Victoria Atkins
MP for Louth and Horncastle · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Oh dear. This may be the last time the Secretary of State gets to give such an inadequate answer to what is a reasonable question about her grip on her Department. But let us look at Labour’s wider chaos.”
“In recent weeks, DEFRA’s quangos have made headlines: the Environment Agency is failing to prosecute waste criminals, instead going after virtuous volunteers who are cleaning up the rivers for it; Natural England is demanding more madcap fish schemes at Hinkley Point C, on top of its recommended £700 million fish disco policy, all of whic…”
“There are many questions still left unanswered in this report, and I hope that the Secretary of State will try to answer them rather than deflect, because that has been noticed. The plan looks to double the funding for Environment Agency inspections. Why are this Government focusing on bureaucracy rather than helping farmers survive?”
“In another leap from reality, the Government’s negotiations with the EU get barely a mention in this document, despite the enormous consequences they will have for farming businesses. CropLife UK has estimated that this EU reset could drain £810 million from UK farms and sacrifice almost 9,000 jobs from our rural constituencies.”
“We Conservatives view DEFRA as a vital economic Department, so we agree with its efforts to recalculate farming and food producers’ contributions to the economy. By the way, I note that Reform calls itself the farmer’s friend, yet there is not a single Reform MP in the Chamber.”
“As Labour MPs and Ministers in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs voted repeatedly for the family farm and family business taxes, DEFRA Ministers shut down farming payments without notice, including the SFI. Sadly, the record of this Government is rising food prices and a record number of farms closing.”
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“In that day and age, it was all too inevitable that the victim would hand in her withdrawal statement, because the abuser had got to her before she had been able to give her evidence and to put her case forward. It is for those victims, as well as victims now and in the future, that this Bill is so critical. I very much hope that the Lords will help us to pass this piece of legislation as quickly as possible this week, so that we can start to help those victims as soon as possible. Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 9B.”
“This is very much the start of the journey as far as I and this Government are concerned. We very much look forward to listening to ideas and suggestions from across the House as we take through those strategies and other pieces of legislation. To return to the people to whom the hon. Member for Strangford referred, those constituents whom he faces in his office to help—as we all do—I have talked before about my commitment to helping victims of domestic abuse. This is not just about those victims whom we are trying to help today, or in the future; for me, this is about the women, the victims, I could not help when I was working in the criminal courts at the very beginning of my career.”
“We have been very clear that the Bill is a landmark one, but it is setting up a whole programme of work, locally through things such as our specialist services for people in safe accommodation, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and all the measures we have put into local family courts. This programme of work will, I hope, outlast many of us and our time in this place. By virtue of that, I point the hon. Lady to things such as our announcement that we want to publish a VAWG—violence against women and girls—strategy later this summer, looking at some of the behaviours that we have discussed during the passage of the Bill. Later this year, we will publish a domestic abuse dedicated specialist national strategy to tackle abuse. The momentum that the Bill has created will be continued through both those strategies.”
“I have spent the past three years trying to de-jargon—if that is a word—some of this very technical language so that we may all communicate with the victims whom we are desperately trying to help in our constituencies. This is one of those instances that is very technical. I have tried to de-jargon it as much as I can, but it is incredibly technical. We have to look to local agencies and professionals using their best endeavours to protect our constituents across the country. The hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) asked the question—which I might have just answered—how we reassure women in her constituency that we are, first, acting with the best of intentions and, secondly, being held to account. I make this point, not just to us but to Members of another place: this is not the end of the road for our work on domestic abuse.”
“I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Lady for clarifying that. This is the nub of it: through the framework that already exists—improved guidance, the national framework that I described, and the wording in guidance and so on that has been discussed recently—we want those offenders whom local agencies judge to pose a risk to be assessed as such. They will either already have been automatically included in category 1 or 2, or assessed under category 3. That is the point of this—it is the professional curiosity that I talked about. We want this framework to work better, in addition to the work in MAPPS, which is being piloted next year. I know that this is incredibly technical.”
“Before I start my speech, may I beg your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, and place on the record not only my condolences to Her Majesty the Queen but my and my constituents’ heartfelt thanks to His Royal Highness Prince Philip? He was the personification of public service, dedicating his life to Her Majesty and to serving our country for more than 70 years, and he did so with great style and often a twinkle in his eye. May I also pay tribute to my friend, the right hon. Dame Cheryl Gillan, who passed away very recently? She would have loved to take part in today’s debate. She was a huge advocate for the vulnerable, including those who live with autism. She was a wonderful, wonderful friend and colleague to us all, and she will be very, very sorely missed.”
