It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone.
I thank the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) for securing the debate. It is difficult for me to disagree with anything she said. It is four months since the report came out and, dare I say it, we are all a bit distracted by the soap opera that is Brexit, which means that on some of these issues the eye has been taken off the ball. One reason I am grateful to her, therefore, is that this debate helps me to focus some of my colleagues’ minds. She alluded to the fact that this issue affects not just my Department and that we need agreement across Government. I thank her for the opportunity to say where the Department of Health and Social Care is on the issue.
I am pleased to hear that some of the child migrants are watching the debate with interest. I would like to convey to them that we are taking this seriously and will respond to the issues raised in the report. I thank the hon. Lady for showing such interest and passion in speaking on their behalf, because they deserve our support.
I do not think anyone in the Chamber disagrees that the child migration policy was so misguided and harmful and caused such suffering and distress. For us as Members of Parliament in the 21st century, it beggars belief to think that any British Government could think that was a reasonable policy. It clearly caused great suffering and distress to children, who should be protected by institutions of the state. It is crucial that we learn from the mistakes of the past in order to protect and safeguard future generations of children from abuse.
We should never be complacent. We have seen with the likes of Savile how organisations can collude to protect themselves from the worst kinds of allegations, and that continues to this day. Only last week we heard about Gosport, where there was massive collusion on real harm, which causes such distress. All citizens require our support as Members of Parliament to make sure that never happens again.
The hon. Lady told the most harrowing stories, perpetrated by organisations that purport to be Christian, and we heard many examples of cover-ups of abusive behaviour towards children, which I sincerely hope will be further highlighted by the child abuse inquiry. The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), who spoke from the Opposition Front Bench, used the term “dehumanising,” which conveys exactly what we are talking about. That is what was done to those children.
We are four months on from the publication of the report, which asked that we take action within a year, so there are eight months to take action. I would like us to give a formal response much sooner—I intend to do so before the summer recess, as everyone has asked. Perhaps in some respects it will be useful to reflect on the points made in this debate for that formal response. All the questions that hon. Members have asked deserve to be answered as part of that, so I thank them for making those points.