Child Abuse Allegations (North Wales)

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. She is right that these are deeply disturbing allegations. Child abuse and sexual abuse of children and young people are among the most despicable of crimes. When adults who should be trusted to care for children abuse their power and position of trust by committing violent crimes, it can haunt those young people for the rest of their lives. That is made worse if society and the institutions charged with protecting children, including in the criminal justice system, fail to step in to provide greater protection or hold the perpetrators to account. The Home Secretary is therefore right to act on the latest concerns.

There are three major issues, each of which needs to be addressed. First, where crimes have been committed or suspected, we need a proper criminal investigation, led by the police in the pursuit of justice. Secondly, we need to know whether there has been an institutional failure to deal with the issue before, be it turning a blind eye, covering things up or simply failing to get to the bottom of what happened. Thirdly, we need to know what further changes are needed to our current framework for safeguarding children and investigating abuse. However, we cannot look at the allegations around north Wales in isolation. The same three questions—about criminal allegations, potential institutional failure and the lessons for today—are just as significant when it comes to the abuse by Jimmy Savile, as well as more current problems, such as the events in Rochdale or the work that the Children’s Commissioner is doing on child sexual exploitation. I am concerned that the Home Secretary’s response will not be wide enough to cover all those issues. Let me take each in turn.

I welcome the points that the Home Secretary has made today about the new criminal investigation into the allegations in north Wales, and in particular the involvement of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, which has considerable expertise. Clearly the investigation must go more widely than north Wales if that is where the evidence takes it. I hope that she can provide that assurance to the House. On the historic reviews, I welcome her decision to look again at the Waterhouse inquiry, which I assume will involve looking at whether child abuse that might have taken place outside the care system was sufficiently considered.

However, we have a whole series of inquiries under way into similar problems, in addition to important police and criminal investigations. As I understand it, there are three BBC inquiries into what happened with Jimmy Savile, a Department of Health inquiry—as well as several separate hospital inquiries—a Crown Prosecution Service inquiry, a new north Wales inquiry and an inquiry by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary into other forces that may have received allegations about Jimmy Savile. The Home Secretary will know that we have already raised our concern that the Savile investigations should be brought under a single inquiry. We remain concerned that these multiple inquiries have no way to draw together the common themes, the problems or the lessons that need to be learned. Of course we need to get to the bottom of what is happening in each case, but at the moment the framework that the Government have set out risks being confused.

The reason this is important is that we have to have a proper way to learn the right lessons for the current framework for safeguarding children, because there are clearly current lessons to be learned. Obviously a series of child protection policies have been introduced since many of the events took place. Big changes include the Children’s Commissioners, strengthening the law repeatedly, new measures and policies on safeguarding in schools and social services, and the creation of CEOP. However, we all remain concerned that victims of sexual abuse, particularly children, are too often simply not believed or taken seriously enough—abuse that was ignored for too long against girls and young women in Rochdale very recently, as well as concerns that have been raised in Rotherham. We have also seen the forthcoming Children’s Commissioner’s report, which will raise concerns about wider child exploitation. We have raised concerns too about some of the policy changes that the Government have introduced, such as changes to vetting and barring arrangements and changes to the way in which CEOP will operate. Primary care trusts have also raised concerns about the way in which child safeguarding will be treated in the NHS as a result of the reforms.

There are wider concerns, and lessons for today that need to be learned alongside the detailed historic investigations that rightly must take place. I know that the Home Secretary is deeply concerned by these crimes, and that she takes them extremely seriously. I therefore urge her to look again at the framework for these inquiries and at the possibility of a single overarching inquiry or review that would draw all the evidence together and consider what needs to be done to protect children now.

It is extremely hard for the victims of child abuse and of sexual abuse against young people to speak out and to talk about crimes that are so intimate and so deeply disturbing, and they show great bravery when they do so. We need to show them that they will be listened to, that we will give them the support that they need and that everything possible will be done to protect children in the future as well.

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for the approach that she has taken to these serious issues. It is right that we should work together across the House to find the best solution, not only to get to the bottom of anything that we have failed to uncover so far, but to support the victims—which, as she and I have said, is so important.

In looking at these issues, it is right that we should first look into the police investigations to see whether any avenues that should have been followed were not pursued, and whether any issues have been uncovered as a result of the allegations that are now coming forward that should be dealt with. We must also pursue any criminality that comes forward, so that the victims can see that justice is being done.

That is why I have put an emphasis on the police investigation, and on the NCA working with the North Wales police to look into the historic allegations and ensure that everything necessary was done. If there are any avenues to be pursued in any criminal investigations, I am absolutely clear that the police should take them wherever they go. It is important that the NCA’s director general should bring in various assets, including, crucially, the Serious Organised Crime Agency and CEOP. CEOP is renowned for dealing with these issues, and it is right that it should be the single point of contact for any fresh allegations that come forward.

If, at the end of the processes that we have set in train, it appears necessary to move forward to a wider investigation, of course we will look at that. At this stage, we need to get the police investigations into any criminality under way, and to ensure that the Waterhouse inquiry did as it was intended to do, and did it properly. As I have said, however, if there is a case to be made for a wider inquiry at some stage in the future, we will of course look at the issue.

I shall return to the point on which the right hon. Lady and I ended our statements today. She was right to say that other police investigations had taken place in which there were issues over whether the victims were believed. We need to be able to reassure victims that, when they come forward, they will be listened to and taken seriously. It is incumbent on all of us in the House, in the positions of authority and responsibility that we hold, to ensure that that is the case.