“There are protections in place, including the offences in the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 relating to ill treatment and wilful neglect. However, we have listened carefully to the experiences and concerns raised in this House and the other place. We want to find practical ways in which to address those concerns. That is why the Government intend to carry out a review of the protections for people at risk of carer abuse. We will engage with the noble Baroness Campbell of Surbiton and the disabled sector on the scope of the review, but it would broadly seek to examine the protections offered against carer abuse and the support available to victims. We have listened and we will act.”
“The focus of this Bill is on domestic abuse as it is commonly understood—that is, abuse by a current or former intimate partner, or by a family member. That is the approach taken in the Istanbul convention, which I know many hon. Members are keen for the UK to ratify. Where a disabled person is abused by a partner or family member, the abuse will be covered by the definition as already agreed by this House. However, Lords amendments 1 to 3 would bring in a much wider range of relationships, outside a domestic abuse setting. We should steer away from diluting the purpose of the Bill. As I have said, however, in inviting the House to disagree with these Lords amendments, we do not wish to downplay or deny for one moment the experience of disabled people who are abused by their paid or volunteer carers.”
“I emphasise that, in line with our approach throughout the Bill, where we do not agree with the amendments, and where possible, we have sought to address the concerns raised through practical measures instead. The first set of amendments relates to the definition of domestic abuse. Lords amendments 1 to 3 would bring abuse by all carers of disabled persons, paid and unpaid, within the definition of domestic abuse in the Bill. I hope it is clear—it perhaps does not need saying—that the Government abhor all abuse, and we have every sympathy for the spirit of these amendments. Abuse of disabled people by their carers must be called out and acted upon. The issue before us today is whether this is the right Bill to strengthen the protection for disabled people.”
“The Bill also reaches beyond these shores. Lords amendments 70 to 82 amend the extraterritorial jurisdiction provisions in the Bill to remove the dual criminality requirement for relevant sexual offences, including rape, committed outside the UK by UK nationals. That will enable UK nationals who commit marital rape in countries where such behaviour is not criminal to be prosecuted in UK courts. This is also a significant step forward towards ratifying the Istanbul convention, as it addresses one of the three outstanding matters set out in the statement to the House in October last year. I turn to the 12 sets of Lords amendments to which we have tabled motions to disagree.”
“The amendment makes it clear that a court may make a barring order in circumstances where it is satisfied that a further application made by the named person would put the child or another, for example the parent victim, at risk of harm. For all the victims and survivors I have met, and whose stories we have heard in the Chamber: these measures are to help you all to secure justice, as you deserve. Lords amendment 39 would ensure that a health professional working in a general practice that holds an NHS contract cannot charge for evidence to show that a patient has been the victim of domestic abuse for the purpose of obtaining legal aid. We recognise that it is already the case that most GPs do not charge for such evidence, but the amendment will ensure that no victim faces that barrier to obtaining legal aid.”
“In short, those amendments more closely align the position in the civil courts to that in the family courts, so that victims of domestic abuse have the benefit of automatic eligibility for special measures to enable them to give their best evidence and to ensure that they are protected from being cross-examined in person by their abuser. Our justice system should not be used as another form of abuse. This Bill will help to protect victims and secure justice. In the case of the family courts, perpetrators can continue abuse through repeated unmeritorious proceedings. Lords amendment 33 amends the Children Act 1989 to prevent such vexatious claims.”
“Lords amendments 8 and 10 to 16 will place a duty on tier 1 local authorities, with the support of their domestic abuse local partnership boards, to monitor and report on the impact of the safe accommodation duty on the provision of community-based support in their area. Taken together with the responses to our victims’ law consultation, those amendments will ensure that the Government have all the information they need to build on the strong foundations of existing community-based services. Some of the most upsetting and torturous experiences that victims can experience happen after a relationship has ended, in the family and civil courts. Lords amendments 17 and 24 to 31 relate to special measures and the ban on cross-examination in person in civil proceedings.”
“Police and crime commissioners, and others, already provide significant community-based support to victims of crime, but we need better evidence of the gaps in current provision and how they might best be addressed. That is why the Government have now committed to consult on the provision of community-based support as part of this summer’s consultation on the new victims’ law. That commitment to consult is backed up by Lords amendments 5, 8 and 10 to 16. Lords amendment 5 will place a duty on the domestic abuse commissioner to publish a report, under her new powers in the Bill, on the provision of and need for community-based services.”
