Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the National Audit on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, published in June 2025, what progress his Department has made on implementing recommendation three.

Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

It is horrific that any person was convicted as a child for loitering and soliciting for prostitution. The Government has announced immediate steps to disregard such convictions.

Also, my officials are working with the Criminal Cases Review Commission to ensure they are properly resourced to review the applications of the wider cohort of victims of child sexual exploitation who believe they were unjustly convicted when their position as a victim was not properly understood.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the National Audit on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, published in June 2025, what progress her Department has made on implementing recommendation nine.

Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

Baroness Casey’s Audit into Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse highlighted a decline in child sexual abuse and exploitation within the department’s children in need data, which is published annually. We are undertaking work to better understand how children who experience child sexual abuse and exploitation are represented in both child in need assessment data and child protection data and will publish analysis by the end of the year.

This will include analysis of demographics, outcomes, trends, local area variation over time and analysis of serious incident notifications.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the National Audit on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, published in June 2025, what progress she has made on implementing recommendation 5.

Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill introduces a new duty for statutory safeguarding partners and other bodies to share information for the purposes of safeguarding and protecting the welfare of children, including from child sexual abuse and exploitation. This new duty is designed to complement the mandatory reporting duty set out in the Crime and Policing Bill. Together, these measures ensure that once a disclosure is made, the relevant information is not only received but is shared swiftly and appropriately with the bodies best placed to protect the child. In the ‘Tackling child sexual abuse: progress update’, published in April, the department set out that we would consult on a roadmap to a Child Protection Authority by the end of this year.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the National Audit on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, published in June 2025, what progress his Department has made on implementing recommendation 1.

Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

The Government accepted recommendation 1 of the National Audit on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse. We are committed to changing the law and we are aware of the need for urgency. This is a complex area of law and we are carefully considering how we change it to best meet the commitment. We will update Parliament soon about our proposed approach, including when we intend to legislate.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the National Audit on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, published in June 2025, what progress she has made on implementing recommendation 11.

Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury

The Department for Transport will legislate to address the important issues raised in the report, tackling the inconsistent standards of taxi and private hire vehicle driver licensing. We are considering all options – including out of area working, national standards and enforcement – seeking the best overall outcomes for passenger safety. Careful consideration of the options is needed as we do not want any change to decrease the availability of highly vetted licensed drivers and vehicles and inadvertently increase the use of those offering illegal services that evade these licensing checks.

We intend to consult shortly on making all local transport authorities responsible for taxi and private hire vehicle licensing. Administering taxi and private hire vehicle licensing over larger areas could greatly increase consistency in standards across England, reduce out-of-area working and result in a better match between licensing revenue and compliance and enforcement burdens.

We are also reviewing licensing authorities' compliance with existing DfT guidance and considering how the statutory guidance can be strengthened to further protect the public. As part of this work, all licensing authorities in England have reported that they require the highest level of criminal background checks for taxi and PHV driver licence applicants – an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check with a check of the children’s and adults’ barred lists. Where other recommendations are not being followed, particularly those linked to safeguarding, we intend to hold authorities to account.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the National Audit on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, published in June 2025, what progress she has made on implementing recommendation 4.

Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

The government has committed to make it a requirement for the police to collect ethnicity and nationality data of perpetrators of group-based child sexual exploitation. This data is vital in enabling us to develop the most accurate and robust picture of the nature of this offending.

In July this year, the former Home Secretary wrote to all Chief Constables to set out the clear expectation that ethnicity data on grooming gang suspects should be collected in every case, and to urge them to make sure they are fulfilling their obligation to collect suspect ethnicity data as part of the government's commitment to transparency and accountability. The Home Office is closely monitoring data collection and provision from forces, and continues to engage with individual forces on where improvements are required.

If we do not see improvements, we will not hesitate to put this requirement into legislation.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the National Audit on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, published in June 2025, what progress her Department has made on implementing recommendation seven.

Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

The Home Office has been working closely with the Department for Education to understand how the proposed Unique Identifier will operate in order to plan for upgrades to police IT systems.

In June we conducted a Preliminary Market Engagement to understand how the market could support the need to better integrate data across policing. We are currently evaluating those responses against the existing policing landscape to determine the best way forwards.

We also awarded a contract to deliver a Police Technology Strategy and Roadmap.

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Dame Karen Bradley (Chair); Lewis Atkinson; Mr Paul Kohler; Robbie Moore