Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Adnan Hussain

Thursday 16th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right to make that important point. By establishing a victims and survivors panel to work with the safeguarding Minister and other Ministers on taking forward recommendations around sexual abuse, we want to make sure we are recognising those experiences and exactly how difficult it can be to come forward. People need to have the confidence that if they do come forward to do something incredibly difficult, they will be listened to, they will be taken seriously and investigations will follow.

[Mr Adnan Hussain (Blackburn) (Ind)]

I thank the Secretary of State for her in-depth explanation of what the Government are and will be doing to ensure the safety of our children in the face of the most heinous crimes. Since the vote on the amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill last week and the subsequent attention that it attracted in the media, many of my constituents have written to me upset, angry and in fear over the grooming scandal. All the correspondence I have received demands a public inquiry into this scandal, to determine the failures—both historical and present—of the institutions involved that allowed these heinous crimes against vulnerable children to go on for so long and so widely, without being stopped and without the victims being safeguarded and protected sufficiently.

In northern towns such as Blackburn in my constituency, crimes of this nature and grooming gangs continue to haunt our streets and vulnerable children. Can the Home Secretary confirm that further public inquiries and reports are needed to find out why this has gone on for such a long time? We need to provide my constituents and everybody across the country with solace.

[Yvette Cooper]

The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse and the two-year inquiry into child sexual exploitation concluded that child sexual exploitation is happening right across the country and that action is needed across the country. The taskforce reports that there are currently 127 major police operations under way on child sexual exploitation and gang grooming across 29 police forces. That is why it is so important that recommendations from those inquiries are implemented and that we get action to protect children and young people who too often are let down when inquiry recommendations are ignored.

Southport Incident

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Adnan Hussain

Tuesday 30th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I thank the hon. Member for his support for the families who are affected and for the people in Southport. He makes a wider point about the issues around knives and knife crime. This has to be a moral mission for all of us. There is wider debate that we will have on other days about some of those issues. For today, this is still about Bebe, Elsie and Alice. This is still about the families who are waiting by the bedsides of their little children tonight, and those across the community who will be thinking of them.

[Mr Adnan Hussain (Blackburn) (Ind)]

I join the Home Secretary in expressing my deepest and heartfelt condolences to the families of Alice, Bebe and Elsie. Words cannot express the sorrow they must be feeling after experiencing the worst nightmare of every parent. Indeed, heartfelt prayers are with all those children and elders who are still in the hospital, and solidarity with the entire community of Southport. Will there be additional support mechanisms put in place for all the emergency workers who attended the scene, to ensure their wellbeing is a priority?

[Yvette Cooper]

Again, I welcome the support for the families and for all those who are not just grieving, but dealing with trauma today. It is important, as I think I said earlier, that we think of the emergency service workers, who had to deal with the most difficult of circumstances on our behalf. They have done so to keep the rest of us safe. Let us be clear: they saved lives yesterday. They showed bravery when they arrived on the scene and they saved lives, and they will have endured the most difficult of circumstances to do so. I raised this with the chief constable of Merseyside and also with the chief fire officer, to ensure that those who were there, including the paramedics, get the proper support that they need. I can assure the House that I was told that that support is already being put in place and that the Merseyside police are already getting the additional support.