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Safeguarding Children (Sexual Exploitation)

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I have met adult females who have been returned to their country and it was the most distressing situation that I can ever recall. They were put into a sanctuary for a short time, but so much support was needed that it was impossible to deliver it, because of the state that those young ladies were in—and they were young. I would not have known if they were all over 18. Practitioners have stressed the need for child protection concerns to override concerns about the age or immigration status of children and young people who have been trafficked into the UK from abroad. Safeguarding the child must be paramount. Children trafficked from abroad might not receive the same rights and treatment as children born in the UK, even though they are entitled to by law. Multi-agency work between the UK Border Agency, police and children's services at the point of arrival, focused on securing the safety of the child, is essential in efforts to engage with the child and to prevent them from being abducted or going missing. Good practice is to provide the child with a child protection key worker, who is supported through multi-agency work with police involvement, and accommodation in a place of safety, preferably in supported and supervised foster care. As an aside, I just mention that the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and I have talked at great length about the need to register private foster carers. One concern that we all have is that if children enter this country and go into unregulated private foster care, none of us knows what their fate might be. I think that we both hope that the new Minister will look on our request in that area rather more favourably. Safeguarding procedures are clearly not systematically followed for trafficked children. Immigration issues have generally taken priority. As there is inadequate safeguarding, high numbers of young people go missing. That is the consequence of inappropriate placement, young people not being placed safely and inadequate training of carers in trafficking issues. Poor risk assessment means that children are often defined as trafficked only in retrospect, providing little opportunity for police investigation or for recovery of the child. A patchy police response and lack of clarity about a co-ordinated working group have resulted in a national deficit of support services for children who may have been trafficked. Many local authorities feel inadequately resourced to meet the additional care needs that those children present. Although it is the responsibility of local authorities, there is currently a lack of safe and appropriate accommodation for trafficked children, as the hon. Member for Totnes mentioned. There are very few specialised services for trafficked children. The trafficking of children and young people is child abuse. Therefore I think that the responsibility for protecting children in the UK rests with the local safeguarding children boards, but clearly practice there must improve. Experience brings improved practice, and practitioners' awareness of the indicators of trafficking is improved through their experience of working with cases. As practitioners deal with cases and face the problems presented, they begin to recognise indicators and emerging patterns. Lessons can be learned by referring to the practitioners engaged in the work and building those lessons into initiatives. We often refer to the need to see good practice spread. The important point is that every child matters, including trafficked children and other very vulnerable children, and everyone should be working towards achieving for every child the five outcomes specified in the Every Child Matters programme. The NSPCC report "Breaking the wall of silence" focuses on the need for improved and more structured practices between agencies: police, health, social services and immigration. The role of LSCBs in facilitating multidisciplinary agencies must be strengthened and good practice learned. The overriding feature is that the safety and welfare of trafficked children should come above their immigration status. At the time of a 2007 report, no national data were collected by the Department for Children, Schools and Families on runaway and missing children. Around the time of the report, a welcome announcement was made that children missing from home and care would be included as a national framework performance indicator for local authorities. That shows that raising issues continually at least gets them on the radar, but I wonder whether that is enough. In September 2001, we needed a national plan to safeguard children from commercial and sexual exploitation. Have we made progress over time? Certainly a new report is needed in respect of changes in society, the growth of use of the internet, as has been said, and new structures in local authorities, but we have had so much guidance and so many documents. Do they really make a difference? I have to confess that I have only skimmed at high speed through the Government's guidance. There were bits that I related to and thought were excellent—for example,""every LSCB should assume that sexual exploitation occurs within its area unless there is clear evidence to the contrary."" That is an excellent starting point. I was recently at a conference about trafficking in Dorset. The local Soroptimists were highlighting the purple teardrop campaign, and there was amazement that there might be trafficked women in Dorset. We are so unaware of what is going on, and that is why it is important that we start with that premise. The report states that LSCBs should""put in place systems to monitor prevalence and responses to child sexual exploitation"." What monitoring will the Department do as a consequence of the guidance being put in place? We need a report on progress right across the board, because time is ticking on. Just producing papers and books of guidance year after year is not enough. This must not be just a paper exercise. I share the hon. Gentleman's concerns about cuts in funding to some important organisations, and I hope that the Minister will address that point. Finally, something that I have been involved with throughout my time in Parliament is a campaign for making therapeutic treatment available to all children who have been abused. Provision is patchy across the country. As much as we are doing to safeguard children, we will not stamp out child abuse unless we provide therapeutic treatment, which is vital to breaking the cycle. Sadly, many abused children go on to exploit others in their adult life.