Child Sex Abuse (Rotherham) Debate

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: Home Office

Child Sex Abuse (Rotherham)

Steve McCabe Excerpts
Tuesday 2nd September 2014

(10 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts

Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.

Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.

This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record

Baroness May of Maidenhead Portrait Mrs May
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

As I said, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is minded to commission an independent inspection of Rotherham council, with a particular focus on its corporate governance and service arrangements, and obviously, as was indicated earlier, Ofsted will be going into Rotherham again to look at the areas for which it has responsibility. Following those inspections, decisions will need to be taken about the future responsibility for these issues.

Steve McCabe Portrait Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
- Hansard - -

When the Home Secretary meets Professor Jay, will she probe her further on what she knows about the raid on the offices of the youth organisation Risky Business? We need to know who authorised that raid, what happened to all the files that were taken and whether it was a deliberate attempt by people in senior positions to tamper with or destroy evidence.

Baroness May of Maidenhead Portrait Mrs May
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The hon. Gentleman asks a very good question. What is interesting, in looking at the report, is that Risky Business does seem to be one part of the organisations actually doing good work. Indeed, Professor Jay raises a question towards the end of the report about whether, given that the work of Risky Business has now been incorporated, as I understand it, into the council’s work, it can be as effective in that environment. I would expect that what is known about the incident that the hon. Gentleman refers to is in the report, but certainly I will be discussing with Professor Jay anything that needs to be learned about those sorts of actions.