Question to the Northern Ireland Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, if she will take steps to ensure Kincora Boys Home, formerly in Belfast, is included within the over-arching inquiry into the sexual abuse of children commissioned by the Home Office; and if she will make a statement.

The Inquiry panel of experts, announced by my Rt hon Friend the Home Secretary on 7th July, is currently being set up. It will review whether public bodies and other non-state institutions have taken seriously their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse.

My Rt hon Friend informed the House on 5th September that it will be chaired by Fiona Woolf. Its terms of reference are yet to be determined but the Home Secretary will consider carefully any representations made to her concerning those.

The Inquiry will co-operate fully with devolved administrations, and in Wales it will consider some non-devolved matters relating to institutions there such as policing. As these equivalent issues are devolved to the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive it will be a matter for those administrations to consider how they should be addressed.

The Home Secretary has given an assurance that the Home Office will talk to the devolved administrations and work with them in respect of this Inquiry.