Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to raise awareness within the hotel industry of child sexual exploitation.

The Government has funded a network of police regional child sexual exploitation (CSE) coordinators, analysts and prevention officers, who will work with local areas and hotels to prevent CSE, for example through training for hotel staff. We have also launched a CSE Response Unit, which provides support and free resources to local areas to raise awareness of CSE.

The Government introduced powers in the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 to disrupt offending in hotels. These provisions enable the police to serve notices on hotels requiring them to provide them with the names and addresses of guests and the power to close down hotels where child sex offences have taken place or are likely to take place.