Jess Phillips MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Sept 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls: Pornography Prostitution · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Sir Desmond, for thinking of the time that I might have to respond. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I thank and commend my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride and Strathaven (Joani Reid) for securing this debate. She is clearly very passionate and informed about the topics in question. That absolutely shone through in her speech. It would be hard to listen to much of the testimony from women who have been abused in this way and feel anything else. My hon. Friend was one of a number of speakers to have referenced the challenges around pornography in the debate on violence against women and girls that I responded to at the start of the year. I am grateful to her and to all Members who have contributed today. This is not the first time that Members of Parliament are considering the impact of pornography on violence against women and girls; the general themes have been long-standing subjects of concern. However, it does feel that the issues around pornography are taking on greater significance all the time, for many of the reasons that have been identified today. In lots of ways, that is inevitable given how universal the internet has become and the massive proliferation of online devices, especially among young people. Similarly, prostitution is another established area of focus for discussion in this space, and I note the points that have been made. I will return to those issues shortly, but I want to couch my response in the Government’s mission to halve violence against women and girls, because of the fundamental recognition of the damage that is being done by these kinds of abuses, many of which we have heard about today. As a society, we must do much better, and we will. The Home Secretary, the Prime Minister and I are all committed to ensuring that these issues are dealt with once and for all. On the points raised, as Members are aware, and as has been covered today, the online space is a significant enabler of sexual exploitation, and our response needs to reflect that. I would say that today the online space is the most significant enabler of sexual exploitation of both adults and children. It becomes an ever-increasing concern. Online platforms must be responsible and held accountable for content on their sites, including by taking proactive steps to prevent their sites from being used by criminals. We are implementing the Online Safety Act 2023, which sets out the priority offences, including sexual exploitation and human trafficking offences. Online platforms now have a duty to assess the risk of illegal harms on their services, albeit this issue has a globally challenging element to it, and obviously our laws apply within the UK. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride and Strathaven pointed out, many of the cases that she highlighted were US-based. As of 17 March, online platforms need to take safety measures to protect users from illegal content, as set out in Ofcom’s code of practice, or face significant penalties, which OnlyFans has, as my hon. Friend pointed out. We are going further: schedule 13 to the Crime and Policing Bill will equip law enforcement officers with new tools to disrupt sexual exploitation that is facilitated through online platforms. They will be able to apply to the court for an order to suspend internet protocol and domain names for a specified period, up to 12 months, if they are used for serious crime, including the offences relating to sexual exploitation and modern slavery—anything that is illegal, essentially. Through operational activity aimed at tackling modern slavery threats and targeting prolific perpetrators, the Government are further supporting law enforcement to tackle the drivers of trafficking for sexual exploitation. I will take away from the debate the point about the specific model. I have seen the work of law enforcement in respect of adult websites—I have seen women who were found on those sites being supported and taken to safety. I have also seen perpetrators criminalised—nowhere near as many as I would like, but that is an evergreen statement—in relation to violence against women and girls. However, I take my hon. Friend’s point about the specific model used by OnlyFans and the need to get behind what might not be able to be seen, and to ensure that that is possible. I will absolutely take that away and ask those questions. The Government will continue to keep under review policies to tackle online enablers of sexual exploitation, and we want to ensure that online companies fulfil their duty to eradicate exploitation from their sites. If necessary, we will take further action to do that. More broadly, Baroness Bertin’s independent review of the impact of pornography has given us valuable insights into the role of pornography. Nobody wishes to seem prudish; what we wish to do is safeguard the women who may be abused in this manner and the children in our country. There has been an exponential increase in the scale of pornography, but it has also become increasingly violent, degrading and misogynistic. We should all be seriously concerned, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) said, about the ideas of stepchildren, child-based hooks, “barely legal” and so on. We absolutely must focus on that. We are already working to change things. In July, we oversaw the