Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council

Tessa Munt Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

I agree with everything the hon. Lady says. It is certainly my intention to involve Members of Parliament from Rotherham to ensure that they are not just fully informed but able to participate in the strengthening. She makes a really good point about the way the report has been put together. It is very clear that this is a report in which the voice of the victim is heard. No one can say that the voice of the victim has been ignored here. We owe it to the victims of Rotherham to put something in place that we can all be very proud of.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

The Secretary of State said that the council went to some lengths to cover up and silence whistleblowers. Will he consider some mechanism whereby councils are formally made aware, maybe through declarations similar to those for Members’ interests, to a council’s monitoring officer and to the Secretary of State, whenever a letter before action or any threat of legal action is issued by a councillor, so that threats against staff, ex-employees, opposition councillors and even MPs are out in the open?

[Mr Pickles]

My hon. Friend makes a reasonable point, but the real tragedy in terms of governance and dealing with victims and survivors of child sexual exploitation is that it is not as though the safeguards were not there. It is not as though the whistleblower process and the protections were not there. The council had all the policies written down, but they were not there in practice. If someone blew a whistle in Rotherham, they were persecuted and bullied. They had a very bad time. We need to apply the same high standard that exists in just about every local authority in the country to Rotherham.