Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Sarah Champion and Caroline Voaden

Wednesday 8th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I welcome the Bill because it addresses a lot of the underlying problems we have in our schools and education and, indeed, in the protection of children. I welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to make this a child-centred Bill.

I feel disgusted by what the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe) has just said. Can anyone imagine listening to that as a victim or a survivor? I am sure his intent is to get to the truth and get justice, but the language—I ask him please to think about who hears our words.

On 26 November 2024, in her letter to the chair of the child safeguarding practice review panel, the Secretary of State for Education said:

“The forthcoming Children’s Wellbeing Bill is a vital mechanism for improving the lives of vulnerable children… there is a renewed government focus on tackling child sexual abuse… which will necessarily include our response to the IICSA recommendations.”

I want to take this opportunity to ask the Secretary of State which of those recommendations fall squarely within the Bill. I hope, with cross-party support, that we can encourage the Secretary of State to adopt them.

The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse published 20 recommendations, trying to address the whole of child sexual abuse in this country, to get support for those victims and survivors and early intervention to prevent the crime, and to get the prosecutions we all desperately want. Recommendation 1 was that there should be a core dataset. Currently, the Bill’s single unique identifier number is not the same as a core dataset. There is a need for a unified set of data that allows authorities to understand better the prevalence of abuse, to identify patterns and to inform evidence-based policymaking. We have a patchy, fragmented data system that hinders effective prevention and intervention. IICSA asked for the creation of a single core dataset that includes the characteristics of victims and alleged perpetrators of child sexual abuse, vulnerability factors and the settings and contexts in which the abuse occurred.

Recommendation 2 is for a child protection authority for England and Wales. Recommendation 3 is for a Cabinet Minister for child protection, and that needs to be someone who cuts across all the different Departments, because that is where we are failing children right now—we do not have a joined-up approach to child protection.

Recommendation 4 is for a public awareness campaign, and cultural awareness is included throughout the recommendations. We need to make children aware of the risks they face, but we also need to tackle cultural insensitivities and much worse wherever we find them. That is particularly pertinent to me, because I am proud that I got the previous Government to ensure that every child, from primary school, had relationships education. However, in September 2024 the Department for Education published an independent evidence review on “Teaching relationships education to prevent sexual abuse”. It found that teachers were still not receiving adequate training. There are not adequate resources for those teachers, so I urge the Secretary of State to use the Bill to do something about that. Specifically, will she ringfence relationships, health and sex education training budgets?

[Caroline Voaden]

A fantastic organisation in my South Devon constituency called Child Assault Prevention, which I worked with when I worked for Devon Rape Crisis, had to close its doors two years ago because its funding was cut by the previous Government. It was doing vital work with primary school children, teaching them about the dangers of sexual assault and how to avoid it. I would welcome the Government looking at reinstating funding to such organisations that are working with young children in this sensitive area.