Child Sexual Abuse

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Allen]

I am afraid that I have only 15 minutes to make my contribution.

I repeat: why? Let us imagine we had acted a quarter of a century ago—think of the body of work that a national institute could have produced by now on what works, what does not work, and what policies can be applied at lots of different levels in a multi-agency situation. We could have had an absolute treasure chest of things that would help us tackle child sexual abuse. Had we acted then, countless numbers of victims could have been saved from abuse and the development of thousands of potential perpetrators could have been prevented. The creation of a national institute is a chance for us to make a start now—to banish the feelings that we all have of powerlessness and anger and instead substitute a clear, practical solution.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

rose—

[Mr Allen]

I apologise for not giving way because I have so little time to get these things on the record.

There is an enormous amount of excellent work to build on—we are not starting with a blank sheet of paper—by the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, Barnardo’s, the Wave Trust, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Circles UK, the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, the Quakers, our Children’s Commissioner, the National Working Group Network and the International Centre at Bedford University, to name but a few. I say to the Minister that they should all be valued and made close partners in this venture. Competition in this field would not and should not be tolerated at all. Working together will be the key to unlocking some of the answers.

I have the good fortune to write extensively, and on a cross-party basis, on early intervention and I set up Nottingham as the first early intervention city. As a result, the Prime Minister asked me to write two independent reports on early intervention for Her Majesty’s Government. The reports made many recommendations, the key one being the creation of a “what works” centre for early intervention: an independent charity, rooted in evidence-based policy that would share knowledge, promote best practice and link up early intervention services across the whole country. With the Government’s help, I was able to create the Early Intervention Foundation, which has been running for almost two years and has become the national authority on all early intervention evidence and practice.

I say that in order to make a very simple point: nothing less will be acceptable for a national institute for the study and prevention of the sexual abuse of children. It must be a centre for excellence and the national authority for what has already been proven to work.

One of the most important weapons against child sexual abuse will be evidence-sharing. Many local authorities, charities and agencies do great work, but all of us are stronger if we learn from each other and share wisdom and successes. In order to have that and credibility, it is essential that the institute is broadly constituted and broadly governed, and is not the property of one successful bidder, however eminent they may be.

We can no longer pretend that child sexual abuse has not happened in all corners of the UK. As the Home Office report says:

“Any local authority or police force that denies that it has a problem, or thinks that it is only happening elsewhere, is wrong.”

Organisations confronting child sexual abuse cannot win without a strong, independent source of evidence and best practice that they can turn to, be encouraged by and confide in.

Louise Casey’s superb report earlier this year on child sexual exploitation showed that, even today, many localities continue to deny or totally misunderstand the scale of the problem. A national institute, in the words of the Home Office report,

“will support areas that are struggling to get it right.”

It is so important that we all help each other to understand some of the ways forward in this field. Poor practice in multi-agency working, information sharing and risk assessment have led to the major failures that were highlighted in recent reports on Rotherham and Greater Manchester and that are evident elsewhere. It is vital that a national institute becomes a hub for evidence and best practice, so that all agencies can invest together wisely in prevention and in the most effective therapies to help victims.

A new national institute should never deal with an individual case or initiate inquiries or inquiries on scandals or celebrities. Its reputation must be for hard evidence—it must be unimpeachable and apolitical—so that it will be as trusted, I hope, as the Early Intervention Foundation. Above all, it must research the root causes of child sexual abuse. Why do people perpetrate these unimaginable crimes? How do we prevent abusive behaviour from developing in the first place? Those questions must be addressed, because understanding the causes will allow us to take action to prevent these horrible episodes in future. Simply recognising and breaking the inter- generational nature of much of this offending will save thousands of broken lives.

Of course, firefighting will always be necessary. There is a plethora of public inquiries and criminal proceedings that must be pursued with vigour and rigour. Those inquiries are vital for the victims of these awful crimes, but clearly the Government now understand that they must also think about the future, setting out a long-term plan—crucially, on an all-party basis—so that I do not have to haunt similar debates in another 26 years’ time.

One enormous side effect of a national institute would be the local and national economic benefits. Early intervention has been proven to save taxpayers billions of pounds. Tackling the root causes of sexual abuse would mean much less money was spent on large inquiries and criminal trials and, above all, on lifetimes of massively expensive care for damaged individuals and families.

The most important saving that a national institute would bring would be felt by our children themselves. Saving future generations from horrific and avoidable experiences must be the key driver of our actions. We must intervene pre-emptively to eradicate the sexual abuse of children over a generation and longer, not only to protect children now, but to prevent future abuse. A national institute should not have to go around with a begging bowl, or cap in hand; it should be secure in its future so that it can undertake this tremendously important work. I know that the Minister feels strongly about that.

With a national institute, we can start to do something about this issue by helping people and ensuring that they have the social and emotional capability to make choices—the choice not to become an abuser—and the strength to resist grooming when it is taking place. Although there is no magic wand to prevent child sexual abuse from happening, there is a growing body of national and international programmes and practices that can be tested, evidenced and replicated so that they are costed, ranked and accessible to all the agencies that need to access them. They can build on good parenting and the social and emotional bedrock for babies, children and young people that is at the heart of early intervention.

Child abuse is about inhumanity, cruelty, domination and dysfunction; our alternative is about empathy, love, nurture and humanity. When people have social and emotional capability, it is difficult to go wrong. If they do not have that, they might deliver adverse childhood experiences that, at their most dysfunctional and extreme, can include the sexual abuse of children.

