Next steps to tackle child sexual exploitation - Home Secretary's statement to Parliament - Jan 16

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper gave an update on the actions the government will take to protect young people from sexual abuse and grooming gangs.

"Last Monday I set out the actions this government is taking forward to tackle the terrible crimes of child sexual exploitation and abuse – including mandatory reporting, a new victims and survivors panel, an overhaul of data and police performance requirements, tougher sentences for perpetrators, and support for local inquiries including in Oldham.

The Safeguarding Minister is this morning meeting with survivors from Oldham. Earlier this week she and I met Professor Alexis Jay who chaired both the 7-year national Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse and the first local independent inquiry into grooming gangs in Rotherham.

Professor Jay's strongest message to us was that the survivors who bravely testified to terrible crimes committed against them must not be left to feel that their efforts were in vain, because despite all the inquiries, no one listened and nothing was done.

Following those discussions, I therefore want to update the House on our next steps both to take forward inquiry recommendations and to go further in tackling sexual exploitation and grooming on the streets and online to keep children safe.

The Independent National Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse completed its final report in 2022.

It took 7 years, heard 7,000 personal testimonies, and considered 2 million pages of evidence. They were devastating accounts of brutal rapes, sexual violence, humiliation, trauma, betrayal of vulnerable children by those charged with protecting them and people in positions of power who shamefully put the reputation of institutions before the protection of children.

The inquiry included separate detailed reports on:

• organised child abuse in residential homes and schools

• abuse and cover ups in the Catholic and Anglican churches

And a 2-year inquiry, published in February 2022, into child sexual exploitation by organised networks and grooming gangs which itself examined over 400 recommendations made by previous inquiries and serious case reviews, as well as taking further evidence of its own. And there have been further reports since then including on Telford and on police performance.

But despite all those national inquiries, reports and hundreds of recommendations, far too little action has been taken and shamefully little progress has been made. That has to change.

So before Easter, the government will lay out a clear timetable for taking forward the 20 recommendations from the final IICSA [Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse] report.

Four of those are specifically for the Home Office. I can confirm that we have accepted them in full, including on disclosure and barring. Work on these is already underway.

A cross-government ministerial group is considering and working through the remaining recommendations, and that group will be supported by our new victims and survivors panel.

In addition, I can confirm today that the government will implement all the remaining recommendations in IICSA's separate standalone report on grooming gangs from February 2022 – including updating key Department of Education guidance.

Let me turn to the areas where we need to go further.

As I said last week, the most important task should be to increase police investigations into these horrific crimes and get abusers behind bars.

We will introduce stronger sentences for child grooming – making it an aggravating factor to organise abuse and exploitation.

And I can announce new action today to help victims get more investigations and prosecutions underway.

I am extending the remit of the independent Child Sexual Abuse Review Panel so it covers not just historic cases before 2013, but all cases since so that any victim of abuse will have the right to seek an independent review without having to go back to the local institutions who decided not to proceed with their case.

I am writing today to the National Police Chiefs Council to ask all chief constables to look again at historic gang exploitation cases where ‘No Further Action' was taken, and work with the police Child Sexual Exploitation Taskforce to pursue new lines of inquiry and re-open investigations where appropriate and these new measures will be backed by £2 million of additional funding for the taskforce and the panel.

And all police forces will be expected to implement the 2023 recommendations from His Majesty's Inspectorate, including producing ‘problem profiles' on the nature of grooming gangs in their area. And I have asked the Inspectorate to review progress this year.

But as well as reviewing past cases, we also need much stronger action to uncover the full scale and nature of these awful crimes.

The Child Sexual Exploitation Police Taskforce led by the National Police Chief's Council has estimated that out of the 115,000 child sexual abuse offences recorded by the police in 2023, around 4,000 involved more than one perpetrator.

Of those, they identify around 1100 that involved abuse within the family, over 300 involved abuse in institutions. And they identified 717 reported cases of group or gang-related child sexual exploitation.

But we know the vast majority of abuse goes unreported, so we expect all those figures to be a significant underestimate.

The taskforce reports that there are currently 127 major police investigations underway on child sexual exploitation and gang grooming across 29 different police forces.

