Speeches by Stone.

“I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. Today, we have with us people in the Public Gallery who have been through this dreadful experience. Sadly, it leaves scars that can last a lifetime. By referring to “offenders”, this petition is focused on a person who has admitted guilt to a child sexual abuse offence or w…”

“I have accepted a rather large number of interventions, and I know that a lot of Members want to speak in this debate. I will therefore close by making this last point. In my view, it would be a great tragedy if this issue became a party political football. It should not because, as was said earlier, sexual abuse is no…”

“Of course, the Minister will sum up. It will be interesting to hear the Government’s view on this.”

“Thank you, Dame Siobhain. The hon. Member underlined the point I am trying to make. Of the people watching this debate, many will alas be survivors of child sexual abuse who did not report that abuse until adulthood. That is the terrible thing. Their safety, dignity and wellbeing must remain at the centre of the debate…”

“I believe that we must distinguish carefully between evidence-based policy and generalisation, between transparency and sensationalism, and between the legitimate scrutiny of institutional failings and the prejudiced stigmatisation of whole groups of people. In short, we have to treat this subject with great care.”

“Thank you, Dame Siobhain. I will come to my hon. Friend’s point very shortly. This petition provokes legitimate questions that the public want answered, regarding how data on these offences is collected and how patterns of offending are identified. When discussing this practice, it is important that we balance transpar…”

“Children cannot look after themselves in this regard, so it behoves every single adult to sort this out. How do we do that? By having a conversation, by discussing the issue and by operating on an absolutely cross-party basis. In that way, we can improve responses, and prevent further abuse and exploitation.”

“My hon. Friend makes his case with some passion. I take note of it, and I thank him. As Chair of the Petitions Committee, it is always encouraging to see public participation in politics, so I welcome our friends to the Public Gallery. With more than 200,000 signatures, it is quite evident that this petition has engage…”

“Wise words indeed. To turn to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) touched on earlier, in England and Wales alone almost half of all child sexual abuse offences reported to the police in 2021 and 2022 took place in the family environment. That means the abuse was by parents, siblin…”

“Goodness me!”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered e-petition 730605 relating to collection and publication of child sexual offender data. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain.”

“Indeed. The hon. Member has some knowledge, as I do, of the situation north of the border. The point is well made—I shall come to it shortly—that this crime is no respecter of where in the United Kingdom someone lives. Only by prioritising the identification of unreported abuse can we begin to address the true scale of…”

“I know that this is an issue that the hon. Member cares about passionately. I am sure that like me, he has had issues with people, particularly elderly people, who fear that they have been scammed. It is all very well saying, “Get online and we’ll see if we can sort this out,” but there is nothing like a face-to-face m…”

“Yes, that is fair. It is not as if we want to lay hands on the time of Bob’s Committee.”

“First, it is what I said already, which is to accommodate the numbers of MPs. You would have to make a judgment and be as scientific as you can be as to what the likelihood is, which would be very important, and I really cannot countenance MPs being turned away. That is why it would mean something. Another point worth …”

“We can predict which Mondays we are going to lose because we know what the timetable looks like. One possibly helpful suggestion would be to say to the Government, “Could we have the equivalent time that we have missed, say on a Wednesday?” That would mean that we could plan in advance. I think that could work. Losing …”

“Just to make it clear at the start, the Committee see our Monday slot as sacrosanct—we are strongly of that opinion. I am aware that sometimes the Government do use Thursdays for legislation and so on. Perhaps one could build in a certain amount of flexibility by working through clerking teams with the Government. I wo…”

“Indeed, that is the beauty of Westminster Hall. You can tell the petitioners what day and when the debate will be: Monday at 4.30 pm. If they have to travel far, that is very good for them, whereas short notice is not so helpful. We could go down to a one-hour debate within our three hours and have a one-hour debate an…”

“Given what I have said about the niceness of the 4.30 pm debate on a Monday and how we can give advance warning, we have had in recent times three debates—on indefinite leave to remain, special educational needs, and digital ID—where, as you probably will know, we couldn’t get the MPs into Westminster Hall. As Chair, I…”

“To add, this mechanism does exist, but we have not used it in the past. We could request something similar from the Government, but we felt that we should try to use the time we have, and that, in a way, it might be difficult for everyone concerned. I have two small points. Yes, it is a mechanism, but I am just a touch…”