I congratulate the Minister on getting the initiative to this point. I must share with him, however, that when I got the concept of the Early Intervention Foundation to this point, even with full prime ministerial approval, it took a further two years of battling in Whitehall to get it established. My hard questions to him are therefore: what time scale does he have in mind? How will he ensure that the governance of a national institute is independent? As I alluded to earlier, what financial provision will he put in place to ensure the longevity and sustainability that will be necessary to match the intergenerational nature of the task?

By the time of the next election, the national institute for the study and prevention of the sexual abuse of children could be celebrating its fourth birthday. It could have a full menu of best practices and programmes. It could have a website, accessible to all agencies. It could be advising perhaps 30 champion localities throughout the country. It could have a clear, independent, charitable governance structure. It could be at the heart of an international network and be a respected, credible organisation. But most of all, it could have enabled tens of thousands more children to have been raised without the life-wasting curse of sexual abuse.

Some may regard it as an onerous responsibility that the Minister is taking on; I suggest to him that it is one of the most exciting and rewarding challenges that any of us could hope for, and I personally will help him in every way he sees fit.

[The Minister for Children and Families (Edward Timpson)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) on securing this very important debate. Having known him for many years, it comes as no surprise to me that he sought to bring to the Floor of the House the serious issue of child sexual abuse at the earliest opportunity in this Parliament.

I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that tackling all forms of abuse and exploitation of children is a priority for this Government, as it was for the last Government, and it remains essential that how we tackle abuse—as a Government, as professionals and as a society—is underpinned by robust evidence of what works and what will deliver the best outcomes for children and young people. However, the fact remains that we need to know much more about the approaches that are most effective; we need to know not only what services work best for young people who have suffered abuse but how to prevent abuse from happening in the first place.

[Jim Shannon]

Will the Minister give way?

[Edward Timpson]

I will give way very quickly, because I want to ensure that the hon. Member for Nottingham North receives a full answer.

[Jim Shannon]

One thing that concerns me is the issue of gathering evidence, for instance building the evidential base in the case of Kincora and what happened in Northern Ireland. That evidence should be used to improve the expertise that is necessary to deliver for children and to give them the protection that they need.

[Edward Timpson]

I will reiterate this point later, but there is no doubt that there is evidence not only in the United Kingdom, within which Northern Ireland plays a key role, but internationally. We need to ensure that we use the best evidence we can gather to inform practice on the ground. We should seek it wherever it exists and not suggest that we have all the solutions here at home. I am sure that anything that could contribute to that process would be welcome.

Social workers, police, doctors, nurses, youth workers, schools and judges all have a crucial role to play in tackling child sexual abuse, and indeed other forms of abuse and neglect, and yet we have not done enough to help to equip those professionals with the evidence of what works. That is why I am pleased to use this debate to reinforce the Government’s commitment to establishing a new centre of expertise on tackling child sexual abuse. Its primary purpose will be to improve our understanding of what works to prevent sexual abuse and sexual exploitation, of how best to help people who have suffered from this horrendous crime, and of how to work with the perpetrators to prevent them from reoffending in the future.

Why is that so important? Well, we cannot escape the reality that many victims have been failed by the system. They have been failed by a lack of sensitivity, by a lack of understanding, by a lack of willingness of professionals to listen to and believe them, and by a system that has been too quick to jump to conclusions and to blame.

“Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation”, the report that was issued in March, set out how we are responding to the failures identified by Professor Alexis Jay and Louise Casey, to whom I again pay tribute for their insightful and hard-hitting contributions. The inquiry led by Lowell Goddard is investigating the shocking claims of child sexual abuse by those in positions of power. We are also seeing police forces up and down the country showing real and renewed determination to tackle child sexual exploitation wherever it occurs, but they need the tools to do that.

Local areas say that they are frequently told what “failure” looks like but no one has articulated what “good” looks like. So we need to learn not only from areas where things have gone wrong but from areas where things have gone well. We need to garner that knowledge from parts of the country where all professionals are striving to do their best for children and young people; where agencies work closely, and share data and intelligence; where action is taken swiftly; and where services are provided to help victims and to bring perpetrators to justice. Practitioners working in this way are doing so because of their commitment, their experience and their professional judgement, but too often they are hampered by process and by lack of evidence. As the hon. Member for Nottingham North reminded us, he first proposed, as far back as 1990, a national institute to tackle child sexual abuse and, as he put it, the root causes of child sexual abuse. He was right to propose it then, and he is right to raise it again now, and I can assure him that we are fully committed to achieving this shared vision.

That is not to say that our collective understanding has been at a complete standstill since the 1990s, but there is still much we do not know and there are gaps across the full range of work with children and young people, families and perpetrators. That is why establishing a new centre of expertise is a real opportunity to build a shared understanding of how best to address and tackle child sexual abuse, not just to help us to make decisions in government, but to support and improve practice by social workers, the police, the NHS, youth workers, schools, early years settings and many others, all of which the centre will need to work with.

What will the centre do? It will look at the full spectrum of child sexual abuse. As an active advocate of the importance of early intervention, the hon. Gentleman will recognise the need for the centre to look at how to reduce the vulnerability of young people to abuse and exploitation. We need to know what early interventions can help—for example, what role schools can play and what families and carers can do—and what we can do to promote resilience. We also need to understand how to identify risk and prevent situations from escalating. We need to know how agencies work best together, how to assess risk swiftly and effectively, and how to safeguard vulnerable groups such as children in residential care.

We have already established a £7 million fund to support victims of child sexual abuse. I have seen from my own experiences growing up with foster brothers and sisters the impact that abuse and neglect can have. To improve our response to such trauma, we need to know what therapeutic and other support is most effective, and what young people themselves feel they need and for how long. Just as vitally, we need to understand more about the behaviours of offenders. How can we prevent them from offending and reoffending? What leads to the successful disruption of perpetrators? What factors help to achieve a successful prosecution?