coming into force of measures under the Online Safety Act that require all websites that show pornography and are accessible in the UK to have highly effective age-assurance checks. That means, quite rightly, that children should not be able to access pornographic content online. Ofcom has launched an enforcement programme to help to ensure that that is the case. We continue to monitor how well that works. It is so important that children—both boys and girls—are supported to understand the potential dangers of pornography, and to understand how to form positive relationships. That is why the Government have committed to ensuring, through education on healthy relationships, sex and health, that we have a curriculum that equips young people with the knowledge and skills they need to build positive relationships. The new content was launched on 15 July, and it explores many of the things that we would want to see in happy, healthy relationships. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride and Strathaven and other Members that the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology and I, along with many other ministerial colleagues, are looking across Baroness Burtin’s review for inspiration and action. On the ask to include this issue in the violence against women and girls strategy, I do not just hear it; I believe it—and I think I can confirm that it will be. I have absolutely no doubt about the harms to the individuals involved in the pornography that my hon. Friend outlined, and also about the cross-fertilisation to other sites through algorithms. I remember my son telling me, when he was 14, that he had been watching the Sidemen—there is a sea of blank faces in Westminster; the Sidemen are very mainstream online influencers—and they had been roller-skating with a load of women from OnlyFans. That was painted as being completely legitimate. My son said it to me as if there was nothing in it at all. I am grateful that I have that relationship with my son, but I can also see that there is danger in that cross-fertilisation of the expectation that violent, misogynistic porn is the kind of sex or relationship I would want my sons to grow up with. I hear my hon. Friend’s cries and look forward to working with her. Question put and agreed to.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  Often in this debate, we discuss how people felt nervous or anxious about ethnicity, when what is also evident in every single case—regardless of the ethnicity of the perpetrators—is the ability of agencies to look at women and think of them as something else, and to treat young girls poorly. That is exactly what my hon. Friend is talking about. The Crime and Policing Bill, which is going through Parliament, is going to disregard any child prostitution convictions. We are working with the Ministry of Justice to find the wider cohort of victims, and with bodies in the criminal justice system to identify and review cases and to support victims. It will not always have been prostitution charges; I have met many victims who have been criminalised for a variety of things that they probably should not have been. That will be a much more complicated process, but it is one that we have set in train.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  There absolutely are. My hon. Friend is exactly right that there are differences, so it will be for the chair, a panel and a commission to do that work in localities and ensure that victim engagement is really location specific. With regard to the specific issue in Oldham, we have been engaging very closely with Oldham for some time, including with victims and survivors. As I said, I spoke to some of them last night about wanting them to be part of the terms of reference for the national inquiry. Our offer for a full and local independent inquiry in Oldham remains in place, and we are in discussion with them about how they want to proceed in the context of the national inquiry. We do not want to have victims having to do a repetitive exercise, but I assure my hon. Friend that we are speaking to officials in Oldham very regularly.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman—he is not a man I have fallen out with before. I heard from some whistleblowers this week that some of their testimony was not published by IICSA. When dealing with the terms of reference, we have to ensure that there are robust safeguards for whistleblowers. I have worked with one of the whistleblowers, Sara Rowbotham, who lost her job in Rochdale. I have met her and her Member of Parliament to talk about exactly some of that and how we need to get this right—not just in the inquiry or in Operation Beacon Port, but in the future.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  I would like to update the House on the progress being made to deliver Baroness Casey’s recommendations following her national audit on group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse, which was published before the summer recess. The sexual exploitation and abuse of children by grooming gangs are the most horrific and despicable crimes. Girls as young as 10 were exploited, abused and brutally raped by gangs of men, and then disgracefully let down again and again by the authorities that were meant to protect them. These despicable crimes have caused the most unimaginable harm to victims and survivors throughout their lives and are a stain on our society. Baroness Casey’s report chronicled more than a decade of inaction on these appalling crimes by previous Governments, despite