Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department plans to implement any of the recommendations of the report, Joint Serious Case Review Concerning Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adults with Needs for Care and Support in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, published by the Newcastle Safeguarding Children Board and Newcastle Safeguarding Adults Board.

Child sexual exploitation is abhorrent and the crimes perpetrated in Newcastle have had a devastating impact on the lives of the victims. The Government acknowledges the seriousness of the issues raised in this serious case review and is committed to improving the national response to tackling sexual exploitation.

We have already taken significant action to tackle this issue. In February 2017, the Government published its Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation: Progress Report and announced a £40m package of measures to protect children and young people from sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking, and to crack down on offenders. This included £7.5m for a new, ground-breaking Centre of Expertise that will identify, generate, and share high quality evidence of what works to prevent and tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation.

The Sexual Offences Act 2003 contains a wide range of offences designed to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation and provides robust sentences that reflect the seriousness of this offending. We keep these areas of the criminal law under review to ensure it is fully equipped to deal with the scourge of sexual offending against children and young people. For example, in April 2017, we commenced the offence of “sexual communications with a child”, building on existing “grooming” offences.

The recommendations of the review cover a wide range of issues, which we will consider carefully in the context of this existing programme of work.