“(1) The Secretary of State must, within 3 months of this Act being passed, conduct a review into the current state of support for children who are victims.

(2) The review must consider, in particular—

(a) the current volume of provision,

(b) the current volume of unmet need, and

(c) the current level of investment in these services.

(3) Upon completion of the review, the Secretary of State must publish and lay before Parliament a report setting out—

(a) the findings of the review, and

(b) the action that the Secretary of State proposes to take in response to the review.”—

This new clause would require the Secretary of State to publish a report on the current volume, need and investment in support services for children who are victims.

Brought up, and read the First time.

I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to discuss new Clause 13—Duty to commission support for children and young people—

“(1) It is the duty of relevant local authorities to commission specialist children and young people’s support services for victims in accordance with need.

(2) The services provided under subsection (1) must include, but are not limited to—

(a) services for victims of child criminal exploitation, and

(b) services for victims of child abuse.”

This new clause would require local authorities to commission sufficient and specific support for children and young people who are victims.

New Clause 13 aims to ensure that commissioners provide specific and sufficient support for children who have experienced or are experiencing crime, by placing on them a duty to commission support rather than simply having regard for children in their commissioning plans. The duty would be further strengthened by new clause 10, which would require the Secretary of State to commission a review of the current volume of, need for, provision of and investment into support services for children who are victims of crime. That will ensure full transparency in how the appropriate bodies respond to the needs of children.

Although current legislation states that commissioners should have due regard to the needs of children while creating their commissioning plans, there is no actual duty on them to do so. That could leave child victims subject to a postcode lottery, caught between commissioners who choose to provide for children and those who do not or do not understand the need to.

A freedom of information request submitted by the NSPCC to local authorities in England and Wales found that 77% of them offer no specialist support for children who have experienced child sexual abuse. Young victims and witnesses require a specific response that is well resourced to respond to their individual needs; however, research has shown that mental health services available to child victims of crime tend to be generic rather than specific. The same study found that almost three quarters of respondents reported not having accessed any support services, while just over a quarter of participants had received some sort of support, advice or treatment.

Has my hon. Friend, like me, found that when councils and sometimes health authorities are dealing with adult victims of domestic abuse, they feel they should commission specific services, yet when children are victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse or other crimes, the authorities feel that responsibility should immediately fall to children’s safeguarding, which provides absolutely no service unless the threshold of imminent risk of death is met?

Sadly, I completely agree. I have deep sympathy for the local authorities that are trying to provide these services without the resources and with ever-increasing need placed on them. I really welcome the fact that children are now regarded as victims under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, but support services need to be rolled out on that basis.

Sexual abuse has a far-reaching impact on society. It is estimated to cost more than £3.2 billion per year. In 2021, calls to the NSPCC helpline about child sexual abuse and exploitation reached a record high. The victims code of practice already enshrines

“the Right to be referred to services that support victims…and to have…services and support…tailored to meet your needs”.

Those responsible for upholding the code include police and crime commissioners, the Crown Prosecution Service and police witness care units, so ideally we should already be seeing sufficient and specific support being commissioned across England and Wales. In reality, however, provision is patchy and victims are being left with no support. A legal duty to commission sufficient and specific support for children and young people would push responsible parties to act in the best interests of all children.

It is concerning that the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse found that some statutory agencies responsible for commissioning support services

“have conflated the concepts of actual harm and risk of harm”,

leading to a failure to identify and support children who have been victimised or are at risk of being victimised. In conflating the two, commissioners improperly resource and fund support services, minimising the likelihood that victims will be able to process their trauma and recover from their experience. A duty must be placed on the Secretary of State to commission a review of the current volume, need, provision and investment in special services for children who have been victims of crime.

Currently, data on the provision of services is collected by police and crime commissioners. However, PCCs do not have the authority to mandate that other commissioners share that data with them. As a result, the understanding of the national picture on support for children who are experiencing harm is unclear. The Secretary of State could require all commissioners to share that data and thereby improve the national understanding of the volume of, need for, provision of and investment in special services for children.

