00:00Madam Deputy Speaker, as you know, I've spent 13 years researching this most evil of crimes,
00:04so I don't know how or where to start, but let me boil it down to a couple of things.
00:10One, I still have no idea why those paid to protect children didn't do that,
00:16and so I hope the inquiry both finds that out and makes sure there is no way that happens again.
00:21Two, I believe the scale of this is in literally every town, every city, every village in the United Kingdom.
00:30And so I hope the inquiry and the NCA work is able to cover all of that.
00:35But then that brings me to my substantive, which is this is going to cost a lot of money.
00:41Every case you find will need to be an investigation,
00:44but equally local authorities will have to put child protection measures in place.
00:49In Rotherham, all of that money has come from the local authority.
00:54So can the Home Secretary assure us that our local authorities will have child protection money
00:58and our police forces will have the resources they need to get the prosecutions we have to see.
01:07I thank my honourable friend and I pay tribute to her long work exposing many of the issues herself in her own area
01:15that will now be the subject of the National Enquiry.
01:18She's right, it is utterly shocking and defies comprehension that people whose only job was to look after vulnerable children
01:25failed in their duty to those children and the inquiry will ensure that they face ultimate accountability for their failures.
01:35I hear the point about the inquiry covering every single area.
01:40There is no doubt that child abuse occurs in every part of the country.
01:46One of the recommendations that Baroness Casey made was that the inquiry should be time limited
01:50because so many of the victims and survivors have waited so long for a proper measure of justice in their cases.
01:58And she recognised that there is therefore a necessary trade-off between doing something that is time limited
02:03and being able to go to every single area.
02:06But I'm sure the inquiry, the chair and the panel will engage constructively with members across this House
02:12to make sure they get to the right areas and can draw the lessons that will then lead to national recommendations.
02:18So even if the lessons come from a smaller cohort of areas, all of the recommendations will apply absolutely everywhere.
02:26And the government has already invested billions in child protection measures already in this parliament.
02:32But I recognise the caution is made and I'm sure that when the recommendations are made,
02:36the government will respond on money in due course.
Comments