Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Baroness Walmsley and Lord Paddick

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard - part one): House of Lords
Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

The amendment is intended to ensure that children who have been abused or sexually exploited are made known to mental health services in their area. It is beyond the scope of the Bill to mandate what happens next, but it is inconceivable that services to which the child is referred should not provide the necessary assessment and therapeutic services.

However, we know that many thousands of children who have been abused sexually and otherwise have not received any help, despite the fact that up to 90% of children who have been sexually abused develop mental health problems before they are 18. Recent NSPCC and Children’s Society research has highlighted that abused children are not routinely getting access to the mental health and therapeutic support they need. They found that traumatic experience of abuse on its own rarely triggers therapeutic support, with abused children reaching high clinical thresholds for services only when they have severe mental health issues and are at crisis point.

Evidence from the Children’s Society report, Access Denied, said that despite abuse being a major risk factor for mental health issues, less than half of mental health trusts identify children who have experienced sexual exploitation in referral and initial assessment forms, and only 11% of trusts fast-track access to CAMHS for this group. Only 14% of local transformation plans for children’s mental health contained an adequate needs assessment for children who have been abused or neglected, and one-third of plans do not mention services to meet the needs of such children at all. Identifying young people who experience sexual exploitation and their needs in the first place can be a particular challenge.

Since I entered your Lordships’ House 16 years ago, I have attended many presentations and seminars, but one sticks in my mind from my very first months here. It was with the NSPCC, highlighting the lack of therapeutic help for abused children. Here we are, 16 years later, talking about the same thing, despite all the efforts of my right honourable friend Norman Lamb MP to get more funding for CAMHS.

This morning, I attended the 30th birthday party of ChildLine, and I was discussing the amendment with Esther Rantzen. She, of course, supports it, but she made another relevant point, which was that although ChildLine often refers children to the police—with their permission—it is rarely the other way round. The point is that if the police are having difficulty getting a child to disclose to them about suspected sexual abuse, they should put them in touch with ChildLine, which will not only help them to disclose safely, in the way they should, but will support them through the proceedings that may follow.

The phone number of ChildLine should be on the wall of every police station: 0800 1111. Perhaps this would also remind police to refer children to their local mental health services for an assessment. They know they should, but they do not always do it. That was admitted this morning on Radio 4’s “Today” programme, when Sarah Champion MP, a great champion for abused children, and a senior police officer, discussed this very thing. Although it was accepted that the police’s attitude to abused children has improved enormously, it was admitted that there is still some way to go.

There is an opportunity through the Bill to pursue the recommendations set out in Future in Mind: that sexually abused or exploited children receive a comprehensive specialist initial assessment and a referral to appropriate services, which can provide evidence-based interventions according to their need. Where victims of child sexual exploitation come into contact with the police or a local authority, the Bill provides an ideal opportunity to state in law that the police must refer them for a psychological assessment, and then we must rely on providers to give them the support they need to recover.

These children are going to cost the NHS a great deal of money unless we act promptly. A report from Public Health Wales this week found that people who have been abused in childhood are three times as likely to contract a serious illness later in life. The Government must see the amendment as prevention of a great deal of expenditure later, and accept it tonight. I call on them to do so and beg to move.

[Lord Paddick]

My Lords, I rise very briefly to support my noble friend Lady Walmsley’s amendment, to which I have added my name. It seems absolute common sense that, if the police are investigating an allegation that a child has been sexually exploited, the needs of the child should be paramount and that referral to appropriate support for the child should be compulsory in those circumstances. I feel that I really need say no more than that.