repeated warnings and recommendations. But this Government will not lose any more time in pursuing truth and justice for victims and survivors, who deserved so much better. That is why, on 16 June, the Home Secretary made it abundantly clear that this Government will accept all 12 of Baroness Casey’s recommendations, including the establishment of a new statutory national inquiry into group-based child sexual exploitation, and a new national policing operation to get more perpetrators behind bars. Since then, we have made significant strides in laying the foundations for a robust, survivor-centred national inquiry and in establishing a national policing operation, while continuing to drive forward the major workstreams that were already well under way to tackle those abhorrent crimes. I will first update the House on the progress made to establish a new national policing operation to get perpetrators who exploit, abuse and harm children behind bars, where they belong. Today, I can announce that Operation Beaconport has been established. It will be overseen by the National Crime Agency and delivered in partnership with policing, including the National Police Chiefs’ Council, the CSE taskforce and the tackling organised exploitation programme. For the very first time, this new national policing operation brings together all the relevant policing partners under one operation, to ensure a swift and specialist law enforcement response to grooming gang offending. This collaborative approach ensures that a long-term investigative capability is built across policing and that best practice is standard, ending an unacceptable postcode lottery for victims and survivors. The new national operation will eliminate inconsistencies on how cases are handled across forces and will ensure that there is no hiding place for perpetrators. Victims and survivors are central to the operation, and trauma-informed practice will be at its core. Over the summer I have been meeting survivors and their support organisations on the issue. This work is already well under way. In January the Home Secretary asked police forces to identify cases involving grooming and child sexual exploitation that had been closed with no further action, to pursue new lines of inquiry and to reopen investigations where appropriate. As a result of that commission, 1,273 cases have now been identified for formal review, and the new national operation has identified 216 highest priority cases—those that involve an allegation of rape—which are being accelerated as a matter of urgency. We expect policing to meticulously pore over those cases and work with associated victims to relentlessly pursue perpetrators who should be behind bars. That includes the ongoing investigation relating to South Yorkshire Police’s handling of reports into child sexual abuse and exploitation in Rotherham. Following discussions between the Independent Office for Police Conduct, South Yorkshire Police and the National Crime Agency, I can confirm that it has been formally agreed that the investigation will now be carried out by the NCA, under the direction and control of the IOPC. Alongside these ongoing reviews, Operation Beaconport will also provide additional support for police forces to conduct complex investigations, and to ensure that specialist best practice is being adopted consistently across the country. I thank the CSE taskforce for the work that it has done in preparing the way forward for these investigations. I can announce to the House today that in the first year that this Government were in office, from July 2024 to July 2025, the taskforce contributed to 827 arrests nationwide, an 11% increase on the previous year. To bolster this vital work, I can update the House that last month I announced that the Government would be injecting £426,000 of new funding to the tackling organised exploitation programme, in addition to the £8.8 million that we are already investing in the programme this year. The new funding will enable TOEX to extend access to its suite of cutting-edge investigative apps and digital tools, stored within its secure capabilities environment, to all police forces in England and Wales. Following my announcement of a further investment, in addition to the 15 police forces that are already utilising TOEX tools, a further 10 forces are currently onboarding. The TOEX expansion crucially supports the first phase of Operation Beaconport. Police officers will be able to access the AI-enabled tools to assist with detecting and investigating child sexual abuse and exploitation, including TOEX translate, a tool for bulk translation of foreign language text from seized mobile devices, which has enabled savings of an estimated £25 million so far, and the data analysis and review tool, which analyses large amounts of digital data to identify communications patterns and relationships between suspects. Further announcements on Operation Beaconport will be made by operational partners shortly. A comprehensive update is expected in the coming weeks, setting out the full scope of the operation and the support available to those affected. We will never shy away from the facts in these cases. Following Baroness Casey’s audit and her conclusions on the disproportionate role of Pakistani-heritage gangs, and building on the work that the Home Secretary had already commissioned to improve ethnicity data in relation to those crimes, we have also committed to making it a requirement to collect ethnicity and nationality data of suspects who commit child sexual