Child Sexual Exploitation Victims: Criminal Records Debate
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John Bercow
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Child Sexual Exploitation Victims: Criminal Records
John Bercow Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Mr Speaker
Before I call the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) to ask her urgent question and the Minister to respond, I must advise right hon. and hon. Members that under the terms of the House’s resolution on matters sub judice, they should not refer to specific cases that are currently before the courts. It should not be beyond the ingenuity of right hon. and hon. Members to find ways of airing the issue without mentioning the specifics in a way that could threaten the legal process.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department to make a statement on criminal records disclosure for victims of child sexual exploitation.
Victoria Atkins
The hon. Lady has raised this with me, and the project that she mentions is doing great work in the north-east. We do have a stream of funding mechanisms, which I am very happy to discuss with her afterwards, but she is right to say that historic child sexual abuse has not just an impact in the immediate term, but emotional, mental and physical consequences for many, many years afterwards. We must find a way of supporting victims in the longer term as well as in the short term.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
There is a handful of people whose views should be forgotten, and that is that increasing number of commentators and politicians who suggest that this is a waste of money. I have dealt pretty much every week, and certainly every month over the past five years, with those who have survived this abuse, and that includes this week. I can tell the Minister that this question of criminality, with its impact in respect of custody, housing and employment, but also in respect of ongoing reputation for those who have managed to move on in their lives, is fundamental to why the vast majority of people affected have not come forward, despite the fact that I represented more than 30 during the three weeks of the Nottinghamshire inquiry. As all these issues have been aired during the inquiry in huge detail, will the Minister give a guarantee that the recommendations, when they come forward from this inquiry, will be implemented lock, stock and barrel by the Government?