Bob Blackman
Main Page: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)Department Debates - View all Bob Blackman's debates with the Home Office
Grooming Gangs: Independent Inquiry
Bob Blackman Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Sarah Jones
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the role of victims and the need to be survivor-focused and trauma-informed throughout—that is exactly what the inquiry is focused on. The inquiry is working on a victims charter that it will publish soon, which will set out answers to all the questions she has asked about how we ensure that we are both supporting the victims and hearing their voices front and centre, when we know they were not listened to for so long.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I sat on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee for 14 years. We saw the first exposé of the scandals of the grooming gangs, particularly in Rochdale and other places in the north of England. Dame Louise Casey came in front of us and made recommendations that have still not been carried out, so full power to the Minister to actually make this happen.
The sad reality, as I understand it, is that police forces are resisting the collection of ethnicity data, and indeed resisting investigations into those who turned a blind eye to what was going on with the grooming gangs. Will the Minister ensure that police forces carry out their duties properly and that those who turned a blind eye to what was going on are brought to justice and suffer the consequences of not protecting vulnerable girls?
Sarah Jones
I would be happy to have a conversation with the hon. Gentleman about any information he may have about police forces and what he has heard on that front. It would be very worrying if what he describes were the case. We have made it clear that ethnicity needs to be reported for the grooming-based CSE that we are dealing with here. In addition, in the police reform White Paper, which was announced in the King’s Speech and will be introduced soon, we committed ourselves to doing that across the board, so ethnicity reporting will be mandatory for the police.