exploitation and abuse offences. The Home Secretary has written to chief constables to signal that the current data collection across ethnicity and nationality is unacceptable, and that this data must be improved as a matter of urgency. Work is now under way looking to amend the annual data requirements to support this process, and we are looking at legislative options to drive forward these improvements. Finally, Baroness Casey recommended the establishment of a new statutory national inquiry that could compel targeted investigations in local areas, to get truth and justice for victims and survivors, and to drive meaningful change in local systems and structures that had failed so many people in the past. I can confirm that the national inquiry into group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse will place victims and survivors firmly at its heart. Crucially, it will ensure trauma-informed, accessible engagement for victims and survivors that reflects diverse lived experiences and minimises the risk of re-traumatisation. The inquiry will examine how effectively local and national safeguarding systems protected children from group-based sexual exploitation and abuse, and hold institutions accountable for past failures. As the Home Secretary said in June, its purpose must be to challenge what Baroness Casey’s audit described as continued “denial”, “resistance” and “legal wrangling” among local agencies. The inquiry will consider intersections with ethnicity, race and culture, and assess the safeguarding duties of public services, identifying both failures and examples of good practice. I know that everyone in the House and beyond wants to see the inquiry begin its work at the earliest opportunity. Colleagues will know that that requires the appointment of a chair and the agreement of terms of reference. Following a recruitment process over the summer, Home Office officials, the Home Secretary and I have met with prospective candidates for the chair of the inquiry and we are now in the final stages of the appointment process. Most importantly, the chair must have the credibility and experience to command the confidence of victims and survivors, as well as the wider public. Meaningful engagement with victims and survivors is paramount. To support that, a dedicated panel of victims and survivors has been established to contribute to the chair selection process. This is a critical milestone, and once an appointment is confirmed, the House will be updated at the earliest opportunity. Members from across the House will understand that this process must be done properly and thoroughly. We must avoid a repeat of what happened with the efforts to appoint a chair of the original independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, when three chairs were appointed and subsequently withdrew, from July 2014 onwards, prior to the eventual appointment of Professor Alexis Jay in 2016, a full two years after the original chair was named. We are determined to ensure that that does not happen again. In line with the Inquiries Act 2025, the appointed chair will play a central role in shaping the commission’s terms of reference. These will be published and subject to consultation with stakeholders, including victims and survivors. The inquiry is expected to run for two to three years, enabling it to examine a broad range of issues, while honouring Baroness Casey’s recommendation that it must be time-limited to deliver answers swiftly, a key request not just from victims and survivors, but from Members from across this House. The inquiry will begin by identifying priority areas for review, conducting targeted local investigations and reporting findings at both local and national levels. These reviews will be tailored to the specific context of each area and may involve a wide range of organisations, including children’s and family services, police, the Crown Prosecution Service, health and education providers, youth services, third-sector organisations and central Government Departments, whose actions and decisions have affected what has happened at a local level. Where appropriate, the inquiry will issue recommendations at both local and national levels. We will continue to keep Members of the House, the victims and the public informed of all appointments and the terms of reference. The Government remain unwavering in their commitment to ensuring that this inquiry is robust, transparent and capable of delivering truth, accountability and meaningful change. As we have said from the outset, we are determined to ensure that every survivor of grooming gangs gets the support and justice they deserve; that every perpetrator is put behind bars; that every case, historic or current, has been properly investigated; and that every person or institution who looked the other way is held accountable, as that is a stain on our society that should be finally removed for good. I commend this statement to the House.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  I absolutely commit myself to working with the Victims Minister. The issue of consent, and the age of consent, was a huge part of Baroness Casey’s review, and a number of Members have mentioned making this a victim-centred process. These are words that we say, but it is much harder in reality. We are talking about people who have been very badly wronged and whose level of trust has been badly affected. This is not something that happens easily. It is not a process in which every one of the victims will get on with the others. We will ensure that in both the national policing inquiry and the national statutory inquiry there are systems to enable as many voices as possible to be heard as comfortably as possible, but I do not think we should lie to the public about how easy those procedures are. I speak as someone who has worked in this field for a very long time. We are talking about very traumatised and distressed young people, and this will take considerably more effort and patience than I think they have been shown in the past.