My Lords, I fully support my noble friend Lady Brinton’s Amendment 19 and her passionate and common-sense contribution, which I hope the Minister will consider. I will speak on Amendments 62 and 71, to which I have put my name.
Child abuse and exploitation affects hundreds of thousands of children across this country each year. Sadly, any child, in any place, can be a victim of abuse. Children are also disproportionately impacted by abuse. The Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse found that children are the victims of 40% of sexual offences. Being a victim of abuse has a devastating effect on children, with the impacts often staying with them for the rest of their lives. Yes, childhood lasts a lifetime.
Despite this, we are leaving our most vulnerable children without access to essential child-specific victim support services and child-specific victim support roles. It is key that, when commissioners decide what services and roles to commission to support victims, they must pay attention and due regard to the need for child-specific victim support services and roles to meet the need in their local area.
That is why I put my name to Amendments 62 and 71. These amendments would strengthen the duty to collaborate in the Bill and have a huge impact for children who have experienced the most horrific crimes. Child-specific victim support services play a crucial role in helping a child to start to recover from abuse and trauma, giving children a space to work through their trauma and offering mental health and counselling services.
However, support services are hugely underfunded and undervalued, and children are facing a postcode lottery in accessing them. Recent research by the Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse found that across England and Wales there are only 468 services providing support to victims and survivors of child sexual abuse. This is despite an estimated half a million children suffering from some form of sexual abuse every year.
Barnardo’s, which offers child sexual exploitation services—I declare an interest as its vice-president—has found that an additional 1,900 child independent domestic violence advisers and almost 500 child independent sexual violence advisers are needed across England and Wales to support the number of identified child victims of domestic and sexual abuse.
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Commissioners must have due regard to child-specific victim support services when they are collaborating on commissioning strategies; this is why I support Amendment 71. This amendment simply aims to extend the scope of guidance given to commissioners under the duty to collaborate to include further detail about victim support services. This will ensure that commissioners are able to understand the type of victim support services that will need to be considered, including child-specific services.
Too often, children are only offered the support of independent domestic violence advisers and independent sexual violence advisers who are designed to support adults. These roles are not equipped to have the capacity to respond to children, whose abuse often looks very different from the abuse of an adult and who have different support needs. Amendment 62 would simply make it explicit that, when undertaking their duty to collaborate, commissioners must have due regard to the statutory guidance. It would be good to hear what the Minister has to give us as reassurance on this point.
It is shameful that so many children who have suffered unimaginable harm and trauma have been left without much-needed support. The Victims and Prisoners Bill offers us a key opportunity to make sure that these children are better supported to recover from their abuse in the future. The amendments I am supporting do not call for additional funding but solely aim to strengthen the Bill and the duty to collaborate. In turn, this will ensure that all victims, including children, are at the centre of commissioning strategies. If we want to support child victims, this is crucial. I look forward to the Minister’s response.