Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Update

With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement updating the House on government action to tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation and on progress on the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry.

Child sexual abuse and exploitation are the most horrific and disturbing crimes - an abuse of power against those who are most vulnerable, leaving lifelong trauma and scars.

Best estimates suggest that 500,000 children are sexually abused every year. Analysis by the police found that there were 115,000 recorded cases of child sexual abuse in 2023, 4228 group-based offences identified by the CSE Taskforce, of which 1125 were family abuse, and 717 were sexual exploitation cases. In a growing number of recorded cases the perpetrators themselves are under 18.

The House will be aware that, in its first year of operation up to March 2024, the Grooming Gangs Taskforce contributed to 550 arrests across the country. I can tell the House that - in the last nine months of 2024 - the Taskforce contributed to 597 arrests, in other words it surpassed in that nine month period what it has achieved in its first full year of its operation. Data for the first three months of this year is currently being collected from forces and will available early next month, but all round, we are making progress at every level to increase the number of investigations, increase the number of arrests, and most importantly, increase the number of victims who are seeing their attackers brought to justice.

Yet despite the seriousness and severity of these crimes, there has been a shameful failure by institutions and those in power over many years to protect children from abuse or exploitation. So we are today setting out a progress update on action the government is taking to tackle Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation to get support and justice for victims to ensure perpetrators are caught and put behind bars.

CSA Measures

Action on CSA since the election means we are introducing:

• A new child sexual abuse police performance framework, including new standards on public protection, child abuse and exploitation;
• Legislating targeting online offending, including abuse and grooming enabled by AI (Artificial Intelligence);
• New powers for Border Force to detect digitally held child sex abuse at the UK border
• New restrictions preventing registered sex offenders from changing their names to hide the threat they pose
• Increased investment in law enforcement capability, through the Police Undercover Online Network and the Tackling Organised Exploitation Programme.

In the Home Secretary's statements to the House in January, she also set out what we are doing to crack down on grooming gangs. And today I can provide an update:

• Baroness Casey's 3-month National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse is ongoing. It is building a comprehensive national picture of what is known about child sexual exploitation, identifying local and national trends, assessing the quality of the data, looking at the ethnicity issues faced for example by cases involving Pakistani heritage gangs, and reviewing police and wider agency understanding.
• We are developing a new best practice framework to support local authorities which want to undertake victim-centred local inquiries, or related work, drawing on the lessons from local independent inquiries like Telford, Rotherham and Greater Manchester. We will publish the details next month.
• Alongside this we will set out the process through which local authorities can access the £5m national fund to support locally-led work on grooming gangs. Following feedback from local authorities, the fund will adopt a flexible approach to support both full independent local inquiries and more bespoke work, including local victims' panels or locally led audits into the handling of historic cases.
• The Chair of the National Police Chiefs' Council, Gavin Stephens, has - at the Home Secretary's request - urged the Chief Constables of all 43 police forces in England and Wales, to reexamine their investigations into group-based child sexual exploitation which resulted in No Further Action decisions.
• And, as of 1 April, the Child Sexual Abuse Review Panel can review child sexual abuse cases which took place after 2013. Victims and survivors can now ask the Panel to independently review their case if they have not already exercised their Victims Right to Review.
• I can also announce that we intend to expand the Independent Child Trafficking guardians' scheme across all of England and Wales, providing direct support to many more child victims of sexual exploitation and grooming, which to date has only been available in selected areas.

These measures will enable more victims and survivors to receive the truth, justice, improvements and accountability that they deserve - and put more vile perpetrators of this crime behind bars.

IICSA Inquiry

Much of this crucial activity builds on the vital work of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse undertaken between 2015 and 2022. Let me - on behalf of this whole House -thank again Professor Alexis Jay for chairing that seven-year National Inquiry with such expertise, diligence and compassion.

IICSA revealed the terrible suffering caused by child sexual abuse and the shameful failure of institutions to put the protection of children before the protection of their own reputations.

The Inquiry drew on the testimony of over 7,000 victims and survivors and considered over 2 million pages of evidence.

Its findings, culminating in the final report published in October 2022, were designed to better protect children from sexual abuse and address the shortcomings which left them exposed to harm.

The publication of that final report two and a half years ago should have been a landmark moment. But instead, the victims and survivors were failed again.

None of the Inquiry's recommendations were implemented or properly taken forward by the previous government in the twenty months they had to do so.

Progress update

As part of today's Progress Update, the Government is setting out a detailed update and timetable on the work that is underway on the IICSA recommendations as part of our action on child sexual abuse. I can announce to the House that;

• To prioritise the protection of children and improve national oversight and consistency of child protection practice, this Government will establish a new Child Protection Authority.

• Building on the national Child Safeguarding Review Panel, the Child Protection Authority will address one of IICSA's central recommendations by providing national leadership and learning on child protection and safeguarding. Work to expand the role of the Panel will begin immediately and we will consult on developing the new Authority this year

• We have also asked Ofsted, HMICFRS and the CQC to conduct a joint thematic review of child abuse in family settings starting this Autumn.

Mr Speaker, the IICSA report recommended the introduction of a new mandatory duty to report - something the Prime Minister, Home Secretary and I have all supported for more than a decade

• In the Crime and Policing Bill we will now be taking forward the new mandatory duty to report child sexual abuse for individuals in England undertaking activity with children - and crucially, a new criminal offence of obstructing an individual from making a report under that duty.

• Mandatory reporting - will create a culture of openness and honesty rather than cover-ups and secrecy. It will empower professionals and volunteers to take prompt, decisive action to report sexual abuse. It will demonstrate to children and young people that if they come forward, they will be heard. And anyone who seeks deliberately to prevent someone fulfilling their mandatory duty to report child sexual abuse will face the full force of the law.

Today's update also sets out how the government is supporting victims and survivors in accessing support and seeking justice:

• We are tasking the Criminal Justice Joint Inspectorates to carry out a targeted inspection on the experiences of victims of child sexual abuse in the criminal justice system
• We are instructing the Information Commissioner's Office to produce a code of practice on the retention of personal data relating to child sexual abuse.

In some cases where there have been serious institutional failings which contributed to the abuse, those institutions have provided financial redress schemes or compensation to victims and survivors who are affected. We continue to support those schemes as recognition by those institutions that they badly failed children in their care.

On the IICSA proposal for a wider national redress scheme for all victims and survivors of child sexual abuse in institutional settings, the scale of that proposal demands that it is considered in the context of the Spending Review later this year, and we will make further updates at that stage.

But one crucial area where we want to make immediate progress is on the provision of therapeutic services for victims and survivors of child sexual abuse. We will therefore bring forward proposals in the coming weeks to improve access to those services, with