Church of England: Safeguarding

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. He is right that many constituencies have been affected. Members will have constituents who have suffered abuse in a place where they should have felt very safe. It is the same for the constituent who contacted me: he participated in football activities and experienced abuse as a young child that has affected the whole of his life. His mental health has been shredded.

There has been a lack of accountability, a lack of seriousness and slow pace from the Church of England when it comes to taking such cases seriously and giving people the justice they feel is necessary. The Church just does not seem to be catching up with the expectations of modern society and the safeguarding that happens in every other institution and organisation that works with young people and vulnerable people. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Church really has to pull its socks up and get its act together if it is to restore the faith that this country should have in this most honoured of institutions?

[Luke Myer]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, who is a real champion for her constituent and all her constituents. Sadly, the case that she has outlined is all too familiar and like many other cases across the country.

We owe it to the survivors and others who have endured physical, emotional and spiritual abuse to highlight the serious shortcomings in the Church’s safeguarding structures. Too often, while instances of abuse may have lasted moments, the Church’s processes for investigating and reviewing these cases have been painfully slow, frustrated and needlessly complex. It cannot be right that the systems intended to support survivors often further traumatised them.

I, too, have been told stories of those who tragically have taken their own lives in the view that their perpetrators will never face justice. Survivors tell me of feeling trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of uncertainty and distress. One told me that they will not feel fully comfortable while this issue is

“kept within the walls of the Church.”