Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Chris Philp Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

I thank the Home Secretary for advance sight of her statement.

The whole country is shocked by the rape gang scandal. Over years or decades, thousands or maybe tens of thousands of vulnerable young girls were systematically raped by organised gangs of men, predominantly of Pakistani heritage. Instead of those victims being protected and the perpetrators prosecuted, those girls were systematically failed. Many cases were covered up because of absurd concerns about so-called community relations. Often, the police did not investigate. Local councils covered things up. The Crown Prosecution Service frequently failed victims. Those raising concerns were frequently accused of racism. Never again can people be silenced in that way.

I pay tribute to people who have raised these cases over the years, starting with former Labour MP Ann Cryer, who first raised these problems nearly two decades ago and bravely persevered despite accusations of racism and worse, including from her own colleagues. In that vein, let me say a word on the Prime Minister’s comments this morning: it is not far-right to stand up for victims of mass rape. [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. People want to hear the response to the statement.

[Chris Philp]

Smearing people who raise those issues is exactly how this got covered up in the first place. I repeat what I said yesterday: intimidation and threats towards elected Members of Parliament and Ministers, including the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), are completely wrong.

As the Home Secretary said, action is important. The last Government took extensive action, starting with the original Jay report commissioned in 2014 by the then Home Secretary, now Baroness May. A year later, she commissioned the independent investigation into child sexual abuse, and Sajid Javid commissioned data collection in 2018.

On the response to the IICSA report published in 2022, it is not true that the last Government took no action. The last Government established the grooming gangs taskforce, whose work led to 550 arrests of perpetrators in the first year and safeguarded 4,500 victims. My first question to the Home Secretary is therefore this: will she confirm for the House—I am sure she can—that the grooming gangs taskforce’s work will continue and, I hope, be stepped up? Secondly, as part of the work of the grooming gangs taskforce—and, again, implementing one of the recommendations of the IICSA report—in April 2023 the last Government mandated data collection on ethnicity, as the Home Secretary referred to. It has been going for over a year and a half, so will she confirm that the data on the ethnicity of perpetrators will be published?

As the Home Secretary has acknowledged, one of IICSA’s main recommendations was mandatory reporting to the police by people in positions of responsibility. The last Government were in the process of implementing that recommendation, via a measure in the Criminal Justice Bill, which fell because of the early election. I am glad that she has announced that she will continue with the last Government’s proposals in her forthcoming Bill. She can be assured that the Opposition will support the Government in the continuation of that measure.

Finally, the Home Secretary did not address the need for a full national public inquiry into this scandal. While the previous Government did initiate IICSA, under Professor Jay, that was mainly directed at other child sexual abuse and exploitation issues, and it covered only six of the towns involved in the gang rape scandal—it did not cover everything. We need to get to the truth. We have new evidence that is of interest to the public, including what Simon Danczuk, the former Labour MP for Rochdale, said about the way that he was pressured into staying silent. We also have evidence of local authorities covering this up, and the third report, from last year, on Operation Span, commissioned by the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, which exposes extremely serious failings by the Crown Prosecution Service. All that needs to be looked into.

Will the Home Secretary therefore commission a national statutory public inquiry, which can compel witnesses to attend, requisition evidence and take evidence under oath? If the Government will not order that inquiry, the Opposition will table an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill later this week to put the matter to a vote. I hope that Members across the House will vote for that full statutory public inquiry, so that we can get to the truth.

[Yvette Cooper]

This is an issue on which I worked with Government Ministers when I was shadow Home Secretary and when I was Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, and there has been cross-party consensus on the need to tackle these serious and vile crimes. These are the most appalling crimes against children: repeated multiple brutal rapes of children—particularly young girls, but also young boys—in the most appalling circumstances, and the abuse of children’s trust, often by people who should have protected and looked after them; institutions failed to keep them safe. That is why the independent inquiry was so important, why I and many others across this House called for it, and why we supported it, when the previous Government set it up. However, there has just not been enough action to tackle these vile crimes. There has not been enough change to policies, and to the way that services operate at a local level. It is a deep failing that those changes have not taken place.

The shadow Home Secretary used the example of the duty to report, which is incredibly important. It is about preventing any chance of people, including professionals, turning a blind eye to abuse, and covering up child abuse and exploitation in the most appalling way. It is about making that a criminal offence. We called for that 10 years ago. His party had a decade to introduce that —a decade that we have lost; a decade without those powers and measures in place.

The hon. Gentleman talks, rightly, about the taskforce, which I mentioned. We have supported not just continuing with that taskforce, but accelerating its work. The number of arrests in the most recent quarter increased significantly on the previous quarter. What I want to see most of all is perpetrators behind bars. I want to see perpetrators pay the price for these vile crimes against children. In order to achieve that, we have to improve policing performance and the co-ordinated work between police and local councils across the country, so we will accelerate the work of the taskforce.

The hon. Gentleman refers to the ethnicity data, which was published in November. The latest report was published in November as a result of the taskforce’s work. However, I do not think the data that has been gathered is adequate. It does not go far enough. There is a real problem with the way that police forces collect data, which is very haphazard. There is not a proper system for collecting data, or a proper performance framework for policing. To be honest, I think that his Government withdrew too far from policing, and from having the kind of standards that we need to have in place. I hope that we can work together on a stronger performance framework, and a clearer framework for data, including for dealing with issues around ethnicity. Back in 2015, we had consensus on the need to ensure that race and ethnicity were never used as an excuse not to tackle crime, and that where vulnerable girls supposedly consented, when they in fact did not, that would not be used as an excuse not to tackle crime. We can never accept those excuses. I hope that we will agree on how we do that.

On inquiries, the shadow Home Secretary’s party launched the child abuse inquiry; it set the terms of reference and provided the substantial funding for it. He could have raised concerns about the inquiry’s terms of reference and scope, and the extent of its reports, at any point, including after it reported, but he did not do so until last week.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will support the work that Oldham is determined to take forward, hopefully replicating the important Telford inquiry. I hope, too, that he is prepared to work with the victims and survivors panel, which will help us to take forward the further investigations, reviews and inquiries that should take place, both locally and across the country, in order to protect child victims.