Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

My right hon. Friend raises a personal case, and it is important for us all to bear such cases in mind when we think about the scale of this inquiry and people bringing forward criticisms. There are always these independent stories that remind us how important it is to get truth and justice for these people, and to learn from those stories so that we can ensure that institutions make improvements. Of course I will look at what she has suggested.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

Every MP in the Chamber is anxious for the inquiry to succeed, but before we can draw a line under recent difficult problems and move on, we need honesty and transparency from the Home Office. When the Home Secretary appeared before the Home Affairs Committee in September alongside the permanent secretary, she left Members with the impression that Justice Goddard resigned because, in short, she was “lonely”. There was no mention of concerns about conduct then or, indeed, in her subsequent letter to the acting Chair of the Committee. For clarity’s sake, did she know before giving evidence that day, or before writing the letter, about the concerns that had been raised? Will she confirm that only she could remove the inquiry chair from office and that the limited grounds for doing so included misconduct? Is that not why all these questions about the state of her knowledge are so important?

Will the Home Secretary confirm that the secretary to the inquiry, to whom she has already referred, is a lifelong Home Office staffer and that that secretary regularly meets the permanent secretary to provide progress updates? Is she categorically stating that these issues were not raised before July? If they were not raised before July, why on earth were they not raised before then? When did the permanent secretary or the special advisers first make either the current or previous Home Secretary aware?

When the Home Secretary gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, was she being economical about what she knew, or had she been badly briefed by the permanent secretary—it has to be one or the other? Finally, does she accept that, by sticking its head in the sand, the Home Office hierarchy allowed the inquiry to descend into a state of paralysis, which we must never see again?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I fear it is rather discourteous for the hon. Gentleman to suggest or imply that the Home Secretary might be “economical” with what she knew. That comes fairly close to crossing the line. Given that he has a prepared text, and therefore had full knowledge of what he was going to say, may I suggest that, for the future, he ought to phrase things rather differently?