“The amendment will send a strong message to perpetrators that controlling or coercive behaviours, irrespective of the living arrangements, are forms of domestic abuse and that the criminal law is there to protect victims. The Bill also revolutionises the help that is available to victims who need to flee relationships to refuge or other safe accommodation. It is revolutionary in that it helps to ensure that they are helped to recover from their experiences. Part 4 introduces a duty on tier 1 local authorities to provide specialist services to such victims and we have announced £125 million of funding to support that provision in the Bill. There is a cross-party desire to see those measures matched by equivalent provision in respect of community-based support. This Government are alive to such calls.”
“I turn to another amendment that I know has been welcomed warmly by survivors and campaigners: the extension of the coercive and controlling behaviour offence to include post-separation abuse. We listened very carefully to debates in this place, as well as to charities such as Surviving Economic Abuse and, of course, to survivors themselves. We reviewed the offence to see how it is working after five years of being in force and we published that review in March. We acknowledge that coercive and controlling behaviour continues and indeed may escalate following separation, so amendment 34 will extend the offence to cover post-separation abuse between former intimate partners and interfamilial abuse, regardless of whether the family members are living together or not.”
“I agree completely with my right hon. Friend. I thank her for the work she has done over many years to address this and other issues particularly affecting women and girls. We very much take that point. We have worked on the amendment with Baroness Morgan to have an immediate impact, but in addition we look forward to receiving the Law Commission’s report and recommendations later this year—it is looking at the whole of the law on the use of intimate images and other types of malicious communications on the internet. If the law needs to be changed to reflect recommendations, we can address those in subsequent legislation. These clauses apply to all relationships and all encounters of a sexual nature, from a Tinder hook-up to a marriage of many decades. Those protections will be enshrined in this Bill.”
“I just want to clarify this, because it is an important detail. Category 3 of MAPPA is defined as “other dangerous offenders”. It does not matter whether that offender has committed section 18 grievous bodily harm or criminal damage, which, as the hon. Lady will know, is a much lower offence. It is the risk assessment of that defendant in the circumstances of the offence that matters and puts them in category 3. That is the point—it already exists.”
“Just to assist the House, as I hope I made clear in my speech, we know there have been horrific instances where, in the system itself, those risk assessments and the management have not been done properly. I think we are having a disagreement about whether putting in a new category will change that. We want to look, and we are doing so through the statutory guidance, at how these assessments are made on the ground. That is what will make a difference, not a statutory framework.”
“Domestic abuse is covered in all family law courses run by the Judicial College, and the debates held in the other place and in this place will I know—I have faith—have been watched and listened to very carefully by the President of the family court and others.”
“Members have raised questions and concerns about the issue of judicial training. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead and my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) set out the problems with the way in which Lords amendment 33 seeks to achieve that laudable aim, which we all agree with, of ensuring that the judiciary and magistrates must be trained well and, importantly, trained regularly. Referring back to the comments I was making earlier about the progress that has been made in the past few decades, let me say that, by definition, our understanding has grown, even, as some have said, during the passage of this Bill. Of course, that knowledge must continue to be deployed and trained.”
“We are ensuring that cases of domestic abuse perpetrators captured under categories 1 and 2 are included in the threshold guidance that is being developed. We will issue an HM Prison and Probation Service policy framework setting out clear expectations of the management of all cases at MAPPA level 1. This work on this new system, the multi-agency public protection system, will have a much greater functionality than existing systems, including ViSOR, enabling criminal justice agencies to share information efficiently and to improve risk assessment and management of MAPPA nominals. That is what will address the very understandable concerns that colleagues have raised in this debate. I come to the final point I wish to touch upon, and I hope colleagues will understand why I am going to be quick. Hon.”
“So on the sorts of horrific examples we have been hearing about, if there are convictions in the background of those offenders, these categories would cover some of the convictions that have been described. I say that, but I hope again that colleagues have appreciated that I have been very clear that there must be improvements in how the system works on the ground. That is why we have announced—we went into a little more detail in the “Dear colleague” letter—that we are going to revisit and refresh all relevant chapters of the MAPPA statutory guidance so as to include sections on domestic abuse, to ensure that agencies are taking steps to identify perpetrators whose risk requires active multi-agency management.”
