Child Sexual Exploitation: Casey Report

Florence Eshalomi Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member raises the timescale. In the discussions we have had with Baroness Casey, and recognising the many issues that people want to raise in the inquiry, we had expected that it would take around three years, but if the commission is able to work faster than that, people will clearly want answers as swiftly as possible. The final details about the timings are obviously to be determined.

We need to make sure both that we are implementing the recommendations of previous inquiries and that we are pursuing further the investigations in local areas as swiftly as possible. I reiterated in my statement a recognition of the huge harm that has been done to victims and survivors through the decades. I would urge the hon. Member to look at the 17-page section of Louise Casey’s report on the failure, year after year, to follow through and take action, and I do believe that victims and survivors are owed an apology for that failure over very many years.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

I think it is fair to say that although there are many issues in this House we disagree on, an issue of this magnitude is something that should bring all of us, as parliamentarians, together to work to ensure that we get justice for the victims. The Home Secretary outlined the next phase, but if we are really honest with ourselves, for every victim who has come forward to share her horrific testimony, there are so many more girls up and down the country who have not come forward. It is in their interests that we make sure we get this right. The Home Secretary outlined the issues around data and the lack of data gathering. One area I have raised consistently is criminal exploitation by gangs who sexually exploit young people and then use them to carry out their horrific county lines up and down the country. Does the Home Secretary agree that the collection of data must also lay with the Metropolitan police, other police forces across the country and the British Transport police?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right that so many victims and survivors do not come forward. We need to make it easier for people to do so, and recognise the scale of abuse. I agree with her on the really important issue about county lines and the interaction between criminal exploitation and sexual exploitation. Too often, the county lines and criminal exploitation is seen as an issue involving teenage boys, but very often teenage girls are also drawn in—and very often, that also means sexual exploitation. I do not believe that enough investigation has yet been done into that particular pattern and form of child sexual abuse and exploitation. As we strengthen the law on the criminal exploitation of children, we need to ensure that this issue is properly pursued, as she says, as part of the data gathering and through further research.