Channel 4 Privatisation

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

We have a very plural system. The argument that I am making is that private and public play different roles in that important ecosystem, but I hope that the House will today agree with my motion to stop the sell-off; I am sure it will.

Channel 4, like the BBC, is fundamental to the foundations of our global success in TV and film. We flog it off at our peril. Its broadcaster-publisher model has given rise to many of our most successful production companies. That was Margaret Thatcher’s original idea. It was a good one—and I do not say that very often. Without its ability to take risks, attract different audiences, and invest in programmes and films that can seem like loss leaders, our creative economy would be all the more bland and mainstream.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that Channel 4 reaches audiences that other outlets struggle to reach, and produces content that attracts a diverse audience, including the takeover day commemorating the anniversary of the killing of George Floyd and the excellent coverage of the Paralympics? Does she worry, as I do, that selling off Channel 4 would hinder that kind of programming?

[Lucy Powell]

I could not agree more. My hon. Friend makes some excellent points, some of which I will turn to later in my speech.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Julia Lopez]

I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss these matters. We are trying to target public subsidy at areas that are not being covered, including looking at individual premises. I will look into her particular case.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

T4. Last year it was revealed that across the whole sporting sector, only 7.9% of board members were from a black, Asian or ethnic minority background. That is damning, given the contributions made by black men and women across sport. Representation matters; it brings different experiences and perspectives—and, most importantly, it leads to better decision making. It is Race Equality Week, and the theme this year is “Action, not just words”. Does the Minister agree that the time for action to increase representation at board level across the sporting sector is now? What action will he take to make that happen?

[Nigel Huddleston]

The hon. Lady makes very important points. As we discussed earlier, sport should be for all, on and off the pitch. We need to make sure that there are opportunities right across sport. I believe that progress is being made—diversity and inclusivity are at the top of the agenda for many sportspeople I talk to—but she is right that we need more action, not just warm words.

Racism in Cricket

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

Diversity and inclusion run through the entire ethos of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s interaction with sporting bodies and the way it funds sport, from grassroots levels, which the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) mentioned a moment ago, right up to the top. It touches every element of the way we fund and work with sport. On the question of cricket in particular, Cindy Butts’s independent commission for equity in cricket is designed to address exactly the questions the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) rightly just raised.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) on securing this important urgent question. I agree with the remarks that have already been made this afternoon. Racism in all its forms, whether in sport or society, is wrong and needs to be stamped out. We all saw what happened last summer, when the racist attacks on our black England football players took place, and the lack of leadership, as many would describe it, from the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister when they failed to condemn it. To tackle racism requires leadership. If the Minister is going to bring his words to life, he needs to commit today to implementing a proper race equality strategy that will seek to tackle institutional and structural racism across society, including in sport, the labour market and our education system.

[Chris Philp]

When we saw the racist abuse suffered by those footballers in the final of the European championships at Wembley back in the summer, there was universal condemnation of it. It was universal condemnation followed by action, in the form of the extension of those football banning orders to include online racist abuse, which previously was not covered and is a matter that will be further addressed in the Online Safety Bill in the very near future. On the wider questions, we had the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities give its initial report and the Government will be coming forward with a further plan in that area, which my colleague the Minister for Equalities will be leading.

Media Diversity

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I am pleased to have secured this important debate. The media is a fundamental part of the way that we see and understand the world. According to Ofcom, 79% of adults get their news information from broadcasters and 40% from newspapers, but, while white adults are using TV, radio and newspapers, people from ethnic minority backgrounds and young people are turning away from them. Instead, they are using the internet, social media and alternative media sources. That is because traditional media sources are failing to represent the society on which they report. Today, I will talk about how there continues to be a systemic lack of race, class, disability, LGBT plus and gender diversity across the media, but particularly in broadcast and newspaper journalism.

