Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Government response to recommendation 16, of the final report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, published in May 2023, CP 844, what the planned timeline is for consultation on specialist therapeutic services for survivors and victims.

The Government recognises the importance of high-quality, timely therapeutic support for victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.

In recent years we have significantly increased funding for national, regional and community provision of support services for victims of child sexual abuse.

As set out in our response to Recommendation 16 of the Independent Inquiry, we will be engaging with commissioners, service providers and other experts on child sexual abuse about what further steps we can take to ensure access to suitable support to help victims and survivors recover and rebuild their lives. This will build on provisions in the Victims and Prisoners Bill to introduce a duty on local commissioners to collaborate when commissioning support services for victims and survivors of sexual abuse, and work by the Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse to map the provision of specialist child sexual abuse support in a ‘State of the Sector’ report. This work will support funders and commissioners to commission services effectively based on a better knowledge of existing provision and need.

We have also committed to providing regular updates to Parliament on all the commitments made in the government’s final response to the Independent Inquiry.