Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Con)

My Lords, I thank the Minister for addressing my amendment and the others in such detail, and my noble friends Baroness Cash and Lord Blencathra for adding their support. Even though the Minister has not accepted my amendment and stated that the others do not fit with the Government’s plans, I welcome the agreement across the Committee that we all support the principle of the work that is happening. However, I make no apologies for standing up and saying that the system is still not adequate in many ways. I am sure that the Minister can recognise some of this. I remember sitting in the Home Office in 2021-22, when I was a Minister there, and asking for the data about ethnicity and whether there was any connection. I was told, “No, Minister, there is none”. We all know now that that was not the case. I wish to God we had known that then so we could have done more for the victims. Collectively, we have all let them down; this is not a party-political issue, but one in which we should feel ashamed about what has happened to those vulnerable girls in our country. I accept the Minister’s point about the timeline and the passage of the Bill, and that, were he to accept my amendment, it would potentially be delayed further than any of us would wish. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.