Last week, the BBC misidentified me as my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler), Britain’s first black female Minister, while I was making a speech in this House. The error was compounded by the report on the issue in the Evening Standard, which confused a picture of my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) with me. The Evening Standard had used photos from Getty Images which had wrongly captioned me as my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham—you quite literally could not make this up. In the space of a few days, three separate news outlets, Getty Images, the BBC and the Evening Standard, had confused me with another female black MP. This was not the first time: it has happened time and again to me and my other colleagues of colour in Parliament. As journalist Gary Younge put it:

“The message is clear. It really doesn’t matter how prominent, accomplished, integrated, qualified or celebrated non-white people become to a significant number of others, including their peers. They will always just be another black person: interchangeable.”

In the eyes of much of the media, it is impossible for me to have my own identity outside of being a black woman. In that sense, I am invisible to them. This is one of the many incidents that exposes a problem within our media—a problem that exists because the workforce who make up our media, the journalists, producers, commentators, editors and presenters, do not reflect modern British society. Jobs across the sector continue to be inaccessible to those without privilege or resources. Just 7% of the UK is privately educated, and roughly 1% graduate from Oxford and Cambridge, but according to the Sutton Trust, 43% of the top figures in news media are privately educated and 36% went to Oxford. We should never forget that Oxbridge makes more offers to one school, Eton, than to all the children on free school meals. It is almost as though there is a direct pipeline from Eton, Harrow and Westminster to Oxbridge and to the heart of our media.

It simply is not getting any better. Social mobility in the United Kingdom is low and not improving.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady, who is a doughty campaigner on many subjects in this House. I wish her well on this one. Does she agree that there should be a natural spread of disability, gender, age, colour, class and creed in the media and the paid rates for this diversity must equate to fitness of purpose for the job and not what sex a presenter or reporter is? The way to do that is better enforcement of pay structures in both the public and private sectors.

[Marsha De Cordova]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. He is absolutely right, and I will come on to talk about the pay gaps and problems in those structures.

As I said, things are simply not getting better, and according to the Sutton Trust elite voices continue to dominate our media, as they have since the 1950s. In fact, according to the Government’s own figures, journalists are second only to doctors as the most exclusive profession in Britain, with the majority of journalists coming from middle-class backgrounds.

The lack of working-class representation in our media also means a lack of black, Asian and other minority ethnic group representation. A study by City University and the Sutton Trust shows that 94% of journalists are white and only 0.2% of journalists are black. In a recent report, Ofcom criticised this “woeful” lack of diversity in broadcast television. And I can understand why. There is not a single high-profile British news programme or current affairs series headed by a non-white person. Growing up, I was used to seeing Trevor McDonald and Moira Stuart on my screen. As I grew older I expected to see more people of colour reading the news or providing political commentary, but progress seems to have ground to a halt. The National Council for the Training of Journalists found that the proportion of black broadcast journalists has remained unchanged at 1% since 2002. Figures from Ofcom show that only 10% of those in leadership roles in news and current affairs at the BBC are from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background and that only 7% of ITV and 11% of Sky employees working in journalism are from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background.

There are 8 million black and ethnic minority people in this country and 14 million disabled people, but neither group is given a proper voice in our media. The United Nations convention on the rights of disabled people is clear that all disabled people should have the right to

“effectively and fully participate in…public life on an equal basis with others”,

and that includes the media. The failure to recruit disabled journalists has done little to change that. It is time that we saw blind and partially sighted people like me and disabled people anchoring the news on TV and radio and as political commentators. It is time that we read more columns, op-eds and analysis by wheelchair users. And it is time for all broadcasters to recognise their responsibilities by ensuring that disabled people are recognised in our media.

We cannot forget that diversity in our media means off-screen diversity as well as on-screen diversity. Under a third of TV occupations are held by women, and less than a fifth are from a working-class background. From 2013 to 2016, just 2.2% of British TV episodes were made by ethnic minority directors. That means that entire series of dramas, comedies, sketch shows, reality TV shows, and their story arcs, have been created without any black, Asian or minority ethnic group input. It is time that Ofcom introduced a regulatory mechanism to monitor the make-up of all workforces, on-screen and off-screen. We must not be afraid to say that, like many other areas and sectors of society, our media are a bit pale, a bit male and a bit stale.

