Child Protection

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Ruth Edwards

Thursday 27th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting point about schools and accountability. As part of the taskforce led by the Prime Minister, we will be looking at greater departmental working across Whitehall. My expectation is that local government will play its role in all our work to tackle these abuses. With his expertise, I am, of course, very happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss how we can take this further.

[Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

I welcome the £30 million funding boost that the Home Secretary has delivered to protect children from abuse online and to track down offenders. Will my hon. Friend outline how this money will help to better protect children from these terrible crimes?

[Victoria Atkins]

This is an emerging crime type. The evilness of the people who conduct abuse online is truly shocking to behold. I recently visited the CAID operation centre, and I pay tribute to the officers who work extremely hard in, frankly, pretty harrowing circumstances —I saw some of the images they have to sort and classify. We have invested this extra money to help officers digitally and technologically, because there is so much that the development of artificial intelligence and other things can do in this space to help ensure that we get the perpetrators of these terrible crimes and also protect and safeguard victims.