Nadia Whittome

Every year, around 500,000 children in this country are abused. That number is likely higher, because the vast majority of abuse is hidden. The Bill is about safeguarding them. It is about stopping vulnerable children from falling through the cracks—for example, by having a register of those who are home-schooled. It is about trying to prevent horrific crimes, such as those committed against Sara Sharif, from ever happening again. The Children’s Charities Coalition has called it “a major step forward”. I want to be clear that no party has completely clean hands on this issue. Under successive Governments, vulnerable children have been systematically failed by the institutions that were supposed to protect them, such as the police, social services, local authorities, the Crown Prosecution Service and schools. They were disbelieved and their lives were devalued. We in this House owe it to victims and survivors of the past, present and, sadly, future to give them justice and protection where the state failed so badly. If we are to do that, we cannot turn child sexual abuse and exploitation into a political football. I want to be clear that it is by no means all Members on the Opposition Benches who are guilty of doing that; there have been dedicated, powerful advocates for children on both sides of the House. However, the Conservative leadership, and Reform MPs, marching to the beat of Elon Musk’s drum, are plainly weaponising the pain and trauma of victims for their own political ends. I do not know whether they just do not realise how deeply painful and retraumatising it is for survivors to hear their abuse being spoken about so flippantly, often in graphic terms, by people who profess to care but did not act when they had the power to, just to bolster their unrelated political agenda, or whether they just do not care. I implore hon. Members on the Opposition Benches to stop. When they say that child sexual abuse and exploitation are the result of alien cultures or a multiculturalism project that has failed, they mask the reality, which is that child sexual abuse and exploitation are happening in every area of this country, and are perpetrated by members of every social class, every race and every religion. Reform MPs are chuntering on the Opposition Benches, but that is a fact, and when they deny that, they are failing victims and survivors. When they say that abuse is imported from other cultures, they imply that abuse is the norm and is okay in some cultures towards some victims. It never is. Just as perpetrators are diverse, so are their victims. If we mask the reality, we cannot tackle the problem. What the vast majority of perpetrators have in common is that they are men. Of course, it is not all men, but it is enough men and enough victims for male violence to be a national emergency, and one that the whole House must commit to ending.