I recognise all the important work done by broadcasters and news organisations across the media, but we must ask why there has been so little improvement. Some key factors are making this systemic lack of diversity worse. First, unpaid internships continue to be a key way in which people enter journalism. Recent figures reveal that more than 80% of new entrants to journalism do internships that are unpaid. Working for free is something that can only be done by a select few—that is, by people who live in urban centres and who are supported by their families. An element of the old boys’ club still reigns strong in the media; in some instances, it seems to be a case of not what you know, but who you know. Any Government who are committed to a real living wage and believe that everybody should have an equal chance to work should act to abolish unpaid internships. Secondly, the decimation of local news sources has had a negative impact on aspiring journalists from outside the urban centres, because it has removed the pipeline from local and regional up towards national press and broadcasting.

When the Minister responds, will he tell me whether he agrees that there is a systemic problem with diversity in the media? What are the Government doing to ensure that they fulfil the commitments set out in the industrial strategy, and deliver a media sector that is open to all talented people, irrespective of their race, disability, class or gender? Will he call on all major media corporations to report on all aspects of the diversity of their workforce, including their socioeconomic make-up, and will he legislate to ensure that these organisations publish their pay gap data for gender, disability and ethnicity? Will he introduce a regulatory requirement for organisations to publish the data on their black, Asian and minority ethnic, disability and LGBT workforce from senior executive level to entry level? And will he confirm that the rumours circulating that the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport will be dissolved are not true?

As I come to the end of my speech, I would like to put on record my recognition of the important work done by organisations, such as Channel 4, to increase socioeconomic and regional diversity in their workforces. I commend it for its target to have 12% disabled staff across the organisation by 2023. But we know that there is an unacceptable divide between media and society, as was articulated well by Jon Snow from Channel 4. In the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, he lamented the media’s failure to recognise what was happening, saying:

“in an increasingly fractured Britain, we in the media”

have

“little awareness, contact, or connection with those not of the elite.”

A media dominated by the elite means that broadcasters, newspapers and our stories do not reflect the rich diversity of our society. For instance, with so few Muslim journalists—0.2%—it is no coincidence that over a third of newspaper articles “misrepresented or made generalisations” about the Muslim community, according to the Muslim Council of Britain. When disabled staff make up just 5.5% of off-screen staff at major broadcasters, it is no wonder that they are not represented on our TV screens.

Without a diverse workforce made up of every part of our society—without reporters with an understanding of, say, Bristol and Birmingham, and without executives from Oxton as well as Oxbridge—the media will always fail to speak for us all. It is time for real action and time for real change so that our media is by us, for us and about us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nigel Adams]

I believe that the BBC is incredibly conscious of this. I think the numbers may have crept up a little bit, but there is still an awful lot more to do.

The BBC has conducted reviews on improving its diversity, and it is continuing to implement those findings. It has announced that it will be appointing two advisers to every senior leader group across the business to increase BAME representation at senior levels. The Government expect the BBC to make significant progress in delivering against those challenges, including on the proportion of women and BAME people represented in its leadership.

[Marsha De Cordova]

I appreciate that the BBC is trying and aspiring to do better, but does the Minister agree that it needs to look at not only race and gender but disability?

[Nigel Adams]

I do, and I am about to come on to the very valid points that the hon. Lady made.

As of 2019, the proportion of women in the BBC was 47%, and the proportion of BAME people was 15%. That is better than the national labour population in general, but it falls behind other public service broadcasters. The proportion of women at Channel 4, for example, is 57%, and the proportion of BAME people is 19%.

As Members will be aware, the BBC charter establishes Ofcom as the independent regulator for the BBC. Ofcom must therefore continue to hold the BBC to account on its diversity requirements. Ofcom’s review of BBC representation and portrayal on TV in 2018 set challenges for the BBC, and the Government expect the BBC to keep working towards being a more diverse and representative organisation and broadcaster.