New Clause 10 would also require the Secretary of State to lay the review’s findings before Parliament and outline the steps he would take in response. That is vital to ensuring that all children receive the support they need, and to ending the postcode lottery that they currently face.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham for her commitment to ensuring that child victims remain at the forefront of this debate. She has done an enormous amount of work on the issue. I echo her concern that child victims can be subject to a postcode lottery in respect of those commissioners who choose to provide for children and those who do not.

Children experience crime differently, as we have heard so many times in this Committee, so the support that they receive needs to adequately reflect that. If it does not, we will be leaving some of the most vulnerable victims in our society to just fend for themselves. I agree with my hon. Friend’s intention to ensure that all child victims throughout the country receive the support that they not only deserve but are entitled to.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for speaking to new clauses 10 and 13. New Clause 10 would require the Secretary of State to publish a report on the current volume of, need for and investment in support services for child victims, and new clause 13 would require local authorities to commission sufficient and specific support for child victims. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this issue and reassure her that the Government are absolutely committed to ensuring that there is adequate provision of support for children who are victims.

The Bill aims to improve the support offered to children and young people. We have made several key changes to the victims measures in the Bill since it was published in draft, based on feedback received during pre-legislative scrutiny by the Justice Committee and its members. In order to better consider the needs of child victims of crime, we have clarified who is covered by part 1 of the Bill to align with the Domestic Abuse Act’s definition of a child victim of domestic abuse.

The Bill also sets out, under the duty to collaborate, that commissioners must consider any assessment of the needs of children when developing their joint commissioning strategy in respect of victim support services for victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and serious violent crimes. Statutory guidance will support commissioners in doing that. The publication of the joint commissioning strategies will then give insight into the levels of service that children are receiving in each police area across England and an assessment of how areas are making improvements against local objectives or key performance indicators.

We are committed to understanding the current needs and provision of support for children who are victims. As needs will vary locally, we provide police and crime commissioners with grant funding to commission practical, emotional and therapeutic support services for victims of all types of crime at a local level. PCCs are expected to carry out needs assessments, which will allow them to ascertain the level of need and demand in their area, including in relation to support for children. This process informs local commissioning decisions. I gently remind the Committee of my comments in previous sittings on the joint strategic needs assessment approach put forward by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, which I have said I am happy to reflect on more broadly in considering the picture of support.

We recognise that across the commissioning landscape we need a more co-ordinated and strategic approach to funding services for victims, including child victims, so that they receive the support they need. That is why we published the victims funding strategy in May 2022, setting out our approach. The strategy introduced national commissioning standards, which will encourage an expected level of service for victims. It also introduced core metrics and outcomes to be collected on all Government funding, to ensure that we are building a comprehensive evidence base that will allow us to generate a much clearer picture of the needs and experiences of victims using support services.

Overall, the Ministry of Justice is more than quadrupling funding for victim and witness support services by 2024-25 compared with 2009-10, and that includes support for child victims. We have committed £154 million of that budget per annum on a multi-year basis until 2024-25, to allow victim support services and those commissioning them to provide consistency to victims receiving support. In addition, in June last year the Home Office also launched its support for the victims and survivors of child sexual abuse fund—or SVSCSA fund—for 2022 to 2025, providing grant funding of up to £4.5 million to voluntary sector organisations in England and Wales who work in this specific area.

We accept that child victims of sexual abuse must be able to access effective systems for the provision of therapeutic support. In response to a recommendation of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, we have committed to elicit views on the future of therapeutic support, including possible systemic changes to provision, through extensive engagement and consultation.

We remain of the view that the Bill’s current wording is the appropriate wording, as opposed to compelling a duty, as in the wording of the new clause. Equally, in respect of the broader engagement around the IICSA recommendation, I invite the hon. Lady to engage with me and others—including Home Office colleagues, probably more specifically—on that. With that, I encourage the hon. Lady not to press the new clauses to a Division at this point.

I am content at this point with the movement that the Minister has offered. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the Clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.