Lockdown has become a perfect storm for many children at risk of abuse.  Even before Covid-19 struck, Britain was experiencing an epidemic of sex crimes against children. These are shocking figures and why I wanted to work with the Centre for Social Justice to tackle this issue head on.

Working in partnership with the Centre for Social Justice  and frontline experts, I am intent on exposing not just the extent of child sex abuse and exploitation in the country, but the general characteristics of the offenders and victims, together with recommendations for decisive action to turn the tide. The seriousness of this crime demands that difficult questions are asked. In recent weeks, the Government to its credit, has renewed its efforts to address this awful issue. This is a difficult subject but one I want us to address with constructive proposals for action when we deliver our report.

In the year ending March 2019, the police in England and Wales recorded 73,260 sexual offences where there is data to identify the victim was a child. We want to examine the changing patterns of offending, establish which children are most vulnerable and make concrete policy recommendations.

During our inquiry we will review existing data to assess the true scale of the problem and recommend a path to  address this criminal activity. As we start our work we want to contribute to public knowledge on this sickening practice, as well as formulate steps to end the abuse epidemic. Our work will examine child sexual abuse (CSA) and child sexual exploitation (CSE), a subset of CSA, commonly understood as ‘grooming’ vulnerable children for sexual purposes. I wanted to work with the CSJ because I valued their well thought through policy recommendations when I was in Government. This project will leave no stones unturned and I look forward to lending my experience as Home Secretary to the commission.