Ofcom’s responsibility to hold the BBC to account on its diversity requirements is part of its wider role to monitor the diversity of the UK television sector as a whole. Ofcom has a duty to promote equality of opportunity in relation to employment in the broadcasting sector and has powers to ask broadcasters to provide information about their equal opportunities policies and the make-up of their workforce. Ofcom’s findings are published in its annual report on diversity and equal opportunities in television. In its latest report, it notes that 13% of the UK television industry identifies as BAME, which is just above the average of the UK labour market. The number of women—45%—is only just below the average of the UK labour market. It is with disability that Ofcom identifies a real issue, with 6% of the UK television industry reporting as disabled, which falls well below the 18% of the UK labour market. Clearly, more needs to be done in that regard.

A big issue is the availability of data on the diverse make-up of the media industry. Ofcom says that, while gaps in the data are decreasing, the number who report as “undisclosed” is increasing, and therein lies the issue. It is important that, in acknowledging that more could be done to support the industry, we understand that part of that is ensuring we have the available data to support the case for change and to measure success when it comes. Without doubt, UK television should reflect modern Britain, both on and off the screen, and the Government are supportive of Ofcom’s work to drive improvements in that area.

The hon. Lady referred to social mobility, which remains a problem at many media organisations. For example, it was reported last year that only 9% of staff at Channel 4 identified as coming from a working-class background. Even at the BBC, which has the highest number of staff from lower social classes, 61% of staff identify as coming from a higher social class. However, I would like to applaud Channel 4 for taking this problem seriously and acknowledging that it wants to be a place where the doors are open to everyone. This is a difficult problem to tackle. Those from higher social classes have the capital to afford to take low-paid or unpaid internships, to get a foot in the door.

The hon. Lady also asked whether the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport will be dissolved. On my behalf and that of the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman), I very much hope that that is not the case, but we will have to wait until Thursday.

[Marsha De Cordova]

I thank the Minister for giving way again, and I am pleased to hear that the Department will be staying intact; I hope he will remain a part of it. When we talk about diversity and representation in media outlets—be it the BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5 or ITV—it is important to acknowledge that certain roles, such as those in finance or HR, are separate from those on-screen or as part of the off-screen editorial and production side of things. Does he agree that there needs to be proper data gathering about those roles, as well as the other aspects of the industry?

[Nigel Adams]

I agree—that is the challenge in data collection, which should be more transparent. The hon. Lady makes a very good point.

In the time that is left, I will make some progress. The situation differs from that of print media. Newspapers tell the stories that reflect modern Britain. As a result, it is important that those working in print media are representative of the diversity of our country. The Government are committed to a free and independent press, and we do not interfere with what the press can and cannot publish. Of course, editors have responsibilities to the public, and should be held to account if they infringe individuals’ rights.

The press is subject to independent self-regulation. Anyone who is concerned about something published by a newspaper can make a complaint, either to a self-regulatory body, or to the publisher directly. As we said in the Government’s response to the Cairncross review, public interest news and journalism should reflect the diversity of the United Kingdom. Improving the diversity of newsrooms could help newspapers appeal to under-represented audiences. Appealing to under-represented audiences could also have a positive impact on sustainability. Many newspapers are doing good work in this area, with a number of national newspapers running diversity schemes.

The Government do not wish to interfere in any way with editorial freedoms, operations or decision making in newspapers, but we encourage the press to do more to increase diversity in journalism. The Government are committed to ensuring that equality and diversity are a key feature of all our interactions with industry. The work that is being done on improving the diversity of the print and broadcast media is part of the wider steps being taken within the creative industries. I am happy to say that much is being done in the creative industries to reflect our diverse country. Only last week I had the pleasure of attending the launch of Ukie’s “Raise the Game” diversity pledge with five founding partners, including heavy hitters Microsoft Xbox and Jagex, which aim to redress the balance of the games workforce which is currently 70% male and 12% privately educated—almost double the national average. Initiatives such as these and the “Creative Pioneers” of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising or Penguin Random House’s “WriteNow” programme, which has engaged 450 writers across nine regional workshops, provide positive first steps across sectors traditionally seen as a closed shop.

