Speeches by Stone.

“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.”

“Goodness me!”

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”

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

“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.”

“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…”

“That is a good question. The new website has been up for a number of days now. In going online, people can see that there has already been a petition like theirs or—similar to what was said earlier—that the Government are about to have a very similar debate or have had a very similar debate. I think that helps inform t…”

“It is fair to say that petitioners and the public are generally pleased by this interaction. One thing that would be nice, if we can do it in due course, is to go back to the petitioner and say, “You heard what the Government said. What is your reaction to that?”—the follow-up bit as well. There is nothing worse in ter…”

“First, I would pay tribute to the clerking team, because they spend an enormous amount of time talking to the petitioners. We reject for a number of reasons: it might be a devolved matter, and we say that it is not pertinent to Westminster; it might be that the language is totally inappropriate, so we reject it; and it…”

“Yes, I think there is. There will be mechanisms whereby, electronically or whatever, you can start to anticipate what the level of interest will be. The website itself will give you a slight indication in terms of the hits per constituency. But yes, I think that one could work on that. In fact, you would have to becaus…”

“We would have to put some real thought into that. At the moment, we are already having to make a judgment, as I outlined in my letter, about whether there should be a 90-minute or three-hour debate. You are trying to say what the likelihood is, and that is learning process. Depending on what you good people decide or r…”

“Yes—my Tesco experience.”

“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 …”

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

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”