Child Abuse Inquiry

Michael Meacher Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

Is not an important dimension of this scandal—the Home Secretary signed off on all this—the fact that her Department made two utterly inappropriate, establishment-ridden appointments and then, to cap it all, drafted and redrafted a letter seven times in order to play down and disguise the relationship between Fiona Woolf and Lord Brittan, who was Home Secretary when all the Home Office files on this alleged Westminster and Whitehall child sex abuse mysteriously disappeared? Can she not understand that because of that background and despite her words today, which I welcome, she has already lost the confidence of much of the public about her capacity to conduct a highly sensitive inquiry of this kind in a properly objective and impartial manner?

[Mrs May]

I am afraid that I do not accept the premise of much of what the right hon. Gentleman said. For example, he said that all the Home Office files relating to these matters have gone missing, but that is not the case; and he made a number of other references. All I will say in answer to his question is that I am not conducting this inquiry; I have established the inquiry, and I have done so because of my concern both about the historical cases and about the continuing cases of child abuse and child sexual exploitation in this country. We should be ashamed of what has happened in the past and, sadly, what we see happening on our streets today. The panel will be conducting what I believe is a once-in-a-generation inquiry that will give us the opportunity to recognise the problems and failings of the past and ensure that we address them so that in future fewer children will become victims of this appalling crime.