Lord Meston (CB)

My noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson cannot be here and has asked me to speak to her amendments in this group, 12 in number, to which I had already added my name in support. I pay tribute to her dedicated campaigning on what we will now debate. All her amendments concern and seek to reinforce the Government’s decision to legislate for mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse in a wide range of contexts. My noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson’s amendments are based on her earlier Private Member’s Bill and echo amendments by her to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which was debated in June. I recall that in that debate the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, referred to a need for a clear and comprehensive system of mandatory reporting. Following the work of IICSA, which highlighted the widespread and endemic nature of child sexual abuse, the Government’s decision to put forward the duty set out in Chapter 2 is welcome and should be supported—but I would say, only as far as it goes. The main point of difference is that whereas the Bill does not expressly provide for sanctions for non-compliance with the duty, many of us wish the duty to be underpinned by criminal sanctions, as IICSA recommended. Quite simply, a lesser sanction such as a possible referral to a professional regulator or to the Disclosure and Barring Service is not enough to enforce the new and important duty. We will get to this shortly with Amendment 280. Before we move on, I would like to say that the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, was quite correct to emphasise the wide range of situations in which abuse can occur. It is not just child grooming gangs, well-known celebrity abuse cases or cases involving institutions such as churches or schools; the reality is that the majority of child sexual abuse occurs in domestic and family situations. It is therefore welcome that this Bill will potentially cover such a wide range of scenarios. As someone who spent much of his working life dealing with child abuse cases, I suggest that these basic points should inform the debate on this part of the Bill and the amendments to it. First, safeguarding children should be seen as the responsibility of everyone. I quote my noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson: “A well-designed mandatory reporting law is a key component of an effective safeguarding system”.—[Official Report, 17/1/25; col. 1382.] I would add that a positive duty to report, with sanctions, is the only certain way of ensuring that steps will be promptly taken to investigate and prevent abuse when it is revealed or suspected. Secondly, and fundamentally, doing nothing when suspicions of abuse are aroused should not be seen as an option. A failure to report is a culpable failure to protect, and it is a failure to prevent harm to the child concerned and to other children at risk. Thirdly, a child who has the courage to disclose abuse needs to be reassured that his or her anxieties will be quickly and properly dealt with. Fourthly, a strong mandatory law will convey to potential perpetrators that abuse will not be tolerated. Finally, difficult cases concerning historic sexual abuse, whether one likes that term or not, arise in all jurisdictional areas. These require courts to deal with alleged abuse that may have been undetected and/or unreported for many years. A later group of amendments will consider these. In the context of this group, I suggest that a duty to report suspicions of abuse as soon as possible should reduce the number of such historic cases, with all their evidential and emotional complexities. I turn to the individual amendments. Amendment 272 aims to align the wording of the Bill with that of the equivalent duty to report money laundering in Section 330 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, and to extend the duty to cover Wales as well as England. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, makes the point that for the past 23 years the country has protected money in ways in which it has not yet protected children. I have compared other formulations of positive duties elsewhere—for example, in the Terrorism Act 2000 and the Female Genital Mutilation Act—and submit that what the amendment here proposes is clearer and more incisive than the wording in the Bill. Amendment 274 would ensure that any report goes to the local authority that has the duty to protect the child, investigating the child’s circumstances and putting in place therapeutic treatment as well as protective measures. The local authority already has a duty to work with the police and to pass reports on to them if there is evidence of an offence. Amendment 275 is consequential. Amendment 276 would ensure that a report is made in cases of suspected offences occurring outside England and Wales. Amendment 277 seeks to align the duty with existing statutory guidance, which expects a report to be made as soon as practicable. If there is a risk to the life or safety of a relevant child, the guidance expects the report to be expedited rather than delayed in order to enable fast consideration of necessary intervention. Amendment 278 would remove the scope for people not to report when they believe that someone else will do so. Experience shows—certainly this is my own experience—that that is just one of the many ways in which people with knowledge or suspicion of abuse will convince themselves that it is all right to do nothing, and to hope that the problem will go away. Amendment 279 is intended to make it clear that the management and proprietors of a setting have the duty to report suspected abuse—for example, when suspicions are reported to management by other staff. It should not be a prerequisite to have had any direct contact with the child, nor should it be an excuse that they did not have any direct contact with the child. It is not the responsibility or function of management to consider the merits of the complaint; they have a straightforward responsibility to report concerns. Amendment 280 would make failure to report a criminal offence, and this is perhaps the central amendment as far as we are concerned. The IICSA report made a balanced and carefully considered recommendation that it should be, providing for defences as indicated in the amendment. I suggest that criminalising a failure to report is justified in helping to reduce a significant risk of substantial harm to children. Paragraph 116 of the IICSA report states: “Where an individual to whom mandatory reporting laws apply has witnessed or received a disclosure of child sexual abuse, it should be a criminal offence to fail to report that to the relevant local authority or police force. Such a failure would amount to a deliberate decision not to pass on information about child sexual abuse to those authorities empowered to protect children from harm and to prevent future abuse by investigating and prosecuting it when it occurs. For those who work with children or are in a position of trust to fail to facilitate that is inexcusable, and the sanction for such an omission should be commensurate”. Amendment 281 seeks to define “operators of a setting” in cases of private and corporate ownership, and Amendment 284 would clarify and describe the wide range of settings in which relevant activities covered by Clause 72 might occur. These are not exclusive lists, and I hope the Committee will recognise the wide extent of the activities that need to be covered. For example, the amendment refers outside mainstream religious organisations, to “other organisations holding non-religious worldviews”. That echoes cases I have dealt with involving sects and cults that are closed and secretive, and insist on loyalty.