Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to their report Group based child sexual exploitation characteristics of offending, published on 15 December, whether they plan to require the police to record the (1) ethnicity, and (2) religion, of offenders; and if not, why not.

Child sexual abuse is a despicable crime and the Government is committed to keeping children and young people safe from all forms of abuse.

The paper, ‘Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation Characteristics of Offending’ sets out the limited available evidence on the characteristics of offenders involved in group-based child sexual exploitation. An External Reference Group (ERG) of experts was established to advise in the development of the paper.

Members of the ERG provided advice in their capacity as individual experts and votes were not cast to establish whether views were held by a majority of members. While some members of the ERG wanted the paper to provide more detail on the characteristics of offending within certain communities, there was not substantial discussion of religion specifically.

The paper recognises that understanding cultural drivers is one of the key aspects in preventing and tackling offending. In publishing the paper, the Home Secretary expressed disappointment in the lack of robust data on these characteristics. We will set out action to address this in the Government’s forthcoming Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy. Any new data collection requirements of police forces will be made in consultation with the police which are rightly independent of Government.

The Police Act 1996 sets out that forces must submit data to the Home Office when requested to do so. All proposals for new data collections are consulted on with policy and operational colleagues, other government departments, National Policing Leads and other key police stakeholders to ensure that such requests are proportionate and eliminate unnecessary burdens. This ensures a proper balance between the accountability and efficiency of police operation and is reviewed on an annual basis.