Sexual Offences

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, this has to be a multiagency approach. It is a job that local government will have across its desk in terms of protecting vulnerable children. The police will have it across their desks. The Department of Health will have it across its desk. It is also the job of education to ensure that girls—predominantly—who may be vulnerable to this sort of exploitation are supported in the communities in which they live. I have outlined the various funding packages to try to prevent such things happening, but the noble Lord is not wrong when he says that resources need to go into this. Sometimes the public’s priorities are not the priorities that the police might seek to invest in, but this is a major national priority.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister may have read the Times report this morning on the county lines abuse of young children in Bradford. I am sure that the Government think that getting at this abuse of children through county lines drug networks is also a priority. The last time I was driven around north Bradford by one of our local councillors, I did not see a single policeman on the streets all afternoon—although I did see three people peddling drugs on the streets as we passed by. Does that not mean that we need larger resources than we have at the moment to cope with the underlying social issues that give rise to this sort of exploitation of children, male and female?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is absolutely right to bring up the issue of county lines, because that encompasses everything we have been talking about in response to the Question of the noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, as well as to this one. There is definitely a link between gangs, guns, drugs and exploitation, and at the heart of it—always—is exploited children.