Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Debate

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Department: Home Office

Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts
Monday 6th January 2025

(3 days, 12 hours ago)

Commons Chamber
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Yvette Cooper Portrait Yvette Cooper
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I thank my hon. Friend for raising the local service; the Safeguarding Minister also is a strong supporter of the work that that service is doing. My hon. Friend is right about the importance of making sure that we support victims and survivors, and we need to work with the victims and survivors panel on how we take that forward. She is also right to say that part of the problem is that the children were not treated or respected as children. They were just treated as somehow being adults and not as being exploited and subjected to the most terrible of crimes. That is one of the fundamental things that has to change.

Bernard Jenkin Portrait Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
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I also thank the Secretary of State for her statement. I think the House is overwhelmingly behind her in dealing with these difficult subjects and implementing the findings of the Jay report. However, I am listening carefully to these exchanges, and the arguments against a further public inquiry—in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), for example—seem rather thin: “Oh, we have already got too much to do,” “Oh, it probably won’t find out anything new,” “Oh, let the council do it on its own.” I just wonder whether this is in fact a matter of public confidence. If the Home Secretary cannot restore public confidence without a further public inquiry, please will she not rule it out?

Yvette Cooper Portrait Yvette Cooper
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We obviously supported the independent inquiry into child abuse, including the two-year investigation that it did into organised networks of child sexual exploitation. That was immensely important as well. We also continue to support the local inquiries, reviews and investigations, including in Oldham. I have particularly highlighted the work that was done in Telford, and there is a reason for that.

The Telford inquiry was set up as a local independent inquiry, but it has proved more effective than many of the other pieces of work that have been undertaken in this area, through having victims and survivors at the heart of that local inquiry from the very beginning. They were involved not just in giving evidence but in drawing up and shaping the way that the whole inquiry went forward. It also has in place a proper framework for following up and making sure that, a year later, progress is being made and action is being taken. We want to learn from what worked effectively in Telford.

Interestingly, that is different from what has happened in some other areas, so the way in which it has worked is significant. That is why we believe that the right next steps will be for Tom Crowther, who led that inquiry, and the victims and survivors who were involved in Telford, to share that experience with other areas, including Oldham, so that we can make sure we have a proper framework for local areas and institutions to get to the truth about what has happened in their area and to ensure that changes take place.

At the same time, we must recognise that we had the two-year inquiry into child exploitation nationally as part of the overarching review, and that a series of recommendations from the overarching review have still not been acted on. So let us work with the victims and survivors panel that we are determined to set up on what is the best form for future investigations and work.