Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Chris Philp Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

Let us start by remembering the victims of this scandal. Thousands of young girls, often in their early teens, were systematically raped by gangs of men, predominantly of Pakistani heritage. Those in positions of authority—the police, local councils and the Crown Prosecution Service—ignored them and, in some cases, even covered up these horrendous crimes because of absurd concerns about so-called cultural sensitivity.

Ten days ago, the Prime Minister compounded this by saying that it was a “far-right bandwagon” to raise these issues and call for a proper inquiry. Let me say this: it is not far right to stand up for rape victims, and smearing those who raised this issue is exactly what led to the victims—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. The shadow Home Secretary will be heard.

[Chris Philp]

Smearing those who raised this issue is exactly what led to the victims being ignored and the crimes covered up in the first place. Therefore, will the Home Secretary apologise on behalf of the Prime Minister for his language last week?

It is not true to say that the previous Government did nothing following the IICSA report. They set up the grooming gangs taskforce following the IICSA report, which led to 550 arrests of perpetrators in the first year alone, and I am glad that the new Government are continuing that work.

In April 2023, the data collection on the ethnicity of perpetrators was initiated, but the initial publication of that—I think last November—showed that the collection is incomplete. Will the Home Secretary ensure both that the police follow through on the work initiated in April 2023 and that the data is collected more comprehensively?

The mandatory reporting recommendation was introduced as an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill, which fell due to the early general election. I am glad that the Government say that they will now pick that up and take it forward.

Previous reports and reviews did not go far enough. The IICSA report itself was mainly not about these rape gangs. In fact, it barely touched on the issue and looked at only six towns. We now believe that as many as 50 towns could have been affected, so the IICSA barely scratched the surface.

The Home Secretary just announced Government support for only five local inquiries. That is wholly inadequate when we know that up to 50 towns are affected. I have some serious questions for the Home Secretary. First, how are the other 40-plus towns supposed to get answers to the questions that they have, and how will these initial five towns be chosen?

Secondly, the Home Secretary said nothing in her statement about the powers that these local inquiries will have. It seems that they will not be statutory inquiries under the Inquiries Act 2005. That means that these local inquiries will not have the power to compel witnesses to attend, to take evidence under oath or to requisition written evidence. If that is the case, how can they possibly get to the truth when faced with cover-ups? It was precisely that problem—the lack of powers—that reportedly led the chairs of the Manchester local inquiry to resign last year. They were not given the information that they needed by public authorities, and did not have the powers required to force its release, so they resigned.

Legal powers are needed, because these crimes were deliberately covered up in some cases. We heard just a week or two ago from the former Labour MP for Rochdale Simon Danczuk, who said that the then chair of the parliamentary Labour party told him not to raise these issues for fear of losing Muslim votes—truly appalling. Not a single person has been convicted for covering up or ignoring these crimes. In my view, the criminal offence of misconduct in public office might apply. Moreover, those vile perpetrators who can be deported should be deported, every single one of them—changing the law if that is needed to do it, and using visa sanctions on countries such as Pakistan to ensure that they accept eligible perpetrators.

What the Home Secretary has announced today is totally inadequate. It will cover only a fraction of the towns affected, and it appears that the inquiries will not have the legal powers they need. That is why we need a proper, full national public inquiry, covering the whole country and with the powers under the Inquiries Act 2005 that are needed to obtain the evidence required. It is not just me who thinks that; in the last week or two, the Labour Members for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and for Liverpool Walton (Dan Carden) have called for a full national inquiry, as has Andy Burnham, the Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester. I commend those Members and Andy Burnham for their courage in speaking out.

Recent polling shows that the vast majority of the public want a full national public inquiry, including 73% of Labour voters. Most importantly, so do victims. Jane was groomed and abused at the age of just 12. She was gang raped repeatedly. She told the police and she told her social worker. At one point, the police even found her being abused by an illegal immigrant, but instead of arresting him, they arrested her. Jane still does not know if any of her abusers have been jailed, or if any of the public officials who let her down so badly have been held to account. Jane now wants a proper national public inquiry—Home Secretary, why don’t you?

[Yvette Cooper]

These are the most vile crimes, against teenagers, children and young girls. Very often they involve sadistic abuse, rape and the most appalling trauma that can last for many years. The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse ran for seven years and took evidence from 7,000 victims and survivors across the country. Too many of those voices, and the bravery that those victims showed, have just being ignored. The right hon. Gentleman says that he took action, but I am afraid the Conservative party had 10 years to introduce a duty to report child abuse, make it a responsibility of professionals to report it, and make it an offence to cover up child abuse. I was calling for that 10 years ago. The Prime Minister was calling for it 12 years ago. The right hon. Gentleman failed to do it, and we have lost a decade as a result.

The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse also ran a two-year investigation of child sexual exploitation and grooming gangs. One of the shocking things that it found was that less is now known and understood about the prevalence of this appalling crime than prior to 2015. In the period 2015 to 2022, even after we knew about what had happened in Rotherham, and Baroness Louise Casey had identified its impact and the failure to address issues of race and ethnicity, the previous Government went backwards on gathering data and information, and the need for proper evidence. That is why this Government have commissioned Baroness Louise Casey to instigate a rapid review to uncover the prevalence of this appalling crime across the country, with no holds barred, in the way that we know she will conduct this inquiry, to fill the gaps in the evidence, rather than rerun the same questions without the evidence and data that we badly need.

I also point out to the shadow Minister that his party weakened the disclosure and barring rules in 2012, again making changes that I and the Policing Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson), opposed at the time, and that the independent inquiry rightly recommended reversing in order to keep children safe. Again, his party failed to act.

I hope the action we have announced will be supported right across the country. It includes the duty to report child abuse; proper penalties for covering it up; stronger sentences for grooming gangs; new rights for victims to get an independent review on reopening their case; new action to reopen historical police investigations; new standards for the police to meet; a new victims and survivors panel; a new audit of the scale and nature of child sexual exploitation and grooming gangs, led by someone who uncovered a lot of the problems in Rotherham, including the failure to confront Pakistani-heritage gangs; the gathering and publishing of new ethnicity data, which the shadow Minister failed to do; new national support for local inquiries, including the Telford model; victims panels; new work on accountability linked to the Hillsborough law to hold failures to account, because we will strengthen the law to do so; and a proper timetable for taking forward the independent inquiry, because this has to be about action and protecting children and keeping them safe.