Asked by: Lucy Allan (Conservative - Telford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps are being taken to ensure that Members of Parliament are kept regularly briefed on the accommodation of Afghan refugees in their constituencies.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
I have taken a number of steps to keep Members of Parliament up to date on Afghan resettlement. I have previously sent two letters to colleagues; one providing an update on casework to the Home Office on Afghanistan and one updating on the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS).
I gave detailed evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee and I have updated the House on a number of occasions, including in January announcing the launch of the ACRS. Members can also continue to raise specific enquiries with MP Account Management via the Home Office MP Enquiry line or through requested engagement surgeries.
I meet individual MPs to discuss bridging accommodation queries within their constituencies and will be holding a general drop in session after recess for MPs with bridging accommodation in their constituencies.
Asked by: Lucy Allan (Conservative - Telford)
Question to the Home Office:
What steps her Department plans to take to build on the work of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse on grooming gangs.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Government is committed to keeping children and young people safe from all forms of abuse.
The Inquiry’s investigation into child sexual exploitation by organised networks is ongoing. We will consider the Inquiry’s findings when they are published.
Our work to tackle this heinous crime continues, in the meantime, as I saw for myself when meeting victims in Rotherham recently. We will publish a strategy this year, setting out our plans to tackle all forms of child sexual abuse, including grooming gangs.
Asked by: Lucy Allan (Conservative - Telford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress her Department has made on its research on the profiling of the perpetrators of child sexual exploitation.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Home Office has considered evidence from a range of sources including existing research, published and unpublished data, and insight from investigators and safeguarding professionals to better understand the characteristics of group-based child sexual offending. These include the nature and modus operandi of the networks involved, the backgrounds and motivations of individual offenders, and the characteristics of victims. Emerging findings have been shared with relevant partners in law enforcement agencies.
In early 2020 the Government will publish a national strategy, the first of its kind, to tackle all forms of child sexual abuse.
Our new strategy will set out our whole system response to tackling child sexual abuse, including group-based sexual offending drawing on this internal work. It will set out how we will work across government, law enforcement, safeguarding partners and industry to root out offending, protect victims and help victims and survivors rebuild their lives. We will work tirelessly to tackle all forms of sexual abuse; there will be no no-go areas.
Asked by: Lucy Allan (Conservative - Telford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has commissioned research on the motivations of the perpetrators of gang-grooming crimes against young girls; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Improving our understanding of the scale and nature of all forms of child sexual exploitation and abuse, including that involving gangs and groups, is a priority for this Government.
We have invested £7.5m in a new centre of expertise on child sexual abuse which will identify, generate, and share high quality evidence of what works to prevent and tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSA/E).
At present, ‘types’ or ‘models’ of CSA/E offending are understood differently by the agencies, professionals and academics responding. This hampers efforts to understand, prevent and disrupt offending. The Centre of Expertise is addressing this by developing a typology of offending. This will involve identifying the characteristics and patterns of offender behaviour within different models, which will in turn support a more targeted response by the police and other agencies.
While this is underway, we will continue work to enhance our understanding of organised models of exploitation. This includes working with police and law enforcement agencies to identify characteristics associated with group-based CSA/E cases, so that best practice in preventing and tackling these forms of abuse can be identified and shared.
Asked by: Lucy Allan (Conservative - Telford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if her Department will commission an independent inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Telford.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Government is committed to uncovering whether victims of child sexual abuse have been failed in the past. That is why we set up the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, to expose what has gone wrong and learn lessons for the future. The Inquiry has already announced that it is investigating institutional responses to child sexual exploitation by organised networks.
Officials from Telford and Wrekin Council wrote to the Home Office on 13 March 2018, requesting that the Government commission a separate inquiry into events in Telford. Home Office officials have, in subsequent discussions with Council officials, made clear that events in Telford are within the terms of reference set for the Independent Inquiry. It is for the Independent Inquiry to decide how it goes about its investigations. It is for the Council to decide if it wishes to commission a separate inquiry locally.
Asked by: Lucy Allan (Conservative - Telford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent discussions her Department has had with Telford and Wrekin Council on commissioning an independent inquiry into child sexual exploitation in that borough.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Government is committed to uncovering whether victims of child sexual abuse have been failed in the past. That is why we set up the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, to expose what has gone wrong and learn lessons for the future. The Inquiry has already announced that it is investigating institutional responses to child sexual exploitation by organised networks.
Officials from Telford and Wrekin Council wrote to the Home Office on 13 March 2018, requesting that the Government commission a separate inquiry into events in Telford. Home Office officials have, in subsequent discussions with Council officials, made clear that events in Telford are within the terms of reference set for the Independent Inquiry. It is for the Independent Inquiry to decide how it goes about its investigations. It is for the Council to decide if it wishes to commission a separate inquiry locally.
Asked by: Lucy Allan (Conservative - Telford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to prevent the grooming and sexual exploitation of vulnerable young women.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation: Progress Report, published in February 2017, announced a £40m package of measures to protect children and young people from sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking, and to crack down on offenders, including: £7.5m for a new, ground-breaking Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse, which will develop evidence of what works to prevent child sexual abuse and exploitation; a £7m uplift in funding in each of the last two years for non statutory organisations which support the victims and survivors of sexual abuse; and £2.3m for the second phase of the successful Disrespect Nobody campaign, which raises young people’s awareness of healthy relationships.
On 28th February the Home Office launched the Trusted Relationships Fund, which will provide grant funding to local authorities who wish to run initiatives to protect young people in their area from different forms of exploitation and abuse, including child sexual exploitation, county lines, and peer abuse. The fund is currently open for applications and successful projects will be announced in the summer.
Asked by: Lucy Allan (Conservative - Telford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of (a) girls groomed for sexual exploitation and (b) perpetrators of child sexual exploitation in the latest period for which figures are available.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Government does not currently hold such figures. We are working to build the national picture of the nature and scale of this sort of abuse.
We have introduced new requirements for the police to record information relating to these offences which, along with the establishment of a new national Centre of Expertise on child sexual abuse, will help us to build a more informed picture of the scale of these crimes and the best ways to tackle and prevent them in the future.
Asked by: Lucy Allan (Conservative - Telford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse plans to (a) visit and (b) consider Telford as part of its current investigation into child sexual exploitation in England and Wales.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Inquiry’s terms of reference require it to consider the extent to which institutions in England and Wales have failed in their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation. Within the terms of reference, it is for the Inquiry to decide what it investigates and how it conducts its investigations.
The Inquiry also runs the Truth Project, which allows victims and survivors of child sexual abuse to share their experiences.
Asked by: Lucy Allan (Conservative - Telford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking with police forces across England to protect children from sexual exploitation.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Government has prioritised child sexual abuse as a national threat to empower police forces to maximise specialist skills and expertise. We have provided millions of pounds of extra investment through the Police Transformation Fund to transform policing’s response to changing crimes and threats including crimes against vulnerable people such as child sexual abuse. This includes awarding £1.9 million to the College of Policing to develop comprehensive training for first responders, and pilot a new licence to practise which will ensure that only those officers who are qualified to carry out specialist investigations in high risk areas like child protection are able to do so.
We have also funded a network of police regional child sexual exploitation coordinators and analysts, who identify organised child sexual abuse across police force boundaries, and prevention officers who work with the coordinators and analysts to implement early preventative approaches in child sexual exploitation hotspots.
We have also introduced new powers for the police to tackle offenders including new Sexual Harm Prevention Orders and Sexual Risk Orders in the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act, 2014 (amending the Sexual Offences Act 2003).