Child Sexual Exploitation: Bradford

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Rachel Maclean)]

I would like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) most sincerely for securing this debate and all other Members for their contributions this evening. I commend my hon. Friend for his perseverance and for his powerful speech, which cannot have been easy for him to stand up in the House and deliver. He has given a voice to people who have been voiceless for far too long. It was shocking, disgusting and appalling to hear the harrowing testimony that he set out for us this evening. None of us can listen to these accounts without being impacted and horrified. It is truly shocking to hear of the cases set out in the recent review in Bradford. These are instances of the most vulnerable in our society being preyed upon and abused by ruthless criminals, and the review makes for distressing reading. These children experienced multiple traumas, in most cases starting long before they were victims of sexual exploitation, at a time when they should have been nurtured and protected. Aged as young as 13, what they went through is almost too horrific to contemplate. I am sure all hon. Members will want to join me in paying tribute to them and to all victims of sexual abuse and exploitation who have bravely come forward to share their experiences, which cannot be easy, to drive change and ensure other children do not go through the same ordeal.

I thank my hon. Friends and hon. Members on both sides of the House who attended this debate and spoke about their experience in their constituency, their lived experience and the considerable expertise they gained in professional fields before coming to this place.

I reassure all victims and survivors that their voices are being heard. We are listening. Across central and local government, law enforcement, the wider criminal justice system and society as a whole, we have a clear responsibility to do everything in our power to protect children from harm, and we are determined to put victims and survivors at the heart of our approach while relentlessly pursuing the perpetrators of these awful crimes.

Since the early 2000s, when several of these horrific cases took place, there have been significant improvements in how local authorities and the police safeguard children in Bradford and across the country, but there is much further to go, as we have heard at first hand from my hon. Friend.

My hon. Friend calls for an independent inquiry in Bradford, similar to the one in Rotherham. I acknowledge the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who is in her place, and pay tribute to her for all the work she has done. She battled determinedly for many years to give voice to victims in Rotherham and elsewhere.

The independent inquiry in Rotherham was conducted by Alexis Jay and commissioned by Rotherham Borough Council. This Government are crystal clear that it is for local authorities in individual towns and cities such as Bradford, as they are responsible for delivering services, to commission local inquiries. My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley has set out with great clarity the mechanisms that are available to local authorities, including in Bradford, to trigger an inquiry. The Government fully agree with his remarks. He is right in every word of what he says. The options are available to Bradford Council and other authorities. I say it again, in case there is any doubt: local authorities have a responsibility, a moral responsibility, to do the right thing. I underline that point, lest there be any doubt: they have a moral responsibility to protect these innocent children.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I have been listening intently to this debate, and I am grateful the subject has been raised in the House. An inquiry is not a silver bullet. We actually had two inquiries in Rotherham, and one was commissioned by the Government, so that is an option for this Government. Once the inquiry has happened, we need to see the support in place for survivors to rebuild their lives. We need to see prosecutions of the criminals and of anyone who colluded or did not act in their job. I hope the Minister will do all in her power to make sure that happens across the country.

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the hon. Lady for her point. She is entirely right that a whole-system response is required so that victims can rebuild their lives. I shall touch on that further later on in my speech.

I recognise the pain and trauma endured by those who have suffered at the hands of these vile criminals, and I understand their need for answers to the failures and for reassurance that the system that let them down so badly will not do so again. I welcome Bradford Council’s work to improve its response to child sexual abuse and exploitation by identifying poor practice through the recent review, but I also expect the council to listen close to the real concerns expressed by Members this evening and to take the most thoroughgoing approach to ensuring that all lessons have been learned and that local partners are doing everything possible to identify child sexual abuse and exploitation and protect children from harm, without letting political and cultural sensitivities deter them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley spoke about the groups committing these crimes in the Bradford area and the need to recognise their common characteristics. The Government are clear that child sexual exploitation happens in all areas of the country and can take many different forms. We know that it is not exclusive to any single culture, community, race or religion, but community and cultural factors are very relevant to the understanding and tackling of offending in each local area, as my hon. Friend set out so eloquently. Let me repeat that political and cultural sensitivities must not deter agencies from uncovering and preventing such devastating crimes. Every local authority must ensure that children are safeguarded, and every police force has a duty to investigate effectively and thoroughly when children come to harm.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Maclean]

My right hon. Friend is right to highlight how difficult these crimes are for us as a society to tackle, but it highlights that we desperately need to tackle them, which is why the Government have set out a number of priorities through the domestic abuse strategy and the violence against women and girls strategy, backed by considerable funding and resources to ensure that we can tackle them where they occur. It is vital that we have close collaboration between agencies, and that forms a key part of our strategy.

The Children and Social Work Act 2017 introduced the most significant reforms in a generation, requiring local authorities, clinical commissioning groups and chief officers of police to form multi-agency safeguarding partnerships. All the new partnerships were in place by September 2019.

Our prevention work has already yielded improvements in Bradford. Through the £13.2 million trusted relationships fund, for example, Bradford Metropolitan District Council has received funding to deliver one-to-one, school-based community support for children aged 10 to 14 years who are at risk of exploitation.

[Sarah Champion]

In 2017, the Government agreed to bring in mandatory relationship education for every child from primary school onwards. That is teaching them about healthy and unhealthy relationships—what is in your pants is your business and no one else’s. That has still not been rolled out. By the time these children get to 10 to 14, it is too late for many of them. Can the Minister please urge her colleagues to make this mandatory in every school, as was committed to in 2017?

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. Her concern has been heard by those Ministers in Government Departments who are responsible for delivering on this. But I can also tell her that, in part of the work that we are doing in the violence against women and girls strategy, we are recognising the vital issue of communicating to people, including men, about how they need to behave towards women and girls because surely we cannot expect this problem to be solved by women and girls. It has to be solved by all people.