Child Protection

Lisa Nandy Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Gentleman is right, which is why I referred to what happened with celebrities, which was a sort of feeding frenzy and succeeded in masking the multitude of real crimes—not that the former were not real crimes—that were going on among ordinary people. That is why we need an overarching inquiry to look holistically at what went wrong, what appeared to go wrong, what was a symptom of media frenzy, and who the victims were and are. Most important, we need to give some satisfaction and confidence to the public at large that somebody is looking at this issue properly, and that there is evidence that their children are safer now—despite everything that has come out—than 10, 20 or 30 years ago. I do not think that an unreasonable ask. The former Prime Minister of Australia established a similar royal commission into historic child abuse in November 2012, to look into institutional responses to allegations of sexual abuse in Australia, particularly linked with the Catholic Church. IT has been done it there, and there is a good case for doing it here.

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case for a public inquiry, which I support. He is right to say that we need to restore confidence not just among the public at large but among victims. It seems that there is confusion in government about which Department is providing the drive and lead to ensure that these issues are tackled. When he was the Minister responsible for child protection, it was inconceivable that he would not lead on these issues in the House. This is the second time is less than a year that we have had a debate on child protection, and the other Department with responsibility has not been represented. Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern about that?

[Tim Loughton]

rose—

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[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) for consistently pushing hard to ensure that the House does not forget these important issues and that we make progress on them.

I echo the concern of the hon. Members for East Worthing and Shoreham and for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) that the Department for Education is not responding to this debate. However, I am pleased to see that the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), has arrived on the Front Bench and is listening to the debate.

Since the tragic death of Victoria Climbié nearly a decade ago, it has been widely accepted that child protection is everybody’s responsibility and that, necessarily, all central and local government departments have a role in keeping children safe. Child protection policy is fragmented across different Departments including the Department for Education, the Department of Health, the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Home Office and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is important that there is a strong lead Department so that a drive comes from somewhere in Government to ensure that the voices, needs and views of children are never forgotten.

I agree with the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, who said that child protection is primarily about education, awareness, early intervention and prevention, and that it should therefore sit with the Minister with responsibility for child protection in the Department that is responsible for children. Will the Minister confirm that the Department for Education is still responsible for such children or whether it has abandoned its child protection responsibilities altogether? The confusion is deeply concerning. Is the Home Office now the lead Department or not?

[Mr Graham Stuart]

Under the heading, “Who is responsible for child protection?” the Education Committee report stated:

“It is everyone’s responsibility…In Government terms, child protection in England is the overall responsibility of the Department for Education, which issues both statutory and non-statutory guidance”.

Would the hon. Lady, like me, welcome an intervention from a Minister to confirm that that is still the case or whether the situation has changed?

[Lisa Nandy]

I would welcome that.

It is my view that we must start with the child if we are to tackle child protection. I have a huge amount of respect for the work that the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice has done on children in the immigration detention system over several years. He will know from that experience that some children are at higher risk of harm, including migrant and trafficked children, children with disabilities, child offenders and children in care, to name just a few of the groups that I have worked with over the years. It is important that there is a focus on those children from a Department whose primary focus is the protection and welfare of children. Many of the Departments that come into contact with those children have responsibilities that conflict with children’s welfare and safety. It is therefore essential that the Department for Education takes the lead on child protection. I would be grateful for that assurance from the Ministers who are present.

I endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport said so compellingly about the importance of communicating with children, listening to them and believing them. I spoke recently to a group of brave, articulate and inspiring teenage girls in Bradford who had been through the court process. The stories that they told me about what had happened to them and how they had been treated by some, although not all, front-line professionals will stay with me for the rest of my life. It had scarred them deeply.

I endorse what my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) said about support for parents. One young girl told me, in heartbreaking terms, about how she still cannot talk to her mum, who is a single mum, about what happened to her because her mum cannot believe that it happened to her child without her knowledge. We need to do much more to support parents if we are to support children.

I also endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport said about the courts. I recently met a group of young boys and girls in Nottingham who had been through the court process. One of them had repeatedly been called a liar on the witness stand. When I asked her what she had said to the barrister who was calling her a liar, she said, “You weren’t there. You can shut up.” I endorse those words. I am proud that she had the courage to say that to him. I could not have put it better myself.

The court process had put those children through hell. They had seen the collapse of their cases. They had been called to court several times not knowing what to expect and had then found that the case would not be heard. They had also been told that they would be able to use separate entrances and exits, only to find that they were next to the entrances and exits the people who had abused them were using, and that they were coming face to face with them and their families on the way in and out of court. We should, and must, do better.

I want to mention briefly the explosion of victim blaming we saw over the summer. A 13-year-old girl was labelled

“predatory in all her actions…sexually experienced”

by the lawyer Robert Colover after she was sexually abused by a 41-year-old man, and the judge took into account that she looked older than her age. A former newspaper owner said that under-age girls were throwing themselves at adult men, and newspaper columnists dismissed a 31-year-old teacher’s sexual abuse of a child in his care because she was just a few months away from turning 16. We have to start challenging these attitudes in public.

