Child Sexual Exploitation: Casey Report

Elsie Blundell Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

Everyone should want not just to get to the truth about past failures, but to ensure we make the changes to protect children for the future. That includes changes in social services; changes in policing and the police operation, which I hope the right hon. Lady would welcome, to take action to put perpetrators behind bars; and action to gather proper ethnicity data, which simply has not been gathered properly before. Louise Casey’s report is very clear: the data gathering that the right hon. Lady’s Government left behind is totally inadequate. I hope she will agree to all those factors being extremely important, so that we can get stronger protection, and truth, for victims.

[Mrs Elsie Blundell (Heywood and Middleton North) (Lab)]

I welcome the Government’s announcement that there will be a national inquiry. Every penny spent on stamping out the evil of child abusers is money well spent. Although welcome, notice of this inquiry will undoubtedly cause a great deal of trauma and distress for both historic and present-day victims, as violations committed against them are revisited. As the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) referenced, what steps can the Government take to ensure that victims and witnesses have access to robust mental health support? How can we ensure that our courts—as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams)—especially in places like Greater Manchester that face extensive court backlogs, are sufficiently resourced to ensure that at the end of the process justice is finally delivered?

[Yvette Cooper]

I know that my hon. Friend has championed victims and survivors in her area and community. She is right to say that we have to make sure that victims and survivors get support. Some 7,000 victims and survivors gave evidence to the original Professor Alexis Jay inquiry. It is so important that they did not do so in vain, and that we make the reforms and the changes related to that recommendation. My hon. Friend is also right to say we need to increase the therapeutic support for victims and survivors. That will start with providing additional support for children.

Child Rape Gangs

Elsie Blundell Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips]

I will check the record and make sure, but what I am absolutely certain of is the number of times that Telford council wrote and asked. I am aware that Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford, Oxford, or any of the places that have had an inquiry, were never given a single bean by the previous Government to do that work, and yet here we are and we will do it.

[Mrs Elsie Blundell (Heywood and Middleton North) (Lab)]

Communities across Heywood and Middleton North, however resilient, still bear the scars of these appalling and cowardly acts. I am grateful to the Minister for her continued engagement and resolve in addressing the cruel legacy of those crimes. What steps are being taken by her Department to learn from the healthcare practitioners, support workers and others who were active at the time of these crimes and initial inquiries to ensure that they can provide their insights and expertise to inform the commendable present-day efforts to secure justice for the women and girls?

[Jess Phillips]

I commend my hon. Friend’s work, and I know she is coming to see me with some of those healthcare workers. Sara Rowbotham—a woman I know well who works in sexual health services—was one of the whistleblowers in the Rochdale case. We absolutely need to ensure that, as we make progress, we listen to anybody who interacts with children and that people have space to come forward and speak up. The mandatory duty to report will go some way, but changing the culture to ensure that people are listened to and heard—in the health setting they know that better than in most—is definitely something that we will learn.

Oral Answers to Questions

Elsie Blundell Excerpts

Monday 29th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alison Hume (Scarborough and Whitby) (Lab)]

5. What steps her Department plans to take to tackle violence against women and girls.

[Mrs Elsie Blundell (Heywood and Middleton North) (Lab)]

12. What steps her Department plans to take to tackle violence against women and girls.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right to point out the important work done by refuges, as well as all kinds of voluntary sector groups who do immensely important work supporting victims and providing specialist advice. We have to recognise that funding for local council services has been hit; that is one of the issues that will be covered by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in her statement in due course. We want to see work done in every community across the country as part of this mission, so that we get the best impact from every pound there is for supporting women and girls who face violence and abuse.

[Mrs Blundell]

My constituency carries painful scars from a time when vulnerable girls were subjected to abuse and exploitation, but across the country it is not just so-called grooming gangs that present a danger to girls; abuse happens online, in institutions and in the home. What measures will the new Government put in place to target perpetrators and address the root causes of abuse and violence, to ensure that what happened to vulnerable girls in my constituency can never happen again?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an immensely important point. She is a strong voice for victims of the most terrible abuse and violence. We need to ensure that victims get support, and that action is taken against perpetrators. Too often, the focus is on the too-weak support for victims, and there is not enough proper, strong action to go after perpetrators and ensure that they face justice for their terrible crimes. We will set out a new perpetrators programme to properly ensure that the police pursue the most dangerous offenders when it comes to violence against women and girls. That is the best way to ensure that everyone can stay safe.