Fiona Mactaggart
Main Page: Fiona Mactaggart (Labour - Slough)Department Debates - View all Fiona Mactaggart's debates with the Home Office
(9 years ago)
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Mrs May
I agree that we always need to send very clear messages to the perpetrators about how seriously we take this crime and the intent to deal with it. The courts will always consider a case more seriously when the victim is a child, and that includes 16 or 17 year olds. The Sentencing Council’s definitive guidance on sexual offences came into effect in April last year, and it provides for the courts to sentence more severely individuals in cases where victims are particularly vulnerable, as will often be the case with sexual exploitation involving 16 or 17 year olds.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
22. The Secretary of State will be aware that a really quite frightening proportion of the 16 and 17-year-old girls who are victims of sexual exploitation have been in the care of the local state. What action is she taking to prevent the grooming of such vulnerable young women into sexual exploitation?
Mrs May
Sadly, the right hon. Lady is absolutely right to say that a shocking number of those who find themselves being exploited and subjected to child sexual abuse will have been in the care of the state. That is an appalling record for the state, and it has gone on for many years. It is one reason why the Justice Goddard inquiry will look at how institutions have, or have not, undertaken their duty of care. As part of the work that we did following the Rotherham report, we are working with my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and the Secretary of State for Education to see exactly what approach should be taken at local authority level with those in care and others who report abuse to the local authority.