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  I partially thank the shadow Home Secretary for his tone, but I will correct the record. I did not say that he had done nothing: I said that Baroness Casey said that there had been “a decade of inaction on these appalling crimes by previous Governments”. That is exactly what I said. I answered in my statement many of the questions that the right hon. Gentleman asked. His office may have spoken to some of the Oldham victims today; I spoke to some of them personally last night, so I keep in touch with lots of victims. What I will not do—what I will never do—is make it so that they are not involved. It takes time to ensure that this process is completely victim centred. Frankly, I am sure that is what he and other Members on the Opposition Benches who have written to me with that request want to see, and that is the process we are undertaking. In answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question, no local authority area can turn the inquiry down. The Home Secretary and I have said a number of times that it is a full, powerful statutory inquiry. I have seen some scaremongering, and victims have written to me to say, “This will not cover Government officials or people who covered things up.” That is absolute nonsense. Let me be very clear, and let it be taken away by everybody who I am sure has the best interests of victims at heart, that it will cover what it needs to cover to uncover the truth, and no stone will be left unturned. That will make for difficult conversations for people. If people are found by our court system to have undermined and disgraced public office, they should of course be sent to prison. However, that has never happened to date in these cases. I very much hope that we uncover the kind of social workers that the right hon. Gentleman refers to, and I hope that they face the full force of everything that they deserve to face, but there is absolutely nothing that says that anybody can avoid this inquiry. It will be up to the inquiry, which is independent and statutory, to look at and work with areas about where this will be.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right, because Baroness Casey pointed out how many of her recommendations hinge on there being a good child protection authority, and that work is being done by Department for Education colleagues. I have been involved, along with Alexis Jay, and I have ensured that she has been in meetings with them. The authority will evolve, because what we do not want to do, contrary to the views of some in the House, is to wait forever to set it up or to try to get it exactly right first time when it is a complicated thing. It will evolve along the way, but all those involved in the inquiry, across both local and national bodies, will have the opportunity to feed in their views about what it needs to look like.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  Absolutely. One of Baroness Casey’s recommendations was for a piece of research on exactly that: the “why” about things that were covered up and the “why” about communities but also institutions. The Home Office is currently working with various academics to commission such research, and it is fundamental. While a huge amount of discussion—and, as I have said, I agree with it—has concerned the “why” issue on ethnicity, with the nervousness, the wokeness or whatever we want to call it, another “why” is about class and the way in which the systems treat these young women when they come forward, and, indeed, the way in which they treat plenty of other women when they come forward in relation to any of these issues.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  It is not that victims like Joanna do not deserve justice; they absolutely do deserve justice. I do not know about Joanna’s case, but I should be more than happy to meet her and talk to her about it. The body that must hold a national inquiry into events in Scotland is a body in the devolved Government, because both policing and child protection are devolved issues. However, as I said to one of my hon. Friends earlier, I am more than happy to look into this. People who are Scottish, or who live in Scotland now, and have been abused in an area covered by the inquiry will absolutely be able to take part.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  I did actually say in my statement that, as outlined in Baroness Casey’s review, the inquiry should take around two to three years and be time-sensitive. All I can say to the right hon. Gentleman is that in order to make sure that we are doing this right, we will shortly be providing an update on the chair of the inquiry. I gently remind him of the two years it took to find a chair for the child sex abuse inquiry—two years and three failed attempts. I do not want to do that to people this time, so that is why we are taking the time.