Gangs and Serious Youth Violence

Debate between Melanie Onn and Karen Bradley

Thursday 3rd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

Goodness me! I do not think that the shadow Minister has ever been quite so nice to me across the Dispatch Box, although I am sure that that will not be repeated. I am speechless, but the hon. Lady will be glad to know that I will not be speechless for long.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) on securing this important debate. It could not take place on a previous occasion owing to time restrictions—a number of urgent questions were granted, which ate into the time—and the fact that the hon. Gentleman has initiated it again today demonstrates his perseverance and his determination to draw attention to this issue. His long-standing interest in tackling gangs and youth violence is well known, and I congratulate him.

I also congratulate the other Members who took part in the debate: we have heard some powerful contributions, which featured the in-depth local knowledge that is key to tackling the issue.

Let me begin by assuring the House that tackling gangs and serious youth violence is a priority for the Government. I have met and spent time with victims of such violence, and I am aware of the devastating impact that it can have on families, communities, and young people whose lives were ahead of them, but may not be so any longer. We must all remember that that is the case.

We have heard many references to the Government’s approach. If the House will allow me, I shall spend a few minutes talking about what we have done, and what the future holds.

The Government published their refreshed approach to tackling gangs in a paper—it was only a paper; I shall return to that point shortly—entitled “Ending gang violence and exploitation”. It explains that the Government’s approach is focused on both reducing violence, including knife crime, and preventing the exploitation of vulnerable individuals by gangs. It builds on the ending gang and youth violence programme that we established in 2012, at a time when many people were only just starting to understand the problems caused by gangs in their areas. The EGYV programme dealt with the need to understand those problems, and to build local resilience. It was due to end in March last year, but because we were beginning to see gangs operating in new ways, and, in particular, the exploitation of vulnerable young people, we extended it for a further 12 months so that we could identify where gangs were operating, and could help local areas to build that resilience.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

I am not sure whether this tallies with what the Minister has just said, but the Government announced in January that they would extend the programme to nine new areas, including Great Grimsby. That came as a surprise to me, because I had not known that our area contained gangs of the nature that has been described by my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna). A subsequent conversation with my local police and crime commissioner indicated that the programme might be along the lines of what the hon. Member for Yeovil (Marcus Fysh) mentioned earlier, and might be more concerned with serious organised crime. What criteria were used to decide on the towns that were included in the programme?

[Karen Bradley]

The hon. Lady makes some important points. The original programme’s work, which included the peer review network, is now complete. Local resilience has been built, and local areas have had that peer review. We have now passed the stage of understanding, and need to proceed to delivery, which is the reason for the new programme. The new areas are areas where, as part of the peer review, we identified possible problems. We spoke to local authorities and local police chiefs to find out whether they wanted to be part of the new programme, which is intended to help local areas to understand the problems and the way in which best practice might work, and to give them the support that they need.

Sexual Exploitation: Protection of 16 and 17-year-olds

Debate between Melanie Onn and Karen Bradley

Thursday 17th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

My hon. Friend, who serves on the Select Committee, makes an incredibly important point. Barnardo’s has just completed a trial of child trafficking advocates for the Government—I have placed a written ministerial statement on that in the Library today—and it does incredible work to make sure children are listened to. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we need to change the culture and change attitudes. A point was made earlier—by the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), I think—about victims being perpetrators. It is too often the case that a victim becomes a perpetrator and is seen as a perpetrator, and is not seen for the child that they are. We need to change attitudes. This debate, and the contributions today, will go a long way to doing that, but there is still more to do.

Preventing abuse and exploitation and protecting the vulnerable present complex challenges, particularly when dealing with young people. We know that children are being deliberately targeted, manipulated and coerced, and consequently sexually exploited. In this context, the Government welcome the research and findings presented in the Children’s Society report “Old enough to know better?” The report rightly highlights a number of important areas, including prevention, identification, protection, support and prosecution—areas which absolutely require the co-ordinated focus of Departments across Government, and beyond.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

Survivors (Hull and East Riding), which serves victims of CSE with mental health support services in my constituency, has seen a 20% rise in clients over the last three years and its waiting list is now six months. Does the Minister agree that delays in providing mental health services for survivors are unacceptable and increase the risk of suicide and self-harm among CSE victims?