There are many things we can do. First, we need to support the social work profession better. In a recent survey of 3,000 social workers, a stark picture was painted of intolerable work loads, unqualified staff assessing children, social workers unable to spend time with the children they were tasked with protecting, and thresholds being revised upwards so that, as one social worker said, “Amber is the new green: children who need and ask for our help are being taken away.” We have to take this issue seriously.

I was disappointed that the Government did not take on board our call for sex and relationship education to be made available in every school. We need to equip young people with the knowledge, skills and resilience to withstand pressure, and to understand what constitutes acceptable behaviour, including online. We have to get better at preventing, rather than tackling, child abuse. Only 6% of funding in this area is spent on prevention. That is not a smart use of money—it is also an absolute waste of children’s lives and we need to sort it out.

The role of hotels and bed-and-breakfast establishments in the abuse of children has recently come to public attention. Many Members will know this from their own constituency experience. When police and local councils strongly suspect that abuse is happening, they do not always have the tools they need to tackle it. There have been a number of reports of on-street grooming across the country, including in Oxfordshire and Rochdale, in which young people’s accounts of sexual abuse contain repeated references to hotels and B&Bs. In one case, the police came across reports from other guests at a hotel on the website TripAdvisor of young girls being abused by older men. That abuse had not been reported to the police by the hotel or anyone else.

Hotels and B&Bs were also the location for child sexual exploitation in up to one third of sites visited by the deputy Children’s Commissioner, in her inquiry into sexual exploitation which reported last November. I checked with the Library and it seems that hotels have no specific legal responsibility to register guests under the age of 16—only guests over the age of 16. All they have to do is ask for their name and nationality, so it is hard to track who is using them and when. They do not require a licence to operate unless they sell alcohol, and are under no specific obligation to report child abuse, although they do have general health and safety obligations. That is not good enough.

Tackling this issue is essential, but not straightforward. It would make no sense to tie up the hotel industry in a complex system of regulation that may not protect children. We know that those who do not recognise their responsibilities will often find ways to avoid them. However, we cannot continue with a situation where some businesses are turning a blind eye to child abuse without any redress whatever. I would like the Minister to make a commitment today for the Department for Education to establish a cross-departmental working group alongside those who work in the industry—hotels, child protection experts, the police, local councils and others—to explore how the legal regulatory framework can sensibly be strengthened to protect children. We know that we have to do more to protect children, and this is one area where we can and should do more.

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[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I start by echoing everything my colleagues on both sides of the House have said and hope that the Government will listen to our recommendations, because there is so much agreement on the themes that have been discussed and the changes that need to be made.

I am hugely proud to be the MP for Rotherham. The town has an esteemed industrial history, a strong sense of community and many reasons to proclaim its civic pride. We have a multitude of success stories in manufacturing and small business, as well as three leading further education colleges. However, for some time a shadow has been cast across the town in the form of persistent allegations of failures by key institutions to protect our children. The allegations have been coupled with prosecutions for child sexual exploitation in the town.

The term “child sexual exploitation” is used to cover a broad range of illegal activity, from seemingly consensual relationships or informal exchanges of sex for attention, gifts or cigarettes through to very serious organised crime. Young people can be subject to physical and sexual violence and can be put at risk of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Their families can suffer threats, violence and significant psychological distress, disruption and even fragmentation.

Peer-on-peer child sexual exploitation happens too and can take various forms. For example, young people are sometimes used to “recruit” others by inviting them to parties where they will then be introduced to adults or forced to perform sexual acts on adults. Technology can also play a significant role, with young people being cajoled into using mobile technology as a way of distributing images of abuse.

It is vital to understand that both perpetrators and victims can come from a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Child sexual exploitation is not a crime restricted to British Pakistani males or white British girls, despite the media coverage of high-profile cases. Indeed, recent findings have highlighted the fact that girls of Asian origin are frequently the subjects of this heinous crime themselves.

There is also a perception that child sexual exploitation only affects children in care. Looked-after children do account for a disproportionate number of the victims of sexual exploitation and can be particularly vulnerable. An estimated 20% to 25% of victims are looked-after children, with only 1% of the child population being in care. However, the majority of children who are exploited are still living at home when it happens.

Another false perception is that it only affects young women. In truth, boys and young men are also targeted. The full extent is not known as boys, in particular, are highly reluctant to come forward. Nevertheless, one in 10 of the young people receiving support from Barnardo’s for this crime are boys, and in some services the proportion is significantly higher.

