Speeches by Phillips.

“I thank the hon. Lady; I think it is a shame that she referred to only one sort of child abuse victim, when the statement is clearly about all child abuse victims. There should be no hierarchy; we are also talking about children raped by their fathers or raped in other circumstances, such as in children’s homes and ins…”

“I have enjoyed working with my hon. Friend, and other people in Rochdale, over the years on these issues. I hope that places like Rochdale, where there have already been independent inquiries, will be able to access some of the flexible funds to do victim-led follow-up work on where we are now. I look forward to workin…”

“Clause 37 amends section 69 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 to criminalise the possession of advice or guidance on using artificial intelligence to create child abuse imagery. So-called paedophile manuals that contain guidance for offenders about how to abuse children sexually or create indecent photographs or pseudo-pho…”

“I beg to move amendment 12, in clause 37, page 42, line 11, at end insert— “(6) In Schedule 4 to the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (offences to which defence in section 45 does not apply), for paragraph 35A (offences under the Serious Crime Act 2015) substitute— ‘35A An offence under any of the following provisions of the Se…”

“Unfortunately, what has been lost in that time is the ability to hold people to account. Even if, in a statutory inquiry, information was found out, for example about councillors, that would not lead to their arrest—that is not what a statutory inquiry does. Nobody is in prison as a result of any of the statutory inqui…”

“I thank the hon. Lady for her question. We now have many laws on coercion in our country—passing laws on coercion is something that the previous Government did do. If it can be evidenced that anybody coerced somebody into not reporting, or gently tried to cover something up, that would be seen as criminal and considere…”

“Absolutely nobody is stopping me from pushing for more, as I am sure all my ministerial colleagues would tell the hon. Lady, having been in meetings with me. I think this is about the point of view of Parliament. Parliament is here to strength-test the things we do, and I welcome that. To the point that the hon. Member…”

“The hon. Lady makes a good point, because for the victims I have worked with over the years, it is a life sentence; it is not something that goes away. That is one of the reasons I feel strongly about trying to improve the levels of therapeutic support for children and adults, and that has been a real priority for me. …”

“Specifically on victims of grooming, we will set out the commissioning for the new service across England and Wales for the independent child trafficking guardians, as I said in my statement. Children who access through the national referral mechanism as trafficking victims—lots of British children who are groomed acce…”

“I agree with the hon. Gentleman that although we have arguments in this House about data, what data has not been collected and what progress we have made, the reality is that we will never know about the vast majority of data, because we do not ever see it. That is something we should all strive to overcome. I visited …”

“I thank the hon. Lady for her comments and the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) for her work in this area. I am always keen to encourage cross-party work on these issues, and I recognise that the child protection agency had been pushed for previously. A consultation will be launched on exactly what the oversi…”

“The right hon. and learned Gentleman makes a really good point. The legal process is a forgotten part of the system; having worked for many years with Nazir Afzal, for example, who was the prosecutor on the Rochdale cases, I can say that those prosecutors can really be forgotten. We have asked the joint inspectorate to…”

“To answer the hon. Gentleman’s question, if criminal cases can be brought against any of those people, I am more than happy to speak to the taskforce that is working to improve the number of arrests—as I said, we have seen an increase in arrests—and see where criminal cases can be brought against them. I am more than h…”

“I praise my hon. Friend for her commitment to these issues over the years. She is right: the thresholds for mandatory reporting are a finely balanced tool. We had to land on the criminal justice outcomes for the most egregious cases, as other Members have mentioned, where it seemed that social workers were directly cov…”

“First and foremost, I pay the hon. Gentleman absolute credit. For years, he has spoken up about this issue—I am actually surprised that we have not had closer conversations. I would very much welcome some time with him to understand exactly what is going on in his local area—I think that is actually being arranged, fro…”

“We have had discussions with our Scottish counterparts on some of the legislation that we are currently passing, including the legislation on child sexual abuse online, artificial intelligence, and some of the dangers that Alexis Jay rightly pointed out in the final recommendations of her report. We have those conversa…”

“I thank the hon. Lady for her support. Question put and agreed to. Clause 52 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 53 Modification of Chapter for constables Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.”

“I feel quite proud to commend this clause about mandatory reporting. For much of my professional life and a huge amount of our political lives, we have been trying to get mandatory reporting across the line, so it is a proud moment. Clauses 45 and 47 and schedule 7 introduce the new mandatory duty to report child sexua…”

“I will first answer the hon. Lady’s question about how Border Force officers will decide what reasonable grounds of suspicion are. Officers will rely on various indicators of reasonable suspicion. Those could include whether the individual is a registered sex offender—which is quite clear—frequent travel to destination…”

“I am pleased that the hon. Lady supports the measure, and that there has been a change of heart, as has been pointed out, on the Opposition Front Bench. Although they are not in this group, if she looks at the series of clauses that relate to AI child sexual abuse material, she will see that there is quite a lot in the…”