Yesterday parliament voted on the Children’s wellbeing and schools bill. Opponents of the bill have misrepresented the vote as a vote on an inquiry into grooming gangs. This is a misrepresentation of the vote and I would like to ensure that all my constituents understand what I voted for and why.

The debate yesterday was on the Children’s Wellbeing and schools bill. The opposition proposed an amendment that explained why they did not want to vote for the bill. If we had backed their amendment, it would not have automatically created an inquiry, it would simply have blocked the bill from progressing.

If you want to know what is in the Children’s Wellbeing and schools bill, you can read more about it here : https://www.gov.uk/government/news/childrens-bill-to-keep-children-safe-from-exploitation or reads the bill itself here: Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

This Bill contains vital measures to protect children. One of the measures is to create a register for home-schooled children, which will prevent children from falling through the gaps. This will prevent tragic cases like that of Sara Shariff.

It tightens regulation around teachers to address concerns that some teachers may ‘fall through the gaps’ and be allowed to carry on teaching in the, despite having potentially engaged in serious misconduct or committed a relevant offence. It would extend the current law to teachers in a wider range of settings, such as further education colleges.

It also includes a change that will see stronger links between children’s social care, police, and health services with education, to better safeguard and promote the welfare of all children in local areas.

The child sexual exploitation that happened in Rotherham, Oldham, Rochdale and other places was a national disgrace and many of the perpetrators of it quite rightly remain in prison. It was clear that a misguided sense of the need to ease community tensions prevented Police and authorities from taking the action they should have taken to protect vulnerable girls. It was inexcusable and in fact it was changes introduced by Keir Starmer when he was Director of public prosecutions that paved the way for more of the offenders to be tried and jailed.

An abuser is an abuser whatever their race or religion and I will never allow anything to get in the way of protecting victims or seeing justice served.

If there is more we can do to protect victims then we should do that. But both survivors and experts have said that what is needed now is action, not another inquiry. The last inquiry took seven years and led to a host of recommendations, which the previous government failed to implement.

None of this is new. During the 14 years the Conservatives were in power, they never set up a national inquiry, indeed they rejected precisely this request for a specific inquiry into Oldham. Nor did they implement the findings of The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) that did report.

One key aspect they did not implement is Recommendation 5- Child sexual exploitation data.

This recommendation would instruct Police forces to collect reliable, transparent data on information including the ethnicity of perpetrators, suspected perpetrators, and victims to be used by police forces to inform problem profiling and activities to disrupt and investigate offenders.

Recently the Home Secretary told MPs that a victim and survivors panel will be set up and immediate action will be taken on a number of points flagged by The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).

She confirmed that a mandatory duty to report abuse will be included in the Crime and Policing Bill and grooming will be made an aggravating factor in child sexual offences.

This means that anyone who covers up or fails to report child sexual abuse could face professional or criminal sanctions under a new offence to be introduced this year. You can read more details about that here- Tackling child sexual abuse – GOV.UK

The chair of the IICSA, Baroness Jay, which took 7 years, had 15 separate investigations and cost over £200 Million, said we do not need a new public inquiry, which would take another 5 years. This would delay justice further and not help to stop these dreadful events happening again.

As Jess Phillips, a ceaseless campaign for women and girls said, a local inquiry leads to quicker implementation of actions and actually delivers for survivors.

It is also important to explain that an inquiry wouldn’t be a criminal process. It wouldn’t lead to anyone else being jailed. If there are further offences that haven’t been tried yet, that can still happen, and indeed it should do.

I hope this explains why it is because of my commitment to protecting victims of child sexual abuse, that I voted for the children’s wellbeing bill to go ahead and rejected the opportunity for further delay in the steps needed to protect more children.

I hope this reassures my  constituents that they finally have a government that will prioritise taking the steps needed to protect children and prevent the terrible abuses we have heard about.