Child Houses for Child Victims of Sexual Abuse

Lord Addington Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that point. As I said in my initial Answer to the Question, we have recognised the great importance and success rate of the Lighthouse model. As part of the response to the recommendations from IICSA, we are looking at how we can roll that out. That is a cross-government issue with other government departments as well as the Home Office, but we are intent on ensuring that we have an ambitious proposal for therapeutic support, and that model is certainly one we are looking to roll out still further.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, to carry on in the same vein as the other question, it seems quite clear that you have to work across departments which often bump into Chinese walls. Do we have a structure where local authorities come together to have a coherent strategy in clusters to do this, and to work with the various police forces?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

One of the important issues that came out of the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 was a duty to collaborate on this issue. That duty to collaborate is now law and will incentivise and promote joint working needed to ensure that we achieve that multi-agency model of support. My colleagues in the Ministry of Justice are consulting on the guidance on the duty to collaborate and there will be further announcements in due course, but that very co-operative approach is what is needed.