Child Abuse Inquiry

Julian Huppert Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

I welcome the tone adopted by the Home Secretary. It is absolutely right that survivors must have confidence in the work of the inquiry. May I press her on the matter of the Kincora boys home in Northern Ireland? In her statement, she has said that she will not expand the terms of reference to cover Kincora, but I understand that she wrote to the First Minister of Northern Ireland last week to say that if there was not enough co-operation from the security services, she would seek agreement to bring that matter inside the terms of reference. Will she make it clear what is likely to happen in that regard?

[Mrs May]

I am not able to look ahead and see how this is going to progress, but I am clear that we need to ensure that Sir Anthony Hart has all the information he needs to be able to undertake his investigation into Kincora. I have made it clear today that we need to ensure that nothing happens to allow any information or any individual to slip between the cracks in terms of the work of the two inquiries. We will be talking to the panel inquiry about what needs to be put in place to ensure that information can be exchanged where it is relevant to both inquiries, precisely so that people will not slip between the cracks as a result of there being two inquiries.