Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Lord Mohammed of Tinsley Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, put our record our thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, for the work she has done to date and for the further work I hope she will do in future.

I follow up on the comments made by the noble Baroness opposite on not only schools, but on youth workers and services in particular. Detached youth workers are in a prime position to befriend and seek the confidence of young people who may have been victims of grooming gangs. It overlaps with education, but it is really important that we do not silo things into Home Office affairs and education.

Often, victims are not only young people but vulnerable people. That is what I have seen from my experience of working in youth services for the last 30 years. People who were grooming were picking on people because they were vulnerable. One vulnerability is people fleeing domestic violence. Often, you will see that people are away from where they used to live, and in some communities they have been very visible—that is, people can see they are from outside. I seek assurances from the inquiry on the group-based gangs that we will also seek out working alongside refuges for women in particular to see whether they can bring victims forward. I am concerned that in some communities, because of the issue around honour, women will want to remain silent because they just want to put that horrific past behind them. They also have to be brought forward to be able to tell their story and hold those perpetrators to account.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes an extremely valuable contribution. I agree with him that we need to look not just at teaching staff but youth staff and other contacts within the church and community that come into contact with young people. The purpose of all that is to give victims the confidence to be able to talk about those things. The mandatory reporting measures that we have put in the Crime and Policing Bill will make it a responsibility for individuals to then report that to the police for further investigation.

The noble Lord makes a very important point about confidence in bringing forward historic sexual abuse issues, particularly honour-based sexual abuse issues. He will know that the operation I mentioned earlier, Beaconport, is looking at historic abuse. Over 1,200 cases are now being surfaced. They will be investigated. There are 216 priority cases within that. If there are further cases to be brought forward, they should be reported for further investigation of a historic nature. My colleagues in the National Crime Agency will be detailing more about that, because that is an operational matter for them, later this month.