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) mentioned the importance of drawing attention to the fact that, especially in the context of the online crime of sexploitation, boys are at greater risk. That is the only area of exploitation in which most of the victims are teenage boys, and it is a new and growing phenomenon. I say to the hon. Gentleman that in both the national inquiry and Operation Beaconport, the Home Secretary and I have been pushing at every stage for recognition of the fact that this process cannot just rake over historic coals. It must be grounded in recognition of the way in which abuse is happening now and improving police forces’ responses to it, and undoubtedly it is now happening online. The most frightening statistic that keeps me awake at night is that last year 53% of child sexual abuse was perpetrated by children aged between 10 and 17.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right. As I said earlier, there is likely to be border-crossing between Birmingham and Telford, which was mentioned in the earlier inquiry. We continue to discuss this with the devolved Administrations. The Scottish Government can set up a specific national inquiry under the Inquiries Act, as we have, but any cross-border findings will of course be shared, action will be sought, and, potentially, recommendations will be made.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to Ann Cryer, a woman I am incredibly fond of—personally as well as professionally—for her immense bravery. I have no doubt that none of us would be sitting in the Chamber today talking about any of this had it not been for her; she deserves absolute credit. I do not recognise the characterisation that the hon. Gentleman has given. I have not had any particular pushback, or heard anywhere suggesting that the inquiry should not be looking into certain areas or giving any sense that they will resist it, but I would say to all local areas: resistance is futile.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  Absolutely. Long before Baroness Casey was pointing out the safeguarding issues, I was being lobbied by decent, hard-working people about the failures of the taxi licensing system as it stands. We will consider all options. As I have said, we have committed to legislating specifically on this point, but we are also looking at including out-of-area working, as well as national standards and enforcement, and at consulting on making local transport authorities responsible for licensing.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  I stand here as a vessel of the victims who have spoken to me. They have not necessarily used the word “sectarian”, but they hate this issue being used as a political football. Baroness Casey, in the media that she did post releasing her report, said the same: she felt that politics was not meeting the moment in some of the responses. We have got to do better, and the very first thing that I would say is that I welcome the involvement and look forward to the engagement on the terms of reference, which will be published for consultation with every single Member of this House, regardless of what they might have said before or whether we might have fallen out on other occasions. I welcome the inquiry, and I want to make sure that we show the very best of this place, because that is the least that victims deserve.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  I praise the hon. Gentleman for saying that, because familial abuse and child exploitation not by groups but by families or peer groups are, I am afraid to say, not uncommon. I know that from my years of experience. Those victims feel as if their voices are being marginalised. This piece of work that we have announced today is part of a much broader child abuse body that sits within the Home Office and works on all those things. The recommendations of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse keep us on that track, but we must not lose sight of all the abuse, especially that happening among young people against other young people and online.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  I met the Department for Transport on the issue of taxi licensing last week—this is about looking for a legislative vehicle. The Government have said that we will undo some of the harm caused by the deregulation legislation of the past, including the dangers that have come about related to safeguarding and taxi licensing. The hon. Lady invited Members to work across the House. In every interaction—there have been many—that I have had with victims of this crime since the last time I or the Home Secretary stood at the Dispatch Box making a statement, they have asked if we could just work together and stop throwing mud at each other. I will happily work with anyone on this issue. We are currently looking for legislative vehicles, but we do seek to legislate. We expect the Hillsborough law shortly; I am sorry that that is not a very prescriptive answer, but that law is very much expected.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  I am not sure the right hon. Lady wants to hear my hopes about the next general election. As I said earlier, the victims of this crime have sat in front of me with tears in their eyes and said that they hate it when we shout at each other about these things and that they wish we would work together. Just to tell her the details again, I outlined that 1,273 cases have now been identified by the new policing investigation, which was recommendation 1 of Baroness Casey. Of those, we are expediting 216 cases. The terms of reference will be published and consulted on, and I would very much welcome the right hon. Lady’s opinion. She has never asked for a meeting with me, and I would love to have one. If she would like to be involved in how we build those terms of reference up, please get in touch with my office. I have to say, however, that hers is not the voice I am most concerned about hearing—those people I am speaking to.