Wanless Review

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. It is shocking that we have seen bodies of the state—institutions, Government Departments and agencies—that should have been protecting children failing to do so. That is clear from the historical cases of child abuse we have seen, which were not followed through or considered properly. Sadly, it is also what we have seen from the more recent cases in Rotherham and Greater Manchester. Indeed, there are other cases currently being taken forward by police investigating child sexual exploitation in these matters. It is essential that we recognise that there are still problems, which is why it is important that the inquiry finds out what went wrong and identifies the lessons we now need to learn and what we need to put in place to ensure that we stop that in future.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Although many of the files may no longer exist, it has been suggested that there are plenty of officials, or at least retired officials, still around who are fully conversant with their content. Were any of them interviewed as part of the Wanless review? If not, in the interests of getting to the bottom of this, does the Home Secretary think that it might be an idea to interview them now?

[Mrs May]

It was open to Peter Wanless and Richard Whittam to interview any individuals they felt it was appropriate to interview. For example, they interviewed the former official who had indicated that he had information relating to money going to the Paedophile Information Exchange. It is also open to any official who has information or knows of something that happened in relation to these matters to come forward and give evidence to the panel inquiry. As I said earlier, I am very clear that the Official Secrets Act should not prevent anybody from bringing such evidence forward.