Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to tackle child sexual abuse (a) at home and (b) online.

Nothing is more important than the safety of our children. The UK Government is committed to stamping out all forms of child sexual abuse (CSA) and continuing to be a global leader in tackling CSA.

Last year we announced an additional £30 million to safeguard children from child sexual exploitation and abuse, both at home and online. This includes £9.86 million to the National Crime Agency to improve its ability to tackle perpetrators seeking to offend against children via the Dark Web and £3.36 million to further improve our understanding and tackle all aspects of the CSA threat.

To increase support for children at risk at home, we have made funding £1.6 million available for the NSPCC to expand and promote its national helpline for adults with concerns about a child, and disseminate safeguarding messaging to key community partners to raise awareness of how and where they can raise concerns and seek advice about children’s safety and wellbeing. Recognising the unprecedented challenge posed by COVID-19 and restrictions to prevent its spread, Prime Minister hosted a cross-Government Hidden Harms Virtual Summit, to bring together key decisions makers and agree actions to combat hidden crimes, including child sexual abuse. We have also worked across government, with law enforcement and the third sector to provide information and advice about CSA to schools, parents, carers and children and to ensure that victims and survivors continue to have access to the greatest possible support.

Alongside this we continue to work to prevent offending by supporting the Lucy Faithfull Foundation’s Stop It Now! campaign, signposting people concerned about their own behaviour, or the behaviour of others, towards effective and anonymous help provided by the Foundation.

We have also driven work to respond to the risk of children coming to harm online by educating teachers as well as parents and carers and ensuring they have access to the support they need to help keep children safe online, as well as by galvanising industry and international partners to formally launch the set of Voluntary Principles to Counter Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.

Work to tackle online harms, including CSA online, remains a top Government Priority. Protecting children from abuse and exploitation online as a central component of the Online Harms White Paper, which sets out a range of ambitious legislative and non-legislative measures to tackle online harms and set clear responsibilities for tech companies to keep UK citizens safe online, especially children.

The Government is committed to publishing a first of its kind national strategy on tackling child sexual abuse, outlining our long-term ambition to drive a whole system response to tackle this heinous crime in all its forms.