“Again, let me emphasise that the reason we find ourselves unable to accept that Lords amendment is that creating a separate category as envisaged in the Lords amendment does not get away from the need for the MAPPA authorities to make a judgment in individual cases as to whether a particular offender should be managed under the framework. I want to be clear that three categories exist in MAPPA. Category 1 covers registered sexual offenders. Category 2 covers any violent offender or other sexual offenders convicted of offences under schedule 15 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and sentenced to more than 12 months’ imprisonment. Category 3 covers any other dangerous offender.”
“We look back on the days of the 1970s when brave campaigners for Refuge and other organisations started setting up refuges and talking about domestic violence. Our understanding and our efforts to deal with this have obviously moved absolute milestones in the decades since then, but one of the challenges that we will certainly be looking to address in the domestic abuse strategy is the management of perpetrators. I am delighted that we are now investing unprecedented amounts in perpetrator programmes, as announced in the Budget, because we have to prevent perpetrators from committing harm in the first place.”
“A valid defence of consent is available under the new offence only where the offence does not involve causing serious harm or where the perpetrator can show that they had not intended to cause serious harm or had not been reckless as to the serious harm caused. This provision reflects the current law as set out in R v. Brown and, indeed, in the rough sex clause that was passed earlier in the Bill’s progress. We have had to be, and tried to be, consistent with both of those provisions, and I hope that that reassures my hon. Friend. I have listened carefully to colleagues who have raised the issue of the management of perpetrators. This is absolutely critical. I have talked in the past about the evolution of our understanding of domestic abuse.”
“The Bill includes real measures to help victims of domestic abuse and, as we have heard, even beyond those relationships. It expressly recognises the harm and distress caused to victims by so-called revenge porn and threats to disclose such images. The Bill also creates a new offence of non-fatal strangulation. My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) did much in this place when the Bill was before us for scrutiny, along with the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), to campaign on the issues of rough sex and non-fatal strangulation. My hon. Friend asked me about consent in the amendment, and I want to try to clarify that in order to reassure people who may be watching.”
“Friend, who as chair of the Joint Committee, set in train much of the work that has happened in this place and the other place when the Bill was in draft form. I thank her sincerely. I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) for championing the Bill, both as Home Secretary and as Prime Minister, and now—eminently, if I may say so—from the Back Benches. I also thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed today. The Bill has been improved during the course of debate in both Houses. It was scrutinised properly and thoroughly by their lordships, whom I thank for their vital contributions. I do not know whether many other Bills have had a mere 86 amendments to them when they came back to this place. This is a sign of their lordships’ commitment.”
“Home should be a place of love and safety, but for 2.3 million adult victims of domestic abuse, and for their children, it is not. We all want this abuse to stop, and we want victims to live peaceful, safe and happy lives, and as I have said many times at this Dispatch Box, that is why this Government are bringing forward the Domestic Abuse Bill. The continued passage of the Bill marks an important milestone in our shared endeavour across the House to provide better support and protection for the victims of domestic abuse and their children. It is the culmination of over three years of work, although I rather liked the slip of the tongue by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) when she said it felt like two generations. I pay tribute in particular to my right hon.”
“At every stage, we have endeavoured to focus on what can be done to help victims of domestic abuse and to ensure that the abuse can stop. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke put it, these are not our issues—these are not party political issues—but the issues of our constituents who are victims and of their children, and I know that each and every one of us has had that very much in mind in all our deliberations on the Bill. I therefore commend the Bill and the amendments that the Government support to the House. I very much hope that we will be able to make real and meaningful progress and pass the Bill, so that we can get on with the job of helping the victims we all feel so strongly about.”
“I am happy to help the hon. Lady. As I said in my opening remarks, the President of the Family Division has indicated that he will consider making recommendations regarding training, taking into account this Bill, the harm panel report, which, as she knows, is critical to the Ministry of Justice’s concerns in this area and the four recent Court of Appeal judgments in domestic abuse cases. I would argue that there is a real understanding among our independent judiciary of the need to make sure that they are equipped to ensure that justice is delivered—and delivered well—in the courtrooms over which they preside. In summing up, let me reflect on the course of the Bill. Progress on the Bill has been characterised by a determination on both sides of the House to work constructively and collegiately.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for promoting the Government’s call for evidence on tackling violence against women and girls. We are asking the public, victims, charities, employers, health professionals, universities, colleges, the armed forces, the NHS and many more for their views, so that we can develop a national strategy that is fit for the 2020s. This is the largest ever call for evidence on crimes that disproportionately affect women and girls, because we want to hear from all parts of society. I ask all hon. Members to play their part and encourage their constituents to contribute to this vital call for evidence before it closes on 19 February.”
