Over the last week I have received a fair amount of correspondence about the vote on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. There seems to be quite a lot of confusion and misinformation on this Bill and the amendment that was made by the opposition, so I wanted to try and clear that up. 

Let me be really clear, child sexual abuse and exploitation are the most vile and horrific of crimes. That is why this Government is determined to act, strengthening the law, taking forward recommendations from independent inquiries, and supporting stronger police action and protection for victims.

I have been fighting against child exploitation in Plymouth for many years. I successfully campaigned for, and got the law changed after the paedophile gang member, Vanessa George, would not tell Police which children she attacked at the nursery in Plymouth. The law I campaigned for now means an offender who refuses to name their victims can have this taken into consideration by the Parole Board when release is considered. 

I have been deeply troubled to see child abuse, a gravely serious issue, exploited to score cheap points at the expense of delivering justice for victims and ensuring a scandal like this never happens again. I think it is desperate. It is also deeply sad that the voices of victims have been so obscured over the past week in place of political grandstanding. 

MPs are elected to be problem solvers, not problem exploiters. But what Opposition MPs did last week was attempt to vote down a Bill – “The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill” – which contains significant measures to keep children safe and protect them from this sort of abuse. It is a good bill that seeks to address many of the issues facing children and families from the high cost of branded uniforms to kids being out of school and child protection. 

Many of the measures it includes had been ignored by the previous Government but which will now be delivered in this Bill. 

The amendment to the Bill, tabled by the Leader of the Opposition, is what is called a wrecking amendment as it is not about amending the bill but stopping it progressing. If their amendment had passed it would have sunk all the measures – including the additional child protection measures – for the duration of the Parliamentary session. The Opposition claim this was because they wanted another national inquiry into child abuse. The amendment, if it had passed, would not have created a child abuse inquiry but it would have sunk the bill. I find it hard to believe anyone who wants to see children protected would, on balance, think this is a good outcome. 

An Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse reported in 2022. It took seven years and cost the taxpayer £200 million. It made 20 recommendations, none of which were fully implemented by the last Government. It is entirely fair for someone to believe that another lengthy and expensive inquiry is what they want, but I do not see what yet another national inquiry would tell us that we don’t already know from the local inquiries and the previous national inquiry. It would simply delay action that is needed now. As a result I voted to protect the Bill and voted down the wrecking amendment this week. I hope you get why. 

The Government is taking steps to address child abuse. 

As a first step, the Government is taking immediate action on three key recommendations from national inquiry into child sexual abuse. The Government will: 

• Legislate to make it mandatory to report abuse, making it an offence with professional and criminal sanctions to fail to report or to cover up child sexual abuse. This has been a long standing policy of my party and I am pleased we will now be able to introduce this.
• Legislate to make grooming an aggravating factor in the sentencing of child sexual offences, to ensure the punishment fits the terrible crime.
• Overhaul the way information and evidence is gathered on child sexual abuse by introducing a ‘single child identifier’ and through a strengthened police performance framework, with new standards on public protection, child abuse and exploitation.

The Government is also accelerating the work of the Grooming Gangs Taskforce, set up under the previous Government. There was a 25% increase in arrests between July and September last year.

In addition here are some of the key child protection elements included in the Bill that I supported and the amendment would have stopped:

• Introducing a register of children not in school and new powers to protect children who are at risk of significant harm who are not in school to make sure no child falls through the cracks. If this had been in place two years ago when first recommended, the horrific murder of Sara Sharif by her parents might have been prevented.

• Implementing multi-agency child protection teams and strengthening existing multi-agency safeguarding arrangements; bringing social workers, schools, police, health providers and others together to quickly and accurately identify and respond to harm to at risk children.

• Introducing a single child identifier so that information can be shared live between agencies, removing the fog of confused or partial information sharing.

The Bill also saves parents money by rolling out free breakfast clubs in every primary school and limiting the number of branded uniform items schools can require children to wear. If, for example,  you’ve got a child in primary school these measures could save you approximately £500 per year.

I was proud to vote for the Bill and not for the Opposition’s wrecking amendment which would have seen all of these measures fail and put more children at risk of abuse.

On balance I do not believe that we need another lengthy national inquiry into this issue which will delay action and justice even further. We had one under the last government. It took seven years, it is 468 pages long and produced 20 serious recommendations. You can read it HERE.

As part of this seven year inquiry, there was a dedicated two year investigation into child sexual exploitation by gangs specifically which took extensive evidence from across the country: You can read that HERE. 

It is simply not true, as is being claimed, that IICSA did not consider grooming gangs. The problem is that the recommendations were not implemented under the previous Government. The new Government has committed to delivering on 19 of them and we have already started that work. 

The leader of that inquiry, Baroness Jay, agrees that there is no need for a further inquiry. Many victims who engaged with that inquiry agree that we do not need another inquiry. We should listen to the victims and the experts and get on with delivering justice and preventing further abuse. What is needed now is action not more delay. Further delays only helps abusers get away with their abuse, that is why I will not back delays and I am sure you will agree with me on that point. 

You can read the Home Secretary’s update to Parliament on the action the government is taking to tackle child sexual abuse and grooming gangs HERE.

I want to see recommendations from the reviews delivered.  I will be following the development of this Bill closely as it makes its way through Parliament to ensure it contains robust provisions to protect children from harm and gives professionals who work with children the tools they need to identify issues at the earliest opportunity and take all necessary action.

Finally, I think it is important to note that, according to the National Police Chief’s Council, only 5% of child sexual abuse and exploitation crimes are group-based. It is very important that we tackle grooming gangs, and that we are candid when there is a racial component to this, but we must not overlook the 95% of child sexual abuse not carried out by grooming gangs . Victims of all these crimes also deserve our attention.

I hope you will be assured from this response that I understand this issue, that I have been actively engaged in tackling this issue for many years, and I am committed to taking serious action to address this issue, as is the Government. 

Please also know I won’t play politics with child abuse and I hope you can understand why it is so regrettable when others do so. For all the victims of this abhorrent practice, we must be so much better than what we have seen in the past week online and in Parliament.