Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure that more police investigations into child abuse are conducted to an adequate standard.

We welcome HMIC’s scrutiny and share its concerns. Officials from in the Home Office have discussed the reports with the authors and already had an informal meeting with a senior official from HMIC.

The Government is taking a range of action which will help forces address issues raised by the HMIC reports. As part of this package of measures, we have prioritised child sexual abuse as a national threat which means that police forces and Police and Crime Commissioners must have in place the capabilities they need to protect children from sexual abuse.