“After a very difficult weekend in London, our thoughts are with the families, friends and neighbourhoods affected by those incidents of violent crime. Across England and Wales we are increasing police capacity in the forces most affected by violent crime, investing £176 million over two years. We have recently consulted on serious violence reduction orders, which will give the police stop-and-search powers to target individuals previously convicted of knife offences, and we are investing many millions of pounds in early intervention schemes to stop young people being drawn into violence in the first place.”
“My hon. Friend has a distinguished record of helping the most vulnerable children in our society, and I join him in welcoming the investment in this and other intervention projects in Cheshire to tackle the root causes of violent crime. I commend the work of Cheshire police in supporting such projects. In this financial year, Cheshire police will receive up to £219 million in funding, and it has already recruited 91 additional officers under the police uplift programme.”
“We will bring forward legislation this Session to give the police the powers they need to tackle unauthorised encampments by moving people on and seizing vehicles where necessary. Intentional trespass will become a criminal offence, and we will broaden the range of harms that can be considered by the police when directing trespassers away from land.”
“My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head in standing up for her constituents on this issue. People want to see greater protection for local communities, and for the police to be given enhanced powers to crack down on trespassers. That is why we consulted on how we might strengthen police powers and why we will introduce legislation in this Session. We will act on these concerns, and I very much look forward to working with my hon. Friend in so doing.”
“As the Home Secretary said: “What happened to these children remains one of the biggest stains on our country’s conscience.” That is why we must do everything in our power to safeguard children from abuse, deliver justice for victims and survivors and restore the public’s confidence in the criminal justice system’s ability to confront these devastating crimes.”
“Finally, I would like to thank again the signatories of both petitions, as well as the victims and survivors around the country who find somehow the wherewithal to work with us and the police to help prevent these terrible crimes and support other victims. As has been so well articulated in the debate, these crimes affect not only the immediate victims of the abuse but entire communities. My hon. Friends the Members for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell) and for Keighley set out some of the impacts in their constituencies and the damage that can be done to trust in the processes, systems and authorities that are there to protect people. We are determined to ensure that Government, law enforcement and other partners better understand that any community and cultural factors relevant to tackling offending must not and cannot get in the way.”
“The inquiry is independent of Government and decides for itself what to investigate and how. It has investigated the nature and extent of, and institutional responses to, the sexual exploitation of children by organised networks, and the public hearing into that strand concluded in October last year. Evidence was heard from a range of witnesses, including victims and survivors of child sexual exploitation, as well as representatives of police forces, local authorities, Government Departments and charities. The inquiry will publish a report of the investigation in autumn this year, setting out its conclusions, and we welcome this scrutiny.”
“The second petition calls for an independent inquiry. I will touch on that briefly, because I want to give time for my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich to respond to the debate. The Government share the public’s concerns about failures and the need to ensure that they are not repeated in the future. In 2015, the Government established the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. The inquiry concluded its public hearings in December, after taking evidence from more than 600 witnesses over four years. It held 323 days of public hearings across 15 investigations and has published 14 reports so far, with more than 50 recommendations to better protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation. We expect to receive the final report of the inquiry in 2022.”
“I listened with great interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), who supports the work of the Children’s Society. Although I cannot answer all her requests tonight, we will continue to invest in the Children’s Society’s prevention programme, which works with local agencies to prevent exploitation and abuse. Recent examples of the programme’s work include working with the police in Yorkshire to deliver training to taxi drivers, and working with delivery drivers and couriers to support them in identifying CSA in the context of the pandemic. As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) knows, the Ministry of Justice is looking into the issues in the family courts that have arisen out of the expert panel on harm’s review—in particular, contact with parents.”
“We will then use this data to help protect children by preventing and detecting offending. Hon. Members have asked whether we can count the defendants who have already been convicted. Officials have looked at this, but because there is no specific category of group-based sexual abuse, such offences cannot be isolated. But, as I say, we want to correct that in the future. We are investing in the police-led tackling organised exploitation project, which is piloting new ways of investigating organised forms of exploitation through the innovative use of data. We will publish a new and enhanced child exploitation disruption toolkit that promotes the use of the full range of powers available to agencies, such as civil orders, licensing powers and safeguarding interventions, so that they can stop offending with every tool at their disposal.”
