Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent discussions he has had with the Home Secretary on the establishment of a support programme for families with children at risk of exploitation, following the introduction of the Tackling Child Exploitation Support Programme in 2019.

My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, meets regularly with other ministers to discuss the Department of Education’s agenda.

We are committed to protecting children at risk of exploitation and this is why the government has commissioned a consortium, led by Research in Practice, and the International Centre at the University of Bedfordshire and The Children’s Society, to deliver the Tackling Child Exploitation (TCE) Support Programme.

The TCE Support Programme will help safeguarding partners in local areas develop an effective multi-agency response to a range of threats to children from outside the family, including sexual and child criminal exploitation, county lines, all forms of modern slavery of children and child trafficking. It will operate from 2019 up until 2022 with funding of up to £2 million.