Child Sexual Offender Data

Steve Yemm Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. Almost 500 people in my Mansfield constituency signed this petition, and many more constituents have written to me expressing their deep concern about child sexual exploitation, grooming gangs and the failure of our institutions to protect vulnerable children in our country. I understand from them why this issue matters so profoundly to the public, and why there is such a strong demand for transparency, accountability and action.

Where child sexual exploitation has occurred, including in organised, gang-based offending, the failures of our police forces, councils and safeguarding agencies have had absolutely devastating consequences.

[Michelle Welsh (Sherwood Forest) (Lab)]

When I was a county councillor in Nottinghamshire, I asked the children and young people’s committee on a number of occasions where child exploitation was taking place in Notts, as well as what age groups and what genders it was affecting. However, I was denied that information both publicly and privately. Does my hon. Friend agree that child exploitation concerns should never be dismissed, that victims must be believed and that institutions must be willing to confront the truth, no matter how uncomfortable they may find it? Truth, transparency and accountability are how we protect our children.

[Steve Yemm]

I wholeheartedly agree with the views that my hon. Friend has expressed. Too often our vulnerable children were absolutely failed because our institutions were worried more about reputational damage, political sensitivity and some kind of corrupted political correctness than about protecting working-class boys and girls from harm.

[Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)]

We absolutely need transparency on who the perpetrators are, but we must also confront the systemic failure that let the grooming gangs’ abuse continue for years. Those children were not believed; they were dismissed by the police, overlooked by the health services and failed by the local authorities that were supposed to be their corporate parents and that should have kept them safe. It is a profound institutional failure. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that today we must also ask why these children were ignored, and who will be held accountable for those devastating failures?

[Steve Yemm]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention, and of course, I agree with her. Parliament should never be in a position where we shy away from confronting those failures with absolute honesty—that is critical. Equally, we must approach this issue with a great deal of care, evidence and proportion.

I looked at the crime survey for England and Wales. It estimates that about 7% to 8% of adults experienced some form of sexual abuse before the age of 16—that is about 3 million people. It shows that the abuse is most commonly perpetrated by someone already known to the child. Other Members have alluded to this: it could be a family member or acquaintance—often a trusted adult or family friend—and, in fact, a growing proportion of abuse now takes place online. That matters, and it is an important issue to raise in this debate, because the majority of child sexual abuse in this country does not take place in the form of organised group offending.

Although grooming gang cases are among the most serious, heinous and disturbing forms of abuse, they are not the totality. It is important, as many other Members have said today, that we reflect the totality of child sexual exploitation in Britain. We should not narrow our national understanding of this crime to a single form of offending that might risk not reflecting on where harm is actually occurring. That does not mean that we should avoid difficult questions where patterns or clusters of offending emerge. On the contrary, we should be prepared to follow the evidence. Honestly, I do not think we have always done that; often we have not.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Steve Yemm]

I will happily give way, and this will be the final intervention that I take.

[Jim Shannon]

I am very conscious of the title of the debate, which is, “Child Sexual Offender Data”. I am also conscious that in Northern Ireland, unfortunately, we have had sexual abuse through some churches and organisations. Things have happened in Northern Ireland, and if we are to collect child sexual offender data, it is important that it is shared between Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England in case perpetrators move between those places, as perhaps they have in the past. Does the hon. Member agree that it is important that all regions share the data to ensure that wherever the perpetrators are and whatever they have done, they are accountable?

[Steve Yemm]

The hon. Member makes a profoundly important point, which I completely agree with—as might be expected.

We must take on those difficult questions and be prepared to follow the evidence, including all those questions on nationality, ethnicity, immigration status and religion. Where those factors can be properly recorded and are operationally relevant, we should of course record them. However, that information always has to be treated carefully, interpreted responsibly and understood within the wider safeguarding environment. The data should help protect children; it should not become a substitute for serious safeguarding policy. That is why any approach to statutory data collection must be rooted in thinking about operational safeguarding. It should not be approached in the light of symbolism, political pressure or other types of political correctness.

Good data helps public authorities identify children at risk earlier, allocate resources and understand patterns of offending and allows us to intervene so that fewer children are harmed. Ultimately, the debate comes down to trust. People in my Mansfield constituency want confidence again that the institutions that serve them are honest, competent and focused above all else on protecting children. They want consistency in safeguarding, accountability where there are failures and reassurance that no category of abuse is ignored, minimised or politically inconvenient for anyone.

I understand the motives behind the petition, which I wholeheartedly support, but I believe that any statutory requirement we make has to be based on evidence, operationally meaningful and genuinely focused on improving child protection, not driven by any type of incomplete narrative. Above all, as other Members have pointed out, our duty in this House is very simple: it is to protect children, learn from past failures and ensure that every form of child sexual abuse is confronted with the seriousness, honesty and resolve that it demands.