B

Baroness Walmsley (LD)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 8 January 2025

Debate

Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Contribution

My Lords, when I last tried to introduce a mandatory reporting duty for child abuse, in an amendment on Report to the Serious Crime Bill, on 28 October 2014—a long time ago—the Minister at the time, the noble Lord, Lord Bates, responded by announcing the inquiry, which later became the IICSA inquiry established by the noble Baroness, Lady May, as well as a public consultation. However, he said: “Research is inconclusive in determining whether mandatory reporting regimes help, hinder or … make no difference to child safeguarding outcomes”.—[Official Report, 28/10/14; col. 1083.] He also said that the duty to report might “divert” services from the task of safeguarding children. Is the current Minister convinced that the research is clear that a mandatory reporting duty will help the task of protecting children, rather than hinder it? The clarity of the evidence will be very important when we come to debate the Home Secretary’s proposals, which we want to make sure go through.

More from Baroness Walmsley (LD)

Other recent Hansard contributions by the same speaker.

About Hansard

Hansard is the official verbatim record of proceedings in the UK Parliament. Every word spoken in the Commons and Lords is recorded and published — this page is a single contribution from that record.

Partner sites