Natalie Fleet
Main Page: Natalie Fleet (Labour - Bolsover)Department Debates - View all Natalie Fleet's debates with the Home Office
(2 days, 4 hours ago)
Commons ChamberI can assure the hon. Member that we are already taking forward some of the recommendations. Some will be in legislation and will take time to pass through Parliament, because legislation also needs to change. We are also taking immediate action to change the victims’ right to review so that if victims have been to the police or to a local authority—this includes parents who have been worried about their children—and they feel that nothing is being done, they will have a right to review. That will be an independent right to review—not just to go back to the same police force or the same Crown Prosecution Service, but to go to an independent panel on child sexual abuse to get that independent look, so that we can get more cases reopened and get urgent action taken, which is what we need to keep children safe.
I welcome this action from a Government who see violence against women and girls as the national emergency that it is, with a Prime Minister, Home Secretary and a Safeguarding Minister with records of taking action to deliver for victims like me and many in my constituency. Giving birth as a result of grooming is a story that far too many of us share. There are so many reasons why children and the women that they grow into do not speak out. I want to share one particular story today. It is about the victim who told me that the perpetrator has threatened that if she speaks out, he will have access to her child, which is something he has not done so far. That means she has to work so hard to hide his crime in order to protect herself and her baby. Will the Home Secretary meet me and other victims to discuss changing the law in order to protect children born of rape?
I thank my hon. Friend for that incredibly important point, and also for the shocking and disturbing story she has told of victims continuing to be silenced, having already been through the most traumatic experiences. They are then continuing to be silenced to protect the children, even though what actually needs to happen is for perpetrators to be held to account and to face the full force of the law. She is right that we need to ensure that family courts cannot be used by abusers and rapists to persecute victims. I will happily meet my hon. Friend, and I know that the Safeguarding Minister will too. This issue is also being taken forward by the Ministry of Justice.