Contribution
My Lords, there is a dismal pattern in our country in response to serious failings of the state. First, we see denials and cover-ups, then the issue gains traction, but shock and outrage quickly follow. Calls for something to be done are heard but too often are followed by absolutely nothing—more delay, while victims are relegated to yesterday’s newspapers and the news cycle moves on. Unfortunately, the rape gang issue is a classic example of this pattern.
Victims deserve so much better from us than this. Has anyone else noticed that it has gone eerily quiet? Where is the national statutory inquiry promised by the Government? The Minister said earlier, in his responses in Oral Questions, that it was coming “very soonly”, and I give him credit for inventing another euphemism which even I have not heard before. But seriously, it is conspicuous by its absence. Neither the public nor the victims know when it is going to start or who is going to chair it and, because so many victims have lost confidence in the Safeguarding Minister in the other place, Jess Phillips, which Minister is going to oversee it. Perhaps it will be our Minister, in which case I am sure we will welcome that.
This is the reason behind my tabling of Amendments 247B and 535A. They are straightforward and designed simply to ensure that the grooming gangs inquiry begins at long last. The amendments are not designed to dictate the outcome, set the scope or limit its independence. We need it for one simple reason, which is to ensure that the state does not continue to mistreat those victims, who have already suffered so much by its collective failure.
I recognise that it is perhaps not conventional and may even be novel to legislate for the start date of an inquiry, and I anticipate that the Minister will say this when he comes to respond. However, I implore him to take this seriously. We have a position in this House and we should use it for this end. We should be speaking up for these girls and women who have been let down so shockingly. The very least we can do is to send the signal to the victims that we are not going to continue failing them and we are going to get justice for them.
What is more—I speak as a former Minister in the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice—I am sure the Minister will recognise what I am about to say: providing a deadline focuses minds and drives action and activity in all parts of the system, whether the delays are accidental or bureaucratic or, in fact, unfortunately, intentional. I also remind the Minister that, in the words of the famous sage, if you keep doing what you have always done, you are going to keep getting what you have always got—no action.
We should remember that some of the survivors at the heart of this scandal have been waiting 20 years or even longer. Fiona Goddard first reported her abuse to police in 2012. She was a child when the crimes were committed against her in the mid-2000s. She told her story, took the risk, trusted the system and, as she puts it, was met with silence, closed doors and disbelief. When she was asked recently how it felt to wait this long, she said, “It’s like living with a wound that’s never allowed to close, because every year I’m told justice will come but every year nothing begins”. The victims have to keep reliving the trauma, but nothing moves forward. Hope is being postponed, year after year. We know that the only thing worse than being failed by institutions once is being failed by them twice, thrice and more. As one survivor said, “We do not need perfection. We just need to know that somebody has finally begun the work”.