Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse

Andrew Griffiths Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Champion]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and it should go on the record that she has been such a fighter for the survivors in Nottinghamshire, which is hugely appreciated. Yes, she is right that victims should not have to battle and beg to get support services to enable them to live their life. They are a victim of crime; access to such support should be an automatic right. But victims having to tell their story time and again is something that we keep hearing about. The thing that I am most fearful of is that some of the people going through that fight will just step away from it, and who can blame them for that? However, as a society and as a Government, we need to address that situation and we need to do it now.

To that end, would the Minister consider developing a mechanism for pegging the funds to uplifts in demand, so that specialist services and survivors are not forced to bear the effect of any funding shortfall? Instead, the Government would pre-empt that need and fund it accordingly. We all have to admit that for too long the Government have been behind the curve on this issue.

If we acknowledge the prevalence of abuse and its devastating costs to the individual and society, the logical policy to adopt is a transformative funding package that funds services that redress the trauma of abuse and help survivors to recover. Minister, that requires more than an occasional 10% uplift.

Will the Minister commit to asking the Chancellor for a cross-Government strategic fund, which meets the core funding needs of specialist services, to prevent and respond to child sexual abuse? He may find that he is pushing against an open door, because in March and again in the main Chamber yesterday the Chief Secretary to the Treasury spoke about survivors, saying in March that

“because they have been traumatised and left in despair after suffering the consequences of crime…it should be government’s responsibility to prioritise support for these people”.

Both the NHS and the specialist voluntary sector have a vital role to play in supporting the recovery of survivors. On average, 17% of the budgets for specialist sexual violence and support services comes from the rape support fund, and 14.5% comes from NHS England and clinical commissioning groups, or CCGs. The APPG’s inquiry heard that CCGs have a responsibility for commissioning long-term therapeutic support for survivors. However, when I asked Ministers for an assessment of the effectiveness of CCGs in this regard, they told me that they do not even collect the data on it.

When survivors tell us that the support they need is not there, and specialist support agencies find many CCGs challenging to work with, I must say that this lack of data is extremely concerning. I therefore also ask the Minister to make representations to his colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care to collect this data centrally, so that proper analysis of it can be made. If it is discovered that CCGs are failing in their duty to commission such support, will he consider ring-fencing funding for the long-term therapeutic support that survivors need?

There also needs to be research into the availability of appropriate services for black, Asian and minority ethnic survivors; for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender survivors; and for disabled survivors. During the APPG’s six-month inquiry, we found virtually no evidence, or indeed recognition, of those survivors’ specific needs, nor a desire to commission the services that they need, which is of considerable concern.

Minister, a nationwide public health campaign about child sexual abuse is required. It would raise awareness and—importantly—reduce stigma. It should also aim to direct both survivors and professionals to sources of information and support. In the absence of professional expertise, survivors said that they need quality information about the impact of abuse and about where they can access support. To date, professionals are described as being “caught out” by disclosures, and therefore as being unable to provide up-to-date, relevant and accurate information. In such a situation, survivors usually take it upon themselves to find information and services on the internet, which has mixed results.

In parallel with a public health campaign, the Government need to address the fact that existing sources of information and support are patchy and disparate. The Government could do more, in co-operation with the specialist voluntary sector, to provide online resources about the impact of abuse, and information about the support services that are available, both locally and nationally. This will necessitate cross-Government working and marshalling existing online information from police and crime commissioners, specialist service umbrella agencies, and the Ministry of Justice’s own Victim and Witness Information website. Survivors and professionals need to know where they can source information and support; currently, there is just no clear answer for them.

[Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)]

If the hon. Lady will forgive me for saying so, I just cannot congratulate her enough, both on securing this debate today and on her work with the APPG, which I am proud to be a member of.

As Members of Parliament, we come to this place to speak for others, but I am sitting here and the hon. Lady is speaking for me, as a survivor of child sexual abuse myself, through the things that she is saying and the way that she is articulating the difficulties in coming forward—in admitting it even to yourself; admitting it to others is even more difficult. She talked about people taking an average of 26 years to talk about their abuse as a child. For me, it took 40 years, and here I am—an articulate, sensible, educated man.

