Child Rape Gangs

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

I would thank the noble Lord for the question, but I am not going to. With regard to the independent inquiry, the former leader of his party, the noble Baroness, Lady May, instituted a national inquiry. Some 7,000 victims gave evidence. There were 2 million pages of evidence to be considered; it took 99 months and cost £192.6 million. That inquiry and the recommendations by Professor Jay were delivered to the previous Government in October 2022 and there was no response: not a single recommendation was followed. In fact, the FT quoted a government veteran from the last Government as saying:

“The report came out at an unfortunate time and was maybe to some extent forgotten or deprioritised”.


This Government have sought to move as quickly as possible within our first nine months. We have acted on 17 of the recommendations made in the IICSA report and we are moving forward with local inquiries. We look forward to the response to the national audit that has been undertaken by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, which we will receive next month.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, the weekend’s tragic news of the death of Virginia Giuffre highlights the long-term effects of child sexual abuse. I should declare an interest, as my sister suffered serious sexual abuse as a child. Her entire life thereafter was dominated by its effect, with three serious suicide attempts by the age of 20 and mental illness for the rest of her life.

On Monday, no Government Minister mentioned the involvement of gangs of men from the Asian subcontinent, yet this is precisely what led to inaction by police and other children’s safeguarding bodies, and public perception of a cover-up of deeply misogynist and racist crimes. Will the Government admit that this very serious national problem mainly involves men from a large UK minority; otherwise, they risk the democratic danger of appearing to pander to a key section of their voter base?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I am so sorry to hear of the experiences of the noble Lord’s sister. I can only send my heartfelt support for her.

The Home Office has doubled funding for supporting adult survivors, which is incredibly important when we consider the genuine scale of the issue. The British crime survey last year said that 11.5% of women had experienced child sexual abuse under the age of 16—these figures are horrendous.

With regard to the question about perpetrators of crime, in January, the Home Secretary announced the national audit by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, on group-based sexual exploitation and abuse, which is in its final stages. The audit will improve national understanding of the scale, nature and profile of group-based violence, including the characteristics and ethnicity.