The Government recognise that much more can be done to bring about widespread and long-lasting change. Through the Creative Industries Council, we are working with industry to show strong leadership in this area. The recently announced diversity charter commits the creative sector to improving the quality of its diversity data as well as its recruitment practices, development, promotion and retention of staff at all levels in order to create a more diverse workforce and develop more output that appeals to people from all backgrounds and regions of the UK.

I thank the hon. Member for Battersea again for bringing this incredibly important debate to the Floor of the House. I am pretty sure that my son will not thank me for mentioning him, but there is important work being done across the media and creative industries to improve the diversity of the industry. I am pleased that organisations such as the BBC and other UK broadcasters have taken this seriously and are moving in the right direction. I want to finish by reiterating that there is still much to do and that the Government will continue to encourage the media industry to continue these efforts.

Question put and agreed to.

SPAC Nation

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Reed]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for raising yet another alarming case of what appears to be a form of fraud and deception perpetrated on a family who had just lost their mother. It seems to have been deliberately intended to disinherit her children.

There are many ways in which the leaders of this organisation appear to be perpetrating fraud in order to enrich themselves. I have spoken to young people who, sickeningly, were taken to private clinics to sell their blood, with a so-called pastor pretending to be their parent in order to sign consent forms. I have spoken to young people who were coached to commit benefit fraud. I have met students—I have also spoken to their parents—who were coerced into handing over their entire student loans before being taken to banks to raise further money through personal loans, so they lost their ability to continue in education and ended up in serious debt.

Tragically, where criminal exploitation is taking place, there is often also sexual exploitation. One young woman told me that she was just 16 when she moved into a trap house and, in her words,

“everyone was having sex with everyone else, it was disgusting”.

I asked her to clarify whether she meant older pastors having sex with younger girls, and she said yes.

When that young woman complained to her pastor, she was taken to the organisation’s leader, who told her that if she complained to the police, it would rebound on her, because he was powerful and had friends in high places. He made that claim look real to these vulnerable young people by inviting politicians and senior police officers to his church services. He even met the Prime Minister in No. 10 Downing Street. I believe all those people thought they were engaging with a church that helped vulnerable young people, but in reality they were being used to intimidate young victims and prevent them from speaking out.

SPAC Nation is not an organisation that is getting young people out of crime, as it claims; it is an organisation that is criminalising young people for its own ends. It operates right across London and has already expanded into other cities, including Birmingham and Leicester.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate and raising what is clearly an important issue. Does he agree that what he has described is criminal activity and preying on the most vulnerable, and it is essential that the Government intervene and take action?

[Mr Reed]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that important point. I look forward to hearing what Ministers have to say about how we can work constructively and collectively to tackle many of the problems and horrors that are associated with this organisation.

As I was saying, SPAC Nation started in London. It seems to have spread right across the city, and it is expanding into other cities including Birmingham and Leicester. It has no fixed location—it does not have a home church—which makes it much harder for the authorities to track it. There is no home police unit keeping track of what it is doing. There is no local safeguarding board keeping track of the risks to young people. It holds its services in vast venues in many different boroughs and cities.

I have reported to the police and safeguarding authorities every single allegation that has been made to me, but I am deeply worried that more has not been done to stop this organisation from exploiting vulnerable young people. SPAC Nation claims to have up to 1,000 young people involved right now, and every one of those young people is at risk. It appears to have up to 15 trap houses scattered across London, and every young person inside those properties is at very serious risk. A teacher in north London told me that SPAC Nation had been recruiting schoolgirls outside the school gates. A youth worker in Croydon told me that it had been recruiting outside the youth centre. SPAC Nation is targeting young people so that it can exploit them, and it is imperative that the organisation is stopped.

I have some questions that I would like the Minister to answer this evening, if possible. Allegations about this organisation have been circulating widely in the black community and on social media for up to four years, so why has police intelligence failed to pick anything up? I was able to find out most of this information over a couple of days by speaking to people and googling on social media. If I can do that without the resources of the police, why has police intelligence failed to recognise what is happening to potentially thousands of vulnerable young kids across this city? What action can be taken immediately to stop this organisation recruiting any more vulnerable young people for abuse and exploitation in my constituency and beyond? Given what we have heard, and given what victims have told us, we surely cannot allow this organisation to continue targeting other young people for abuse and exploitation when we can take action to protect them.

