Thank you to those constituents who have emailed me about the vote in the House of Commons on 8th January.

Child sexual abuse and exploitation are the most vile crimes. Perpetrators must be pursued and punished and victims and survivors must be protected and supported.

We have already had two inquiries into grooming gangs. One was led by the Home Office in 2020 and the other was the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) which lasted 7 years and heard from thousands of victims and survivors. The Executive Summary of that report can be found here:
https://www.iicsa.org.uk/reports-recommendations/publications/inquiry/final-report/executive-summary.html

And the recommendations providing a comprehensive approach to tackling Child Sexual Exploitation can be found here:
https://www.iicsa.org.uk/reports-recommendations/publications/inquiry/final-report/ii-inquirys-conclusions-and-recommendations-change/part-k-summary-inquirys-recommendations.html

The problem is that we did not see any action on implementing the recommendations from these reports, and I think it is really important that we see progress on making changes that will safeguard children.

The new Government is taking immediate action on three key recommendations from IICSA reports. We will:

• Legislate to make it mandatory to report abuse, making it an offence with professional and criminal sanctions to fail to report or to cover up child sexual abuse.
• Legislate to make grooming an aggravating factor in the sentencing of child sexual offences, to ensure the punishment fits the terrible crime.
• Overhaul the way information and evidence is gathered on child sexual abuse by introducing a ‘single child identifier’ and through a strengthened police performance framework, with new standards on public protection, child abuse and exploitation.

The Government is also taking forward the work of the Grooming Gangs Taskforce, set up under the previous Government. There was a 25% increase in arrests between July and September last year.

We will also take much stronger action to crack down on rapidly evolving forms of child sexual abuse online, including artificial intelligence-facilitated child sexual abuse material. A package of measures to strengthen the law in this area will be published in the coming weeks.

The Crime Survey estimates that half a million children every year experience some form of child sexual abuse. These cruel and sadistic crimes have not been taken seriously for too long, and far too many children have been failed. Brave survivors speaking out have shone a light on terrible crimes and the failure of institutions to act, be it in care homes in Rochdale, Asian grooming gangs in Rotherham or Telford, the abuse covered up within faith institutions, including the Church of England and the Catholic Church, or within family homes.

In opposition, Labour called for a national independent inquiry into child sexual abuse and supported the establishment of the IICSA, led by Professor Alexis Jay, when it was launched in 2014 by the previous Government. Over seven years, the IICSA engaged with more than 7,000 victims and survivors, processed 2 million pages of evidence, and published 61 reports. IISCA also ran a specific investigation into child sexual exploitation by organised networks, which ran for two years and produced a separate report and recommendations in February 2022. This concluded that police forces and local councils were still failing to tackle this serious crime and set out further recommendations for change, yet far too little progress has been made.

The Government will continue to support further investigations that are needed, including police investigations and local independent inquiries and reviews, which can expose failings and wrongdoing in local areas and institutions, as we have seen in Telford, Rotherham and Greater Manchester.

Professor Jay who chaired the 7-year inquiry said this week: “Our mission is not to call for new inquiries but to advocate for the full implementation of IICSA’s recommendations.” I agree – and that is exactly what the Government is doing.

I recognise that there are different views about the case for yet another inquiry – I am not persuaded that we need one, not least because it would take several years to conclude – but the amendment tabled by the Opposition on Wednesday would not have resulted in an inquiry being set up. Instead, all it would have done was to defeat the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. The Opposition knew this very well and rather than table their amendment at a later stage, which would not threaten the Bill, they decided to press ahead with it for their own reasons.

I thought this was truly shocking because I cannot understand why anyone would want to destroy a Bill that will be such an important piece of child protection legislation. Therefore I hope you will understand why I could not in good conscience support this.

What is now needed is a lot of hard work to improve child protection legislation and to prevent these abhorrent crimes. We need perpetrators to be put in prison and we need strong preventative measures to protect children from the deplorable actions of hideous grooming gangs and anyone who preys upon vulnerable children and young people, including protections such as those included in the Government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

Thank you for getting in touch with me about this important matter.

Best wishes

Rt Hon Hilary Benn
MP for Leeds South
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland