SNP must realise Scotland needs urgent grooming gangs inquiry
It’s hard not to conclude that generations of children have been let down by the political establishment, says Susan Dalgety
There is nothing more important than the protection of our children. Governments may boast of their economic prowess. Of their commitment to tackling climate change. Their constitutional wizardry.
But if government ministers and the plethora of public agencies that deliver policies on their behalf, cannot guarantee us, the public, that they are doing all they can to guarantee the safety of every child in Scotland, then those government ministers have failed. To date, Scotland’s Justice Secretary Angela Constance has let us down.
On Wednesday, a Conservative MSP tabled an urgent question in parliament in an attempt to clarify Constance’s recent comments around calls for a grooming gang inquiry. Liam Kerr wanted to know why the Cabinet Secretary had “misrepresented” the views of Professor Alexis Jay, one of the UK’s leading experts on the sexual exploitation of children.
In an unequivocal statement during a recent debate, the minister told MSPs that Professor Jay did not support any further inquiries into child sexual abuse in Scotland. Constance said: “She [Professor Jay] shares my view and has put on the record and stated to the media that she does not support further inquiries into child sexual abuse and exploitation, given the significant time and resource already spent in the review that she led, the Casey audit and other reviews.”
Except the good professor said no such thing. What she did say, and it was minuted at a meeting of the National Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Strategic Group, of which she is a member, is that her comments, made nearly a year ago, had been about England and Wales and were not related to “the position in Scotland”.
The Justice Secretary did not turn up in parliament to answer Kerr’s question. She was too busy “travelling on Scottish Government business”, so she sent along a junior member of the government, Natalie Don-Innes, to speak on her behalf.
The clearly nervous children’s minister did her best to defend her boss, insisting that the Scottish Government “takes this matter very seriously”. She even hinted that the government may be considering an inquiry, promising a parliamentary statement “before the end of the year to inform members of next steps”.
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The scale of the problem
Let’s hope Constance is not halfway along the M8 in her ministerial car when the time comes. And let’s hope, for the sake of all our children, that she is prepared to do what needs to be done, and that is find out the scale of the problem in Scotland so that it can be properly tackled.
Nearly a year ago, in this column, I wrote of the urgent need for an audit of the prevalence of child sexual exploitation and abuse after the Centre for Excellence for Children’s Care and Protection told the Scottish Government that “precise prevalence data… is difficult to establish and vary across countries and within research studies”.
But while the government’s strategic group has met several times since, we are no further forward. Police Scotland insist there are no “present day large-scale investigations” known to them that meet the “definition of group-based abuse”, yet only last week, a desperate young woman wrote to the First Minister setting out how, as a young teenager in care, she had been a victim of a grooming gang in Glasgow.
She pleaded with John Swinney for a “rapid audit” into the scale of the problem. She wrote: "A full inquiry into grooming gangs in Scotland must follow any audit in order to protect children suffering now and any potential victims in the future.” Swinney said he was “open” to an inquiry but gave no sense of urgency.
A champion of vulnerable children
But while the SNP government drags its feet, Scotland’s most vulnerable children have found a champion in East Kilbride MP Joani Reid. Since April, Reid has been urging the First Minister to act. In a series of letters to Swinney, she has called on him to put aside party interest and “deal directly with the serious and well-founded concerns that organised child sexual abuse in Scotland is a widespread problem”.
And she could barely hide her anger at Constance’s absence from parliament this week, posting on social media: “I've tried not to make this personal and give the Scottish Gov space to do the right thing. But this is now bordering on contempt for survivors.”
It is hard not to conclude that generations of children – particularly young girls – have been let down by a political establishment too nervous to expose the full scale of sexual exploitation or, cynically, that does not see any political advantage in properly tackling the problem.
The strategic group may boast more than 30 members, with senior representatives from children’s charities, social work and the health service among others, but what progress has been made since the Scottish Government published its first ‘action’ plan in 2014? Very little, it seems.
Why get into politics?
Reid argues that grooming gangs target working-class children. “It’s not middle-class kids being abused, it’s kids in care,” she said recently. A government briefing paper bears that out. It lists nine ‘experiences’ that make a child more vulnerable to exploitation, ranging from poverty or homelessness to being in care.
Constance, who was a social worker before she entered politics, has one last chance to redeem herself. She must commission an immediate audit into the scale and nature of grooming gangs in Scotland, including any links with criminals in England. Only then will the strategic group be able to progress with confidence.
Why else is she in politics, if it is not to protect our most vulnerable children and young people?