I urge the hon. Lady to continue this campaign for greater awareness. We all understand that the more we talk about this issue, and the more we break down the stigma, the more that people will come forward. Since I spoke about my own individual case, I have been inundated by people in the same situation contacting me to say, “Me too. We went through that.” I have even had people who work in this place come up to me and say, “You are speaking for us.” I congratulate the hon. Lady, but will she continue to fight for that awareness campaign?

[Sarah Champion]

First, I promise that I will continue fighting for that awareness campaign, as the Minister knows. Secondly, I thank the hon. Gentleman for being so outspoken on this issue and using his own, personal testimony, because that is what resonates. The reason we set up the APPG was that a staff member in Parliament came to me and shared his experience. Looking around this room, and holding the statistic that 7% of adults in the UK are survivors of childhood sexual abuse, the hon. Gentleman will not be the only one present. I admire him, and thank him for sharing his story to help other people. I turn to the Minister after such a testimony and ask him to please address this worrying shortfall, and commit to developing a public health campaign, with the associated website and the information we need alongside it.

I thank all MPs present and the Minister, who I know cares deeply about finding solutions to these issues and has done so much so far. I thank all the professionals and specialists in the voluntary sector and across the board who have contributed to the APPG’s report. Most of all, I thank the 400 survivors of childhood sexual abuse—some of whom are in the room, and many of whom are watching on telly—who have generously given their time and experience to try to make positive change for all victims and survivors in future.

I have illustrated today that child sexual abuse is a public health crisis. The number of affected adults is in the millions, scattered across the four nations of the United Kingdom. The trauma of abuse has severe implications for a survivor’s mental wellbeing, which in turn negatively impacts their relationships, work and financial security. Fortunately, the solution lies before us: the Government can ensure that frontline professionals are curious about a person’s trauma, and are able to recognise how that trauma may impact behaviour and wellbeing. They can fund specialist voluntary sector services to meet demand while continuing to improve NHS pathways. They can take responsibility for the information available to survivors, harness new technologies, encourage better collaboration, and prioritise child sexual abuse as a public health issue.

I will leave Members with the words of a survivor from my constituency of Rotherham:

“We need counselling and we need therapy. We need the little things. There’s nothing there. Just a chance to rebuild our lives. It’s. Not. Our. Fault.”

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, as I do so frequently these days. I thank the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for securing a debate on such an important subject, and I will start by briefly acknowledging her work and dedication to the cause of improving support for those who fall victim to the horrendous crimes of sexual violence and child sexual abuse. One of the very real pleasures of doing the job of victims Minister is that I have been able to work closely with the hon. Lady, with all the knowledge, passion and determination to improve things that she brings to all she does in this House.

As the hon. Lady highlighted, she has chaired two all-party parliamentary groups on these topics, producing two extremely useful reports with recommendations. I hope that at some point soon, with her permission, I might be able to meet the all-party parliamentary group for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. I welcome both reports, and commit to giving their recommendations the full and proper consideration they deserve and that the hon. Lady would expect. I will respond to her in due course about the detail of those reports.

I also thank all survivors who took the time to share their experiences to inform the report. I know it takes great courage to speak out about such difficult issues, and I commend them for coming forward for the benefit of other victims and survivors. In that context, I particularly recognise the bravery of my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) in speaking up very movingly in this House on a number of occasions about his own experiences, and his commitment to doing everything he can to ensure no one else has to suffer in that way. I want to ensure that we do not lose momentum in this space, and that we build on recent achievements such as the victims’ strategy.

[Andrew Griffiths]

While the Minister is being nice to me, let me just draw out one point in relation to compensation. I know that we are due to meet—I had to reschedule our meeting—but compensation for victims for child sexual abuse is simply not good enough. Of the 6,861 convictions for child sexual abuse in 2017, compensation orders were issued in only 26 cases. Will the Minister keep that at the forefront of his mind, and make sure that victims of child sexual abuse get the compensation they deserve?

[Edward Argar]

I know that my hon. Friend has recently made this issue the subject of a ten-minute rule Bill. Although the imposition of those orders is a matter for the judiciary, he is quite right that I am due to meet him shortly, when we can discuss what more can be done to raise awareness of the ability to use them.

We know that these crimes can have lifelong, life-changing impacts on victims, as the hon. Lady has set out. It is therefore essential that high-quality support and information is available to those who need it, when they need it, to do what is possible after such a horrendous crime to help individuals rebuild their lives and come to terms with the trauma.