Duncan Hames
Main Page: Duncan Hames (Liberal Democrat - Chippenham)Department Debates - View all Duncan Hames's debates with the Home Office
(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Mrs May
I recognise the points made by the hon. Gentleman—another Member of this House who has campaigned long and hard on these issues. As I understand it, and as I said earlier, the file has been passed to the police so that they can look at any issues within that file that they should be properly investigating. I assure the House that the file will be made available—as it is my intention that all files should be made available—to the inquiry panel, so that it can be appropriately looked at and considered in its work.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
We have seen in the criminal justice system that delays to investigations matter, not least because of the age, declining health and, ultimately, mortality of the accused, resulting in survivors being robbed of the opportunity to have their evidence heard in court. How does the Home Secretary propose to ensure that the circumstances surrounding such cases do not similarly fall out of the reach of the inquiry?
Mrs May
The hon. Gentleman is right that for those who have specific allegations of abuse, of criminal activity having taken place, it is important that that be properly investigated. It is possible to bring people to justice some years after the events about which allegations were made. I refer the hon. Gentleman, for example, to the work of the National Crime Agency through Operation Pallial in north Wales, where an individual has been prosecuted despite the fact that the allegations concerned incidents that took place some years ago. We are already ensuring that allegations that come forward are properly passed to the police, not waiting for the inquiry to get fully up and running before doing so. Those allegations are being properly looked at.