“Ethnicity has been raised by several Members. The paper refers to a number of studies that have indicated an over-representation of Asian and black offenders in committing this type of offending. It is difficult to draw conclusions about the ethnicity of offenders as existing research is limited and data collection is poor. This is disappointing, and it is something that we are determined to address through the national strategy, because accurate data is clearly vital in developing the right response in local areas. We have therefore made a number of commitments in the tackling child sexual abuse strategy. The Home Office will work with criminal justice partners, charities, frontline professionals and others on improving the range and quality of data collected, including on the ethnicity of offenders.”
“This means that they are often broadly homogeneous in ethnic background, socioeconomic status and age. Contact with potential victims may take place in locations often visited by offenders and where safeguards around victims are lower. Hon. Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), have raised the frequency with which taxis and takeaway restaurants have featured in the highest-profile cases. Studies indicate that motivations differ between offenders, but that a sexual interest is children is not always the predominant motive. Financial gain and a desire for sexual gratification are common motives, and offenders commonly demonstrate attitudes of misogyny and disdain for women and girls, as raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock and the shadow Minister.”
“To ensure that the paper was robust and scrutinised, we convened an external reference group consisting of independent experts on child sexual exploitation, who reviewed and informed this work throughout. The group included survivors, leading academics and highly experienced professionals from the criminal justice system and the children’s sector, as well as the hon. Member for Rotherham, who has done so much in this area, and my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Imran Ahmad Khan), who is similarly determined to shine a light on this offending. The insight and expertise that the group provided was invaluable, and I thank them all for their diligence and contributions. Taking all this work together, we saw, for example, that offender networks are often loosely interconnected and based around existing social connections.”
“The paper on group-based sexual exploitation plays an important role in the strategy and its implementation now and in the future. I will go into a little detail about how the paper was developed, its findings and how we plan to build on this work in the future. The paper was informed by an analysis of published academic research, official statistics and work published by organisations that work with child sexual exploitation victims and survivors. In addition, police officers and safeguarding officers across the country with experience in investigating this type of offending were interviewed. The paper reflects the insights drawn from across all this work. This is a complex and deeply sensitive issue.”
“I want to reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich, however, that this paper is by no means the end of our work on this issue; more must be done by Government, law enforcement and partners to better safeguard children and tackle perpetrators of this form of abuse and the many other forms of child sexual abuse that exist both offline and online. That is why we published the tackling child sexual abuse strategy last month to work on all forms of CSA. The strategy sets out how we will work across Government—a point made powerfully by the hon. Member for Rotherham—as well as with law enforcement, safeguarding partners and industry to root out offending, to protect victims and to help them rebuild their lives. It builds on the action plan described by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton).”
“Friends the Members for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford), for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson) and for Keighley (Robbie Moore), the hon. Members for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin) and others. This should never have happened and must not happen again. Political or cultural sensitivities must not deter national and local agencies from investigating and preventing these devastating crimes. Victims of sexual violence deserve justice regardless of the background, the status, the race or any other characteristic of the perpetrator. Abuse is abuse, and everyone is equal under the law. That is why in May last year the Home Secretary committed to publishing a paper looking at the characteristics of group-based child sexual exploitation, which was published in December.”
“I would like to start by thanking the members of the public who signed these petitions raising this very important issue and thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) and other hon. Members across the House for being their voices in this debate and representing them powerfully and thoughtfully. This Government have made it our mission to protect the most vulnerable in our society, including by tackling child sexual abuse. In our work we have listened to victims and survivors about their horrifying experiences—how they were let down by the state and betrayed by those whose job it was to protect them. These injustices were set out eloquently by hon. Members including my hon.”
“In conclusion, I would like to thank everyone involved in helping victims of hidden crimes in this pandemic and beyond, from those working in domestic abuse refuges and community services and in modern slavery safe accommodation, to those scouring the internet to remove images of children being raped, as well as our police officers, our National Crime Agency officers, our Border Force officers and those working in the security services to support this work. I thank them all for what they are doing to help support victims and to stop perpetrators of these terrible crimes. I would like to finish by reassuring all victims of hidden harms that they are not alone, their voices are heard and help will continue to be there for them. I commend this statement to the House.”