Oral Answers to Questions

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

23. I apologise, Mr Speaker. I thought my question had been grouped with this one, but I was clearly quite wrong.We have had a dreadful local case in which an international paedophile ring, such as those the Minister mentioned, infiltrated a chatroom aimed at nine-year-olds, with really dreadful consequences for those children. Will the Minister tell us what investment the Government are making to help the police and other law enforcement agencies deal with and stamp out this sort of abuse?

[Mr Wallace]

The National Crime Agency’s child exploitation and online protection command received an extra £10 million this year, and in November 2015 the NCA joined up with GHCQ in a joint operations cell to ensure that we tackle some of the most complicated crimes online. Those two things are just part of the whole process, and I would be happy to brief my hon. Friend further on the whole spectrum of efforts that we take against paedophiles and online abuse. The key is that we can all contribute to that online safety—teachers, parents, law enforcement agencies and community leaders— to ensure that we are aware of how paedophiles operate, and can shut them down and put them away.