Ofsted Review of Sexual Abuse in Schools and Colleges

Clive Efford Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

May I also thank the girls from Stroud High School? It takes great bravery and courage to do that, yet it is actions like that by young girls and women across the country that are helping to make the world a better place for future children.

As I said earlier, I can confirm that the strongest protections in the online safety Bill are for children. It is particularly important that companies will be required to protect children from illegal and harmful content, including self-generated content when it is on their platforms. There is, however, still the challenge of peer-on-peer sharing. That is one of the reasons why I believe so strongly that the Home Secretary is right in her firm statements about the risk of end-to-end encryption that we already see, for example, on WhatsApp, but which is potentially coming into other areas. That is another issue that will be need to be considered.

It is really important that we have asked the Children’s Commissioner to do this deep piece of work. She is an extraordinarily experienced former school leader who brings great passion into this world. In fact, I met her only this week to discuss the issue. We must take every step. We know that legislating in the digital world can sometimes be challenging, but we are ahead of the world on this and are absolutely committed to the end objective: ensuring that our children are, as far as possible, as safe online as they are offline. Again, this is also an issue of helping to change the cultural dial.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

When I read the report at lunchtime today, I was absolutely shocked by the scale of the problem that was described by young people themselves. We have known that this problem existed, which is why the review took place, but the evidence that has come forward is startling.

I was in local government when ChildLine was set up in response to the fact that young people could not get their voices heard when they were suffering problems in care. I note that there is the now the hotline to the NSPCC, but that is due to end in October. Will the Minister consider not only whether that should continue beyond October, but whether there should also be a programme to advertise that number and encourage young people to use it going forward, in perpetuity?

This certainly is a problem where boys specifically are the offenders. Does the Minister think that there should be a specific part of the RSHE curriculum that deals with boys’ behaviour and attitudes to make them aware of the problems that their behaviour causes?

[Vicky Ford]

First, let me discuss the specific helpline that we have set up. We obviously fund many other helplines through the NSPCC, including the ChildLine number, at the moment. Since we set up the helpline, we have had 400 calls, so as long as it is being used, it is good. If we start to see it tailing away—I cannot comment post October.[Official Report, 17 June 2021, Vol. 697, c. 6MC.] But we do want to ensure that there is always a place that a child can go to for advice. At the moment, this helpline is the bespoke place for advice, but that is why we have committed to the NSPCC and ChildLine for so many years.

Let me turn to boys. Again, part of the whole new RSHE curriculum is teaching healthy relationships and healthy behaviour: what is acceptable and not acceptable; what is coercive behaviour; what is abusive behaviour; what is harassment; and respect for each other. I think it is important that while we are clear that abuse is abhorrent, we also need to recognise that not all boys and men are abusers, and no one is saying that. We need to make sure that we put in protections and that we are there to act and help a girl who has been abused, but not make the suggestion that all boys are inherently abusers. That is the level that teachers will be working to when they are teaching this, to ensure that they get the balance right.