Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Chris Murray Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)]

The focus of this debate should not be on the politics, on what is in the newspapers or on what is on social media; it should be on the children themselves. For four years before coming to the House, I worked on preventing trafficking, especially the trafficking of child victims around the country for sex. The stories that I heard would chill your bones, especially the stories of those who sought protection from the authorities but ended up back in the hands of their traffickers.

There is so much more that we could do for those children. I know that not just from my own experience but because it is there in black and white, in the findings of the inquiries. We have 2 million pages of evidence and 700 witnesses, and zero recommendations have been implemented. Will the Home Secretary commit to putting safeguarding first rather than putting politics first, as people are so transparently trying to do, and implement the findings as quickly as possible?

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome the work my hon. Friend has done in this policy area. He is right to talk about young people and children being trafficked around the country. There is some concerning evidence that, for example, although work has been done to identify people being trafficked through county lines—often boys and young men—it has not sufficiently identified the young women and teenage girls who are being trafficked around for sexual exploitation. We need to ensure that improvements are made in that regard.