Child Abuse Inquiry

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman has made a number of assumptions about the process. I reiterate what I said earlier: Fiona Woolf wrote to me with the intention of being as transparent as possible about any issues and connections she felt it appropriate to refer to me. Obviously, it has been shown that the secretariat looked at a number of drafts. The letter that came to me was the letter that Fiona Woolf agreed.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

On preventing future child abuse, the two cases of grooming I have dealt with during my time as an MP have both involved 15-year-old girls in relationships with men where the police and other agencies simply described them as having bad taste in boyfriends. It was almost as though there was a countdown to their 16th birthdays, when they thought they could wash their hands of them. Does the Home Secretary agree that, even if people present as being in a relationship, that is still clearly a case of child abuse and something we ought to be seeking to prevent?

[Mrs May]

That is another example of the issue raised earlier by the hon. Member for Stockport—namely, an attitude to young people that has dismissed some instances. It could very well be the case that a girl of 15 is in an abusive relationship. If so, it needs to be considered as an abusive relationship and the allegations need to be considered properly, rather than simply dismissed because of the age of the individual. Everybody needs to recognise that there is an age of consent, below which people should look very seriously at the allegations made.