What help can be given to young people involved in SPAC Nation now? That includes those living in trap houses who urgently need to get out before they are further criminalised, their family relationships destroyed and their future lives ruined. And why has no help been offered to potentially thousands of young people who have managed to get away from SPAC Nation but who are left burdened with huge debts and who have been criminalised, many of them homeless and many suffering trauma and mental ill health? We cannot simply leave these young people to suffer the consequences of abuse by an exploitative organisation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Whately]

As I am trying to make clear, these allegations are being investigated by the Charity Commission and reviewed by the police, so this is not something the Government can intervene in at this point. However, this debate is certainly raising this issue up the agenda and making sure that there is a great deal of awareness about the situation. I will do my best to address the questions as I proceed.

I wish to talk a bit more about the important role of safeguarding in charities. It is important because it should prevent the exploitation of vulnerable people or enable a rapid and effective response if exploitation does happen. I want to make clear how seriously the Government take this; since 2018, we have invested more than £1 million in the domestic charity safeguarding programme. We have been working with charities and other partners, including the National Crime Agency, to raise awareness of safeguarding; to ensure that charities, whatever their size, whether large or small, know their responsibilities, know how to handle concerns quickly and can easily access advice. The Charity Commission has also launched a whistleblowing helpline to help people report safeguarding concerns, and I encourage anyone who has experienced or witnessed wrongdoing, or are concerned about it, to use that as a means of reporting it. Obviously, Members here can refer people to do that.

Allegations such as those raised by the hon. Gentleman reinforce the importance of this vital work on strengthening safeguarding, and further announcements will be made on that shortly. Protecting people from harm must always take precedence over protecting a charity’s brand or status. Charities must be clear that they will listen to safeguarding concerns and that those concerns must be treated promptly and seriously acted upon. The majority of charities take their safeguarding responsibilities extremely seriously, and it is right that we recognise that, but when concerns are raised, action should be taken by the Charity Commission and, if necessary, local safeguarding authorities and the police.

Many of the hon. Gentleman’s concerns relate to the police matters. As I have said, the police are reviewing the evidence they have received. May I suggest that if he has not done so already, he raises these concerns about policing with both the Mayor of London and the Commissioner of the Metropolitan police?

The Home Office is working extremely hard to transform its approach to dealing with crimes against vulnerable young people. It has invested significantly in a programme of reform to help the police to respond to changing crimes, including child sexual abuse. Child sexual abuse has been prioritised as a national threat, and the Home Office are empowering police forces to develop their specialist skills and expertise, increasing the police’s capabilities to tackle this terrible crime.

[Marsha De Cordova]

Forgive me if I am being ignorant on this point, but the Minister has asked my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) to raise this with the Mayor of London and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, if he has not already done so. The Home Office is the Government’s responsibility and this sounds to me like a Home Office issue that the Government need to look into, so will she clarify whether or not this is an issue that the Home Office should be addressing?

[Helen Whately]

The important point is that this is a police matter, which is why the Mayor of London, as the police and crime commissioner for London, is the appropriate person with whom to raise concerns. However, there is a bigger-picture point, which is why I am talking about what the Home Office is doing to prevent and respond to crime against young people, particularly sexual abuse.

Let me come to something that is very relevant to this specific topic. In 2015, the Home Office launched the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, and in May last year that inquiry announced its final investigation strand—into child protection in religious organisations and settings. That strand of the inquiry is now examining the nature and adequacy of child protection policies, practices and procedures, and it will consider whether safeguarding in those kinds of settings needs to be strengthened further.

On safeguarding across government, in July 2018, the Department for Education updated the statutory guidance on inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, and it is funding a £2 million tackling child exploitation support programme to help to deliver more effective responses to child sexual and criminal exploitation and involvement in gangs and drugs.