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words, and I will certainly take that opportunity, because I have seen this with my own eyes in cases in which I have been involved. People have said, “Oh, it might cause trouble.” That was not stopping them doing it, but they would not have even mentioned it to me in other circumstances. What we have to do, and what we all owe to the victims of these crimes, is to call it what it is, but also not to use our own political agendas in relation to their very delicate and harmed lives, whatever form that takes. We do not want a backlash causing the police to go on thinking, “Oh gosh, this is going to open a can of worms.” We must all act responsibly in respect of these issues. However, I have definitely seen this, and it should never have been allowed to happen.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  Yes. My hon. Friend makes an important point that we have to make sure that the inquiry is not used for further state inactivity. There have been cases where that has happened before. As we are undertaking a new national policing operation in Operation Beaconport at the same time as the national inquiry, I give him my absolute assurance that I will ensure that the two work closely together so that such a situation cannot happen, unless it would cause such judicial issues that it would have to happen.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  It would be playing a very long game to say that I have been taken kicking or screaming into this issue. Sarah Rowbotham was one of the whistleblowers, and I wrote a book about her and this particular issue about nine years ago. I have also set up many, many support services for victims of these crimes. I will always do what I think is best in these cases, and I took the advice of Baroness Casey. Trying to see bad faith, or to score political points, is not what we should do.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  On the contrary: very few people have written to me more throughout this process than the leader of Telford council, who has talked about how they want to continue to make progress. I am very familiar with what happened in Telford. Quite a lot of the evidence shows that people in Telford were groomed where I live, in Birmingham, yet the Telford inquiry—while brilliant—did not lead to any changes in neighbouring areas. That is exactly what we hope the national inquiry will do, so although I cannot direct where it must go, I absolutely want it to look at prior work that has been done and some of the gaps that have been identified, exactly as the right hon. Gentleman says.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  There has been some reporting that the violence against women and girls strategy will not include child abuse victims and grooming gang victims. I can stand here and say that is utter rubbish; it absolutely will, and it will be published very shortly. Any delay is only out of my own perfectionism—I think that is what I will call it. This is a 10-year strategy that will last until at least the next Parliament, and it has to be right. Huge parts of it will absolutely be about support for victims.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  Of course I will meet the hon. Gentleman and, like I say, any colleagues who wish to take part in this work. As somebody who represents a large and diverse community, I have to say that the Pakistani part of my community has been most fervent in wanting the truth to come out, because harm has been done to them by the alleged wokeness that has been talked about. As I finish my statement, let me take this opportunity to say that we have to make sure that we have the facts and do not feel squeamish about the perpetrators. At 6 am on Monday morning, I met victims of this crime who are black, white and Asian. We must not silence those victims by only ever talking about one type of victim. The victimhood in group-based abuse is not just one type, apart from one thing: they are all girls. Bills Presented Sentencing Bill Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57 ) Secretary Shabana Mahmood, supported by the Prime Minister, Secretary Angela Rayner, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Secretary Peter Kyle, presented a Bill to make provision about the sentencing, release and management after sentencing of offenders; to make provision about bail; to make provision about the removal from the United Kingdom of foreign criminals and the processing of information about foreign criminals for immigration purposes; and for connected purposes. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 299) with explanatory notes (Bill 299-EN). Vehicle Registration Marks (Misuse and Offences) Bill Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57 ) Dr Al Pinkerton presented a Bill to make provision about offences relating to the misuse and illegal copying of vehicle registration marks; to require the Secretary of State to introduce measures to reduce incidences of such misuse and illegal copying; to make provision about support for victims of any such offences; and for connected purposes. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 1 2 September , and to be printed (Bill 298 ).