Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking with his counterparts in the Devolved administrations to tackle child sexual exploitation.

The UK Government is committed to tackling the horrific crime of child sexual exploitation, to ensure that our children are kept safe and that offenders are brought to justice.

Through our Tackling Child Sexual Abuse strategy, we continue to drive improvement at pace in the response to child sexual exploitation in England and Wales. This includes funding a Tackling Organised Exploitation programme, which supports police to uncover and prosecute more exploitation of children, and a Prevention Programme, delivered by the Children’s Society, which delivers tailored interventions to improve understanding of this crime amongst frontline professionals and wider partners.

The services involved in tackling child sexual exploitation, including health, social services and policing, are devolved, and as such it is for the Governments of Scotland and Northern Ireland to drive work in those nations to tackle this issue though we continue to share learning and best practice.