Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips]

My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) mentioned the importance of drawing attention to the fact that, especially in the context of the online crime of sexploitation, boys are at greater risk. That is the only area of exploitation in which most of the victims are teenage boys, and it is a new and growing phenomenon. I say to the hon. Gentleman that in both the national inquiry and Operation Beaconport, the Home Secretary and I have been pushing at every stage for recognition of the fact that this process cannot just rake over historic coals. It must be grounded in recognition of the way in which abuse is happening now and improving police forces’ responses to it, and undoubtedly it is now happening online. The most frightening statistic that keeps me awake at night is that last year 53% of child sexual abuse was perpetrated by children aged between 10 and 17.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent West) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for what has been a lifetime of work protecting women and girls. I welcome what she has said about updating the ethnicity data, which will enable the public debate to take place on the basis of data and fact rather than the prejudice and scaremongering of which she has spoken, but does she think it might also help to engender trust in the debate if she were to take this opportunity to acknowledge that there was a completely unacceptable woke reluctance to offend certain communities, and that this culture of deference, where it persists, must be stamped out?

[Jess Phillips]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words, and I will certainly take that opportunity, because I have seen this with my own eyes in cases in which I have been involved. People have said, “Oh, it might cause trouble.” That was not stopping them doing it, but they would not have even mentioned it to me in other circumstances.

What we have to do, and what we all owe to the victims of these crimes, is to call it what it is, but also not to use our own political agendas in relation to their very delicate and harmed lives, whatever form that takes. We do not want a backlash causing the police to go on thinking, “Oh gosh, this is going to open a can of worms.” We must all act responsibly in respect of these issues. However, I have definitely seen this, and it should never have been allowed to happen.