Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Rebecca Smith Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. We will need a process to keep the House up to date on the next steps and actions that are taken forward. We will do that through the victims and survivors panel that will be established by the Safeguarding Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), and through regular updates on the work of the cross-departmental group of Ministers to pursue and take forward the recommendations.

[Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)]

I welcome today’s announcement; it is great to see some progress. I will not cover what has been said about the legal powers, but I am interested in the funding. When I led a commission in Plymouth, the money to pay for it came from the local authority’s in-year budget. I appreciate the £7 million in total that has been announced. However, the Home Secretary has talked a lot about the police. What additional funding will they receive to do this work on a local level? What additional funding will there be for the practicalities of holding these inquiries, outside the five initial local authorities? What funding will come forward for the interventions that might be recommended following the inquiries? We know that local authorities are incredibly cash-strapped, and this could potentially disincentivise them to follow through on these local inquiries. Finally, is that £7 million new money going into the violence against women and girls budget, or is it money that would have been spent elsewhere?

[Yvette Cooper]

On the funding to support the various measures we are taking forward, we have identified up to £10 million for additional investment to support further action. However, I cannot stress enough that this has to be part of the mainstream work that agencies, police forces and local councils do, because tackling child sexual exploitation and abuse cannot just be an add-on. It cannot be something that is done only if there is a particular announcement from the Government—it has to be done as part of the core responsibilities of police forces and local councils and included in their funding. That is why we want our mission to halve violence against women and girls to be the central mission right across agencies and right across the Government, as well.