[Karen Bradley]

I join the hon. Lady in paying tribute to the work of that organisation. I will talk about mental health services later, if she will bear with me. I am absolutely sure that the organisation does incredibly important work. The length of its waiting list clearly demonstrates the demand for its services and the fact that it is tackling the issue in an effective way.

We need to work across Government, which is why we have established a cross-Government response to child sexual exploitation. I want to assure all hon. Members that this is a top priority for this Government. The Home Secretary launched the report “Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation” in March this year. It sets out a national response to the failures that we saw in Rotherham, which the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) described, as well as in Manchester, Oxford and elsewhere, where children were let down by the very people who were responsible for protecting them. It sets out how we will continue the urgent work of overhauling the work of our police, social services and other agencies together to protect vulnerable children.

I want to assure all hon. Members that significant work has been and is taking place across Government, but given the time available today, I will not go through all the points that have been raised. My door is always open, however, and all hon. Members are very welcome to come and see me to discuss their concerns and the work that is being done. I will be happy to share in detail the work we are doing across Government.

I want to touch on the issue of terminology in relation to child sexual exploitation. We know that there is an issue with the terminology, so we are reviewing and reissuing the current definition and the statutory guidance on safeguarding children and young people from sexual exploitation. We will make it clear what constitutes sexual exploitation as a form of sexual abuse, and we are working with a number of stakeholders, including the Children’s Society, to sharpen the definition and strengthen the guidance. We will publish a progress report on all actions taken following the “Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation” report early next year.

We recognise that 16 and 17-year-olds are a diverse group and can be particularly vulnerable. They are children, but they are old enough legally to consent to sexual activity where appropriate. We know that that combination can be exploited and lead to abuse. There is a contradiction between the ever-decreasing age of sexual maturity and the age of emotional maturity, which is not going down. The wider that gap becomes, the harder it is for us to deal with these complex issues.

The court process can clearly present a particular challenge to vulnerable victims and witnesses, and everyone involved has a responsibility to manage that impact. In January 2015, toolkits were launched for the police, prosecutors and advocates, addressing the fact that consent is an issue for vulnerable young victims as well as dealing with the context of drugs, alcohol, mental health and learning disabilities. We have also completed the training of all specialist prosecutors, which will include Crown Court cases of child sexual abuse, and in 2016 we are training in-house advocates as well.

The hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) talked about the law that applies to the sexual exploitation of children aged 16 and 17. I want to assure her that the law in England and Wales already specifically protects that age group from abuse. For example, sections 47 to 50 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 criminalise payment for the sexual services of a child aged under 18 and provide for the offences of causing, inciting, controlling, arranging or facilitating the sexual exploitation of a child under 18.

The hon. Member for Stockport has campaigned vigorously on this issue. During the passage of the Serious Crime Act 2015, she was a leader in ensuring that the Government removed the terms “child prostitution” and “child pornography” from the law. I know that the guidance has not yet been updated in some areas but we are working incredibly hard to ensure that that happens and to ensure that all agencies with responsibility for that guidance update it as soon as possible. This is the clear message: a child cannot consent to sex. They are forced into sex, they do not consent to it, and there can therefore be no such thing as a child prostitute.

My hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire talked about children in care, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst). Children in care are particularly vulnerable, which is why the Children Act 1989 makes it an offence to take any child in care, including a 16 or 17-year-old, away from the person responsible for them without lawful authority or reasonable excuse. We also know that 16 and 17-year-olds can be vulnerable in a variety of ways, some of which may be directly or indirectly linked to their age. That is also reflected in the sentencing guidelines, in which additional aggravating factors include the use of alcohol or drugs on the victim and the targeting of a particularly vulnerable child.