Child Abuse

Mark Harper Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Lady shares my concern to ensure that we have proper safeguards and protection for children in the future and that not only are lessons learned but that action is taken as a result of those lessons being learned following the various reviews into both historical and more recent cases of child sexual exploitation.

The right hon. Lady asked whether all the matters that are felt to be for the police to investigate will be matters for Operation Fernbridge. Actually, a number of investigations are taking place across the country into historical cases of child abuse; it is not appropriate that all those investigations will be in relation to Operation Fernbridge. The National Crime Agency, for example, is leading on Operation Pallial, which is the investigation into potential sexual abuse in children’s care homes in north Wales, and other investigations are taking place elsewhere. All allegations do not necessarily go to a single force; they go to whichever force is the most appropriate to deal with the particular cases and to ensure that people can be brought to justice.

The right hon. Lady asked about the number of prosecutions and offences, which is a matter that is most properly for my right hon. and learned Friend, the Attorney-General, but she will have noticed that he is on the Treasury Bench and has noted her comments.

My right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims answered a parliamentary question in 2013—in October 2013, I think—in which reference was made to the missing 114 files.

The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) asked what I had seen as Home Secretary. I saw the executive summary of both the interim report and the final report commissioned by Mark Sedwill. I did not see the full report for very good reason: the matters that lay behind the report were allegations that senior Members of Parliament—and, in particular, senior Conservative Members of Parliament —may have been involved in those activities. I therefore thought that it was absolutely right and proper that the commissioning of the investigation and the work that was done should be led by the permanent secretary at the Home Office, not by a Conservative politician.

The right hon. Lady asked a number of questions about lessons learnt. Some of those lessons are already being acted on. As I mentioned, the national group that my hon. Friend the Minister for Crime Prevention is leading has already brought forward proposals on how the police and prosecutors could better handle these matters, and it will continue with its work. That will of course feed into the work of the wider inquiry panel that I am setting up. I want it to look widely at the question of the protection of children. I want it to ensure that we can be confident that in future people will not look back to today and say, “If only they had introduced this measure or that measure.” We must ensure that the lessons that come out of the various reviews that are taking place are not only properly learned, but acted on.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement and her setting up of the independent inquiry panel. She set out three clear principles. The most important of those principles is that the panel should do nothing that prevents these heinous crimes from being properly investigated and those who are guilty of them from being prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

[Mrs May]

Although it is right that we look at the lessons that need to be learned, I am sure that the view shared across the whole House is that it is absolutely essential that we do nothing that could get in the way of prosecuting the perpetrators of these appalling crimes. That is why it is right to set this review up as an inquiry panel so that it can begin its work without jeopardising the criminal investigations taking place.