Children: Child Protection

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gale]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures they are taking to ensure that children are protected against physical and sexual abuse.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, child protection is an absolute priority for this Government, as indeed it is for all Governments. It is also a priority for the police and local authorities, who have a statutory responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of all children. Following the Munro review of child protection, we are supporting local agencies to free professionals from central prescription, focus on early help, develop social work expertise, strengthen accountabilities and promote learning. The Government’s child exploitation action plan also outlines a range of measures to tackle this particularly pernicious form of child abuse.

[Baroness Gale]

I thank the Minister for her reply. Does she agree that children who are subjected to sexual abuse and have the courage to report that abuse must always be believed and should be treated as victims? Will she further agree—perhaps she could ask the Government this—that when the nine inquiries into child abuse are completed, the Government need to have an overarching review of lessons learnt from those inquiries so that all our children will know that they have someone to go to, that they can report abuse and that they will be believed? The level of child abuse in our country at present, and in the past, is a national disgrace.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness that all victims must be treated with respect and that their allegations must be taken seriously. The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have been very clear in another place and at all opportunities when speaking recently about this issue, that anyone who is or has been a victim of abuse or has relevant information about any abuse must go to the police. As for a full review after the various investigations and inquiries are completed, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has not ruled that out. However, we wish to wait for the outcome of the various reviews before deciding what further steps to take in light of that.

[Lord Roberts of Conwy]

My Lords, we have appointed children’s commissioners in Wales and England. Is it not time that we reviewed their powers? It seems that at the moment all they can do is listen to the victims and write about them. They should have more powers of inspection.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, perhaps the best way of responding to my noble friend is to refer to a very powerful speech that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, made at the end of last week, in which he set out very clearly our great concern about child abuse. He said that although all Governments have tried hard to tackle it, the state is currently failing in its duty to protect children. He made various statements in order to provoke debate and discussion. One of the areas that he focused on was accountability, the structures that are in place and the different roles for different people. He did not refer specifically to the children’s commissioners, but I know that because he feels so strongly about this matter, as we all do, he is very open to proposals which would lead to a greater and more effective approach to dealing with child protection.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

Does the Minister agree that the police are regarded as not being sufficiently effective in this area? Will she ensure that the new police and crime commissioners have this issue as a top priority?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

As the noble Baroness may recall, when I recently answered a Question about the role of police and crime commissioners with regard to dealing with various different kinds of abuse, I had the opportunity to make the point that there is a clear statutory requirement on the police to ensure that they safeguard the welfare of children. This is a very important matter and a priority. Under the heading of child abuse—other noble Lords may wish to ask about this—there are things to do with child exploitation, which is a specific issue within child abuse. If that is what the noble Baroness is referring to, after the recent government review on this, CEOP has taken the lead in ensuring greater training of the police in the area of child sexual exploitation, and that is being rolled out in all police areas in the country.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

The noble Baroness makes an important point because child sexual exploitation is a specific type of child abuse. As noble Lords will be aware, this form of abuse is very pernicious because those who are affected by it often do not consider themselves to be victims of that abuse. As the noble Baroness rightly suggests, it is very important that we ensure that the relevant agencies are properly briefed and made aware of what to look for. That was a recommendation that came out of the original government action plan, which was published a year ago. We are considering carefully the report published yesterday by the deputy Children’s Commissioner, and we will look to build on the action we already have in place.

[Baroness Walmsley]

Will the Minister join me in condemning those who called yesterday’s excellent report “hysterical”? The evidence was extremely sound. Will she encourage those who inspect local authorities to ensure that if authorities do not take into account the very clear evidence about the factors which lead to a young girl being abused, they should be downgraded when they are inspected?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am grateful for the opportunity to make it absolutely clear that the report published yesterday by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner is very important. The Government will consider it carefully and seriously, and will respond later this year. As to the point made by my noble friend about inspections, as the House may or may not be aware, Ofsted carries out inspections of local authorities as regards their provision for child protection. The noble Baroness makes an important point; namely, that inspections have to be rigorous. Certainly, in recent times, the criteria and the way in which Ofsted has carried out these inspections has been tightened. We no longer accept a level of standard that clearly was not adequate to tackle this issue.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

I should like to pick up on the point made by my noble friend Lady Howe. What are the Government going to do about what appears to be the culture of the police, certainly in Rotherham and Rochdale, where girls under the age of 16 were treated as bad girls, rather than appreciating that criminal offences were being committed by these men? The girls, being under 16, were victims and were not just acting as prostitutes. It is a very serious matter that the police were not recognising criminal offences.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

That is absolutely right. Forgive me if I did not respond in a way that properly acknowledged that point. If there was any ambiguity in my response, it was because, as I was trying to make clear in my response to another question, there is both child abuse and child sexual exploitation. Child sexual exploitation, to which the noble and learned Baroness referred, until fairly recently has not been properly tackled for all the reasons that she gave. In light of the review and the action plan that the Government produced just over a year ago, much more is going on in the police services to make sure that the police are properly aware and take the action that they must to tackle this serious crime.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I listened carefully to the Minister’s answer to the noble Baroness on the Liberal Democrat Benches about the Government’s response to the Children’s Commissioner’s report. It makes extremely grim and worrying reading that thousands of children and young people have or are being sexually abused, or are at risk of sexual exploitation. I am not sure that I heard the Minister condemn the Government’s source’s response to the report as being “hysterical” and I hope that she is able to do so. Does she agree with the comments in the report that many parents feel that they are ignored, or are assumed somehow to be at fault, if their child has been sexually exploited? Parents also must be involved in the solution.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness that the parents of those who have been abused have an important role to play in helping us to tackle this serious crime. Certainly, the recommendations made by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner in this report will be taken very seriously. We want to address this absolutely dreadful behaviour. We certainly will, as we already are, do everything that we can to make sure that this is addressed properly.