Lately there’s been a huge amount of misinformation and confusion over the way the government, and we as a country, are responding to child sexual abuse.

As a parent and as a Member of Parliament committed to stopping violence against women and girls, I believe nothing matters more than the safety of our children.

Child sexual abuse and exploitation are the most vile and horrific of crimes, involving rape, violence, coercive control, intimidation, manipulation and deep long-term harm.

Perpetrators must be pursued and removed from our streets, and victims and survivors need to be protected, listened to, heard and supported.

placeholder image — Scarborough and Whitby MP Alison Hume.

In 2014, the Conservatives commissioned an Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) - but they failed to properly implement the 20 recommendations of the final report.

This was a national independent investigation that took place over seven years at a cost of nearly £200m, interviewed 725 witnesses, published 20 reports across 15 investigations, produced 24 research reports and processed 2 million pages of evidence.

More than 7,000 victims took part.

We therefore don’t necessarily need another inquiry – we just need to implement the recommendations of the inquiry that’s already been comprehensively considered.

And that’s exactly what this Government has announced it will do.

We’ve already taken immediate action on three key recommendations and have committed to introducing legislation to make it mandatory to report abuse, making it an offence with professional and criminal sanctions to fail to report or to cover up child sexual abuse.

We’ll be legislating to make grooming an aggravating factor in the sentencing of child sexual offences, to ensure the punishment fits the terrible crime.

And we’ll overhaul the way information and evidence is gathered on child sexual abuse by introducing a ‘single child identifier’ and through a strengthened police performance framework, with new standards on public protection, child abuse and exploitation.

In addition, the Government will implement all of the recommendations in the Child Sexual Exploitation By Organised Networks standalone report on grooming gangs including updates to the Department of Education’s Child Sexual Exploitation guidance, to ensure it reflects the reality of this appalling crime.

Since coming into office, the Home Secretary and the Safeguarding Minister have met with the chair of the independent inquiry, Professor Alexis Jay and survivors of child sexual exploitation and abuse.

As a result of these discussions and to ensure that victims’ voices remain at the very heart of this process, we’re creating a new Victims and Survivors Panel, to guide Ministers on the design, delivery and implementation of new proposals not just on IICSA but on wider work around child sexual exploitation and abuse.

We’ve also convened a dedicated cross-Government group to drive forward progress against the IICSA recommendations and to deliver wider change.

Another important task is to increase police investigations into these horrific crimes.

We’re taking new action to help victims get cases re-opened, get more investigations under way, and get abusers behind bars.

The Government is providing £2m in additional funding for the Grooming Gangs Taskforce and the Child Sexual Abuse Review Panel to expand their vital work.

It’s reassuring to note that between July and September last year there was a 25% increase in arrests by the Grooming Gangs Taskforce.

In our first six months in government we’ve made significant progress and we’ll continue to be laser focussed in delivering on a key priority – increasing the protection of our children and taking their abusers off our streets.