Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the potential number of historical child sexual abuse cases likely to be brought following the removal of the limitation period for such claims.

Measuring the scale and nature of child sexual abuse is difficult because it is usually hidden from view. Victims often feel unable to report their experiences and adults are not always able to recognise that abuse is taking place. As a result, there is no data available to represent the full scale of the issue. We therefore do not know how many people are currently experiencing, or have experienced, child sexual abuse or how many potential victims and survivors may be impacted by these changes.

However, the Government recognises, as was reinforced by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, that it might take years and in many cases decades for the victims and survivors of child sexual abuse to come forward and feel ready to disclose their trauma. That is why we accepted the critical issue the Inquiry sought to remedy in calling for reform of limitation law to overcome some of the barriers to justice that are faced by victims and survivors.