It is also important to acknowledge that women can be perpetrators of this crime. For example, in a case currently being tried in Sheffield the alleged gang leader is a woman. Although such examples are rare, it is more common that female involvement is in facilitating the abuse. The inquiry led by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner found that when women and girls were identified as perpetrators, their role was primarily, although not exclusively, to procure victims. The sad and hidden truth behind such activity is that there is often a cycle of abuse at work, with many of those women and girls having been sexually exploited themselves.

There are no reliable figures for the total number of children experiencing sexual exploitation. The collection of data is a huge issue and there is no standardised system for data collection, something on which the Home Affairs Committee has made several recommendations. However, child sexual exploitation is being unearthed wherever it is being investigated. Further work by the Government is required to determine the full extent of the problem. In addition, the importance of all agencies sharing information in the interests of child safeguarding must be addressed. Currently, children are vulnerable because information is not always shared between them. We must move away from the excuse of confidentiality when it comes to protecting children. A child’s safety must be the priority.

Much has been written in the press about how Rotherham is not doing enough to protect its young people from this horrendous crime. I can assure the House that since being elected I have worked closely with South Yorkshire police and Rotherham metropolitan borough council to find out whether our young people are getting the protection they deserve. It is totally inaccurate to say that Rotherham is doing nothing to prevent this crime and prosecute abusers. Although more can always be done, and by the council’s own admission it has not handled historical cases well, I now believe that there is a commitment and drive by the services in Rotherham to protect every child, and I welcome the fact that the council has commissioned an independent inquiry.

[Lisa Nandy]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way despite the short time available. I just want to reflect on the fact that sometimes it is the areas that have experienced these horrific crimes that are getting to grips with the problem and becoming leaders in dealing with it. Perhaps a lesson for the House and for Ministers is that we need to look closely at those areas where such awful cases have not come to light and ensure that they are doing the same things that my hon. Friend talks about in relation to her constituency.

[Sarah Champion]

I appreciate my hon. Friend making that case. As I have mentioned, wherever we look we find such crimes, but a lot of people are not looking, and that is my worry.

It is important that services are open to external scrutiny and are accountable to the people they serve. From my research, it seems clear that the only way to tackle child sexual exploitation is by services working collaboratively. The key focus must be on preventing, protecting and pursuing: preventing young people from becoming a victim; protecting those who show signs of being at risk of becoming a victim; and pursuing those who commit such horrific crimes. Realistically, local authorities, the police, the voluntary sector and health and education services all need to share their experience, data and resources if they are effectively to tackle and prevent this crime.

Rotherham works collaboratively. Its child sexual exploitation service includes specialist child abuse police officers, social workers, specialist health workers, parents, youth workers and voluntary sector representatives. Its aim is to reduce sexual exploitation through deterrence and prosecution, and it significantly enhances the effectiveness of all agencies through joint information sharing, planning of assessments and investigations. I am pleased that Rotherham has adopted that working method but extremely concerned that it is not a requirement across the country. The current situation means that whether a local area has a good support team is genuinely a postcode lottery. That is not good enough, because it means that children are being put at risk unnecessarily. I urge the Government to make multi-agency safeguarding hubs a requirement in every area.

I have spoken about data collection, collaborative working and statutory requirements, but what this debate is really about is children and young people being abused. The effect of sexual exploitation on a child or young person can be long term and highly damaging. It can lead to difficulties in making and sustaining relationships with others, feelings of worthlessness and shame, loss of confidence and low self-esteem. It is essential that we always remember the victims of these crimes and do all that we can to support them. These are young people whose childhood has been stolen from them, and their future, if handled incorrectly, could be damaged too.

We need to ensure that the process of addressing the crime does not become another form of abuse. I was horrified to find out that a Rotherham victim had been on the stand for seven weeks during the court process. That is unimaginable to me, and it should never be allowed to happen. The victims should automatically be given counselling and as much support as they require. Indeed, I would extend that to ensure that the whole family received support, as the damage caused by this crime can spread widely.

On a personal level, I am interested in determining whether existing legislation is appropriate for tackling the crime, and I will be working with Barnardo’s on this topic in the coming months. I am also supporting the campaign led by Paula Barrow and assisted by the @Mandatenow coalition calling for a “Daniel’s law”, which would make it mandatory for professionals working with children to report signs of possible abuse. As my colleagues have mentioned, four-year-old Daniel Pelka was starved and beaten over a period of months before his death. Staff, teaching assistants and others at his school observed his desperate attempts to forage for food, his severe weight loss and the numerous bruises and injuries he suffered. There is currently no legal requirement for anyone working with children in the UK to report suspected or known abuse either to the appropriate local authority officer or to the police. Without such a law in place to support staff and protect children, effective safeguarding will never be achieved. However, this is not only the responsibility of professionals. Local communities play an essential part in identifying not only those at risk but those who have the potential to commit these crimes. We all have a duty of care to be diligent and to report suspicious behaviour to the police. Unless we do so, this vile crime will continue unchecked.