Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Debbie Abrahams

Thursday 16th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome the hon. Member’s points on this extremely serious issue. He is right that many victims and survivors need a proper police investigation to go after the perpetrators, prosecute and hold them to account, and get justice and put them behind bars. That will help to protect other young people as well. One of the most important changes is that we are making it easier to get investigations reopened where they have been closed down for the wrong reasons and justice still needs to be done. We will give victims a stronger right to review. They will be able to go to an independent panel with their case and have it independently reviewed so that it can be reopened. We are also asking police forces across the country to review the closed cases and pursue new lines of inquiry, with the taskforce’s support to ensure that they can do so.

Tom Crowther, who did the Telford inquiry, will work with five areas on the kinds of inquiry that they may want to take forward, involving victims and survivors—it is crucial to involve victims and survivors in the design. One Telford survivor gave evidence to both the national inquiry and the local inquiry, and she found that the local inquiry was far more effective at getting changes in that area, and it was easier for her to give evidence to it. That is why we need areas to be able to learn from what Telford did effectively, but also to be backed up by a stronger arrangement for accountability—stronger mechanisms for holding local organisations to account if they are not complying. However, we also expect local organisations to comply and to be part of finding truth and justice for survivors.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and the measures she has included in it, and I thank her for her promptness in doing that. I also thank her team, especially the Minister for Safeguarding, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), for listening to and providing support to constituents who have gone through such horrific abuse. How will my right hon. Friend ensure not only that the individuals responsible for this awful abuse will be caught and convicted, but that those who failed to protect and support these vulnerable young people—it is not just young women who have been affected in Oldham, but also young men—will be held to account?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right to raise those important points, and I know that she has worked on this issue for many years. One of the things we need to do is strengthen the law in this area. We need to have a much stronger legal framework to ensure that there is proper accountability; not just holding to account and properly punishing the perpetrators of appalling abuse, but holding to account institutions and individuals who fail to take the action needed to protect our children. That means the duty to report, making it an offence to cover up child abuse; a duty of candour, to comply and provide the information and transparency in these cases; and looking at the other local mechanisms that need to be in place in areas such as my hon. Friend’s and across the country, enabling us to ensure that there is proper accountability when things go really badly wrong.

Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Debbie Abrahams

Monday 6th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. Child sexual exploitation and abuse is a heinous crime. It happens everywhere—in all communities and in all settings—and we must all be vigilant and do what we can to address it. My right hon. Friend mentioned the importance of ensuring that victims of CSE are at the heart of all that we do, and I support her wholeheartedly on that. If it is the will of the victims of the abuse in Oldham to have an additional review of the circumstances that led to their abuse, I will also wholeheartedly support that. Will my right hon. Friend expand on how we can transparently track progress in implementing the recommendations? It cannot be allowed that three years after we receive detailed recommendations from a national independent inquiry, we are still waiting for their implementation.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend has worked immensely hard to champion the victims and survivors of terrible crimes. She raises important points about the prevalence of these appalling crimes, the need to be vigilant, wherever this abuse is to be found—in any kind of institution, across communities and across the country—and the importance of tracking progress. The Telford inquiry was set up in such a way that Tom Crowther, who led the inquiry, goes back each year to do a follow-up report and to track progress, which has been really important. We have encouraged those looking at this matter in Oldham to be in touch with those involved in Telford, and I am glad that Tom Crowther has agreed to work with the Government on how we can make this work more widely.