Child Abuse

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

It is precisely in order to learn the lessons that we need to know what was going on, and the inquiry is obviously going to have to look quite widely in order to find that out. It will have to look at the documentary evidence from the reviews that have taken place. I do not want to dictate to the inquiry what it should do or how it should undertake its work, but I am sure that the chairman and the panel will be alive to the fact that, in order to get to the truth, they will need to hear from those who have felt unable to speak out in the past.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I also welcome the Home Secretary’s statement. May I press her on the point about the missing 114 files and ask how the investigator could have concluded, without having had sight of them, that they had not been “removed or destroyed inappropriately”? Did the Home Secretary ask that question herself?

[Mrs May]

I made it absolutely clear earlier that that review was initiated by the permanent secretary, and that it reported to the permanent secretary. The review itself has been passed to the police, together with any appropriate evidence that it was felt right to pass to the police. Obviously, the review looked at a large number of files and put together evidence as to how these matters were dealt with. The whole question of how it looked at the judgments that were made by the investigator when he undertook the review is one of the issues that will be looked at by the review of the review.