Weekly Column – 15/01/2025 – We need action, not words, to tackle child sexual abuse

I have spent my career supporting vulnerable children. First as a teacher in some very tough schools, then as the founder and leader of a national charity bringing new people into frontline children’s social work to give every child the champion they need, and then as the Chair of the landmark national Independent Review of Children’s Social Care for the previous government, which included meeting with and hearing evidence from many victims of sexual abuse. 

I have therefore been deeply troubled to see a gravely serious issue like child sexual abuse exploited by an ill-informed American billionaire and political opportunists here in the UK to score cheap points at the expense of delivering justice for victims and ensuring a scandal like this never happens again.

MPs are elected to be problem solvers, not problem exploiters. But what Conservative and Reform 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. I know this because I recommended many of the measures it includes in my Independent Review back in 2022. Measures which were ignored by the previous Conservative government but which will now be delivered in this Bill by a Labour government, who I have been working with on the content of this Bill for several months. 

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 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 Conservative wrecking amendment which would have seen all of these measures fail and put more children at risk of abuse.

We do not need another lengthy national inquiry which will delay justice even further. We had one under the last government, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). As part of this seven year inquiry, there was a dedicated two year investigation into child sexual exploitation specifically by gangs which took extensive evidence from across the country.

I want to see recommendations from previous reviews delivered and I’m very pleased that the Labour government has committed to delivering the recommendations from the IICSA and is already getting on with that work.

Finally, I think it is important to note that only 5% of child sexual abuse is 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 these crimes also deserve our attention.