Wanless Review

Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I had a sense of déjà vu then, because when I was a councillor in the London borough of Merton the then leader of the Labour group sometimes used to call me Mother Theresa. The hon. Lady did raise a serious point, because we need to ensure that the panel of inquiry and its chairman have the confidence of survivors and victims, so that they can have confidence in the outcome of the panel’s work. The name she mentioned has been raised by others, but so have a number of other names. Hon. Members are making proposals, as are survivors groups and individual survivors. The Home Office is collating all the names that are being suggested as a possible chairman and, appropriately, we will look into those individuals in due course. I hope that this will not take too long, but we will need to do the necessary work to bring a further name forward.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s commitment to implement the report’s recommendations swiftly. However, in evidence today, Wanless and Whittam were clear that these recommendations have relevance across government. Will she today commit to impressing on her Cabinet colleagues the importance of these recommendations for every Department, so that survivors of child abuse can have confidence that wherever an allegation of child abuse is made to government it will be acted on swiftly and appropriately?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point and I am very happy to commit to doing that. I will be writing to the Cabinet Secretary to ensure that all Departments and agencies co-operate fully with the child abuse panel inquiry, and I am very happy to put in that letter as well my hon. Friend’s suggestion that the Wanless and Whittam recommendations on record keeping should be applied across the whole of government.