Many major investigations have involved Pakistani heritage gangs and the police taskforce evidence also shows exploitation and abuse taking place across many different communities and ethnicities. But the data on ethnicity of both perpetrators and victims is still inadequate.

As I said last week, we will overhaul the data we expect local areas to collect as part of a new performance management framework.

But I have also asked the Child Sexual Exploitation Taskforce to immediately expand the ethnicity data it collects and publishes - gathering data from the end of the investigation when a fuller picture is available, not just from the beginning when suspects may not yet have been identified.

But in order to go much further, I have asked Baroness Louise Casey to oversee a rapid audit of the current scale and nature of gang-based exploitation across the country and to make recommendations on the further work that is needed.

The specific 2022 IICSA report on gang exploitation concluded that an accurate picture of the prevalence of child sexual exploitation could not be gleaned from the data and evidence it had available so this audit will seek to fill that gap.

It will look at further evidence that was not previously available. Including that collected by the police taskforce and the new ‘problem profiles' compiled by police forces and it will include an equivalent audit of child protection referrals.

It will properly examine ethnicity data and the demographics of the gangs involved and their victims and it will look at the cultural and societal drivers for this type of offending including amongst different ethnic groups.

And it will make recommendations about further analysis, investigations and actions that are needed to address current and historic failures.

Baroness Louise Casey was the author of the no-holds barred 2015 report into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham and I have therefore asked her to oversee this rapid 3-month audit, ahead of the launch of the Independent Commission into Adult Social Care.

In many areas across the country, the focus must now be on further police investigations and implementing recommendations to improve services.

But we will also provide stronger national backing for local inquiries where they are needed to get truth and justice for victims and survivors.

The Prime Minister and I both met last week with survivors from Telford who had enormous praise for the way that local inquiry was conducted after there had been failings over very many years.

That inquiry led to tangible change, including piloting the introduction of CCTV in taxis, and appointing child sexual exploitation experts in local secondary schools.

As we have seen, effective local inquiries can delve into far more local detail and deliver more locally-relevant answers and change than a lengthy nationwide inquiry can provide.

Tom Crowther KC, Chair of the Telford Inquiry, has agreed to work with the government to develop a new framework for victim-centred, locally-led inquiries, where they are needed, and as a first step to work with Oldham Council and up to four other pilot areas.

That will also include support for local authorities who want to explore other ways of supporting victims, including setting up local panels or drawing on the experience of the IICSA Truth Project.

Madam Deputy Speaker, the government is already drawing up a Duty of Candour as part of the long-awaited Hillsborough Law. So we will also work with mayors and local councils to now bolster the accountability mechanisms that can support and follow up local inquiries, to ensure that those who are complicit in cover-ups or who try to resist scrutiny are always robustly held to account and truth and justice are never denied.

This new package of national support for local inquiries will be backed by £5 million of additional funding to get further local work off the ground.

Because at every level, getting justice for victims and protecting children is a responsibility we all share.

Finally Madam Deputy Speaker, we cannot ignore the way in which child exploitation is changing as offenders exploit new technology to target and groom children and we should all be deeply worried about the pace and growth of exploitation that begins online.

We are therefore bolstering the work of the Home Office funded Undercover Online Network of police officers to target online offenders, and developing cutting-edge AI tools, and other new capabilities to infiltrate livestreams and chat rooms where children are being groomed. Further measures will be announced in the Crime and Policing Bill to tackle those organising online child sex abuse.

Madam Deputy Speaker, nothing matters more than the safety of our children.

Yet for too long, this horrific abuse was allowed to continue, victims were ignored, perpetrators were left unpunished and too many people looked the other way.

And even when these shocking crimes were brought to light, national inquiries were commissioned to get to the truth, the resulting reports were too often left on the shelf as their recommendations gathered dust.

So under this government, that has changed. We are taking action not just on those recommendations, but on the additional work we need protect victims, put perpetrators behind bars and to uncover the truth wherever things have gone wrong.

This is about the protection of children, the protection of young girls, and the radical and ambitious mission we have set for this government to halve violence against women and girls in a decade.

I hope all ministers will support that mission and support the measures we have outlined today to help achieve it. I commend this statement to the house."