that culture and do everything we can to make sure it no longer exists.
Mr Andrew Robathan (South Leicestershire) (Con)
Let me take my right hon. Friend back to the issue of the 2003 report presented to the Home Office, as she has direct responsibility for the Department. The shadow Home Secretary talked about people turning a blind eye, suppressing and ignoring the report. The allegations made yesterday and today on the BBC were very distressing, so could the Home Secretary please publish what she finds out about all that, without an overarching inquiry and without a freedom of information report? She needs to publish details of what happened in the Home Office in 2003 and who was responsible, and hold to account the officials, or indeed Ministers, who were responsible at the time.
Mrs May
I am certainly prepared to make sure that the results of the work that we do in the Home Office, which is then looked at by Richard Whittam and Peter Wanless, to ascertain what happened in the Home Office is made available to Members of this House. As I indicated, this was a Home Office-funded piece of work. The report that came to the Home Office did not include, at the second stage, Rotherham. That appears to be because of the actions taken within Rotherham in relation to the researcher. We are doing everything we can to get to the bottom of this and find out exactly what was known and by whom, and what actions were taken.