Child Sexual Abuse and Rape Gangs Inquiry

Lord Singh of Wimbledon Excerpts

Wednesday 18th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. She will know that the IICSA report under Alexis Jay was involved for seven years in looking at this very issue and made 20 recommendations to the Government three years ago. The then Government did not act on any of those recommendations. We have picked up the recommendations since July last year and are now implementing those recommendations. The further recommendations that the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, has brought before the House and the Government are now on a programme for implementation, including the national inquiry. I think it is important that the incoming chair, whoever he or she may be, has an opportunity to reflect on the previous product of victim testimony and determine what to do with that product and how best to involve victims in future. It is important that victims have their say and that the outcome of this is action to prevent future victims.

[Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB)]

My Lords, if a medical threat occurs, we tend to find and pinpoint the cause. If there is a threat to social health, we tend to camouflage the cause of the concern. An example is the use of the term “Asian grooming gangs”, which was prevalent at one time. I pointed out that it was about as helpful as saying that “Europeans” were responsible for the Holocaust. We need to pinpoint the actual cause. Ethnicity, now talked about, has a subset, religion, and there are dated texts embedded in religious texts that have very negative attitudes to women. It is time that those were exposed and brought up to today’s more enlightened times.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

One of the key recommendations from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, is to ensure that we have some ethnic minority data monitoring on offenders who have committed those offences. Some police forces have collected that, and some have not. We are accepting the recommendation, and we will be issuing guidance to police forces on collecting ethnic data. There are a range of people who abuse; there is a focus on grooming gangs from particular communities, but I say to the House that, in every particular community—white, Asian, Muslim and others—members of the community commit offences. We should not ignore the fact that people from a range of ethnic backgrounds commit offences; what we should be doing is monitoring it.