Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said those who cover up or fail to report child sexual abuse could face professional or criminal sanctions under a new offence to be introduced this year.
The proposal was one of 20 recommendations made by Professor Alexis Jay following her seven year inquiry into child sexual abuse, which concluded in 2022.
Cooper said the change would be added to the Crime and Policing Bill this spring.
The Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp welcomed the move but urged the home secretary to announce a national statutory public inquiry into sexual abuse of children by grooming gangs.
He argued that the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), led by Prof Jay, had been “mainly directed” at other child sexual abuse issues and only covered six of the towns involved in the “gang rape scandal”.
“We need to get to the truth,” he told MPs, and said an inquiry, with powers to compel witnesses to attend and give evidence under oath, was needed.
He added that if the government would not agree to an inquiry, the Conservatives would try to amend the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to force the government to hold one.
Cooper did not commit to holding a new inquiry and instead stressed the importance of implementing the recommendations of inquiries that had already been completed.
Introducing mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse was one of the key recommendations from the IICSA report.
It said there should be a legal requirement for those who work in “regulated activity or work in a position of trust” to report abuse in certain circumstances including if they “observed recognised indicators” of child sexual abuse.
The report also said it should be a criminal offence not to report abuse if they are told about it by the child or perpetrator, or if they have witnessed a child being sexually abused.
The previous Conservative government had committed to introducing mandatory reporting, but did not specify sanctions for failing to do so.
Addressing the House of Commons on Monday afternoon, Cooper said she would introduce mandatory reporting and a new offence targeting those who fail to report abuse or cover it up.
The home secretary also promised to make grooming an aggravated factor in the sentencing of abuse cases and “overhaul” how information and evidence on child sexual abuse is gathered.
Earlier in the day, Prof Jay who now chairs the Act on IICSA campaign group urged ministers to adopt a “clear timeline” to accept all the report’s recommendations.
Cooper said Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips had met with Prof Jay last year and had convened a cross-government group to “drive forward change”. She said she would set out timescales following work with a new victims and survivors panel.
Maggie Oliver, a former Greater Manchester police detective who resigned in 2012 over poor handling of abuse cases in Rochdale, told BBC Radio 4’s World Tonight that the home secretary’s statement on child abuse was “a bit of a kneejerk reaction to international horror at what has happened in our country”.
The subject of grooming gangs has come under the spotlight, in part due to interventions on social media from Elon Musk.
The tech-entrepreneur and adviser to US President-elect Donald Trump called safeguarding minister Jess Phillips a “rape genocide apologist” and accused Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of being “complicit in the rape of Britain”.
Speaking at a press conference, Sir Keir defended his record as director of public prosecutions saying that when he left office “we had the highest number of child sexual abuse cases being prosecuted on record”.
He said he enjoyed robust debate but said it had to be “based on facts and truth, not on lies”.
“What I won’t tolerate is politicians jumping on the bandwagon simply to get attention, when those politicians sat in government for 14 long years, tweeting, talking, but not doing anything about it. Now, so desperate for attention that they’re amplifying what the far-right is saying.”
