Member

As the Home Secretary made clear in her Written Statement to the House earlier this week, this Government are determined to directly and decisively confront the failings that occurred. We have made good progress against the mandate for change set out by Baroness Casey, with action taken or ongoing in relation to all 12 of her recommendations. We have changed the law on rape to remove any ambiguity about the ability of 13 to 16 year-olds to consent to sex; established a new national police operation, Operation Beaconport, overseen by the National Crime Agency and backed by £38 million of funding this year; legislated to disregard any convictions for so-called child prostitution; and commissioned new research into the drivers of these heinous crimes, including ethnicity, religion, cultural factors, group dynamics and the role of online technologies.