The former chair of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) has criticised the recent “weaponisation” of child sexual abuse, as she told of her relief at news her report’s recommendations will finally be implemented.
Professor Alexis Jay led the multimillion-pound long-running inquiry, which published its final report in October 2022.
She said what followed was almost two years of inaction by the former Conservative government, describing their official response to her recommendations in May 2023 under then-home secretary Suella Braverman as “awful”.
Appearing before the Home Affairs Committee, Prof Jay said the written response to the 20 recommendations – which followed the seven-year inquiry – had been “inconsequential, insubstantial, committed to nothing”.
Frustrated at the lack of action, Prof Jay wrote a letter, published in the Times newspaper, describing the response to her inquiry as “weak” and “apparently disingenuous”.
Prof Jay told MPs she had then been contacted while on holiday and had an “adversarial” conversation with a special adviser who “came on demanding to know why I had written to The Times and complaining”.
Following this, she said there had been “quite a long silence” from the Home Office until James Cleverly took over as Home Secretary in November 2023.
In her appearance before the committee on Tuesday, Prof Jay was asked about the previous years of inaction, followed by a commitment last week by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to lay out a clear timetable by Easter for implementing the IICSA recommendations.
There have been weeks of pressure on the current Government, including from the Conservative Opposition and billionaire X owner Elon Musk for a national inquiry into child grooming gangs.
The public and political conversation has also brought into focus the lack of implementation of IICSA recommendations under the previous Tory government.
Criticising what she branded the “weaponisation” of the issue, Prof Jay said she did not want to name those involved in the public argument so as not to give them “the oxygen of publicity”.
She told MPs: “I really felt very concerned at the weaponisation, if you like, of child sexual abuse that has gone on.
“I declined to make – and I won’t make – any comment about the various actors involved in that – I wouldn’t give them the oxygen of publicity.
“But just, it was such a relief (the news of a plan to implement recommendations), by whatever means – we wouldn’t have chosen it necessarily to have come about in this way – but we just need to get on with it.”
Prof Jay’s seven-year inquiry described child sexual abuse as an “epidemic” in England and Wales, finding institutional failings and tens of thousands of victims across the two nations.
The recommendations from the final report included the implementation of laws compelling people in positions of trust to report child sexual abuse and a national compensation scheme for victims.
Last week alongside the commitment on IICSA recommendations, Ms Cooper also announced an audit looking into the current scale and nature of “gang-based exploitation” across the country as well as local reviews into grooming in some areas.
Ms Cooper said local reviews would provide more answers and change than a nationwide probe, and that the audit of the current national situation would be completed within three months.
Prof Jay repeated her view that “at this point, (I) do not think there should be a national inquiry” but agreed a local inquiry can be justified.
She said she was concerned that victims and survivors would not necessarily have their “aspirations met by a public inquiry”, and stressed that such an inquiry “does not have that power” to bring perpetrators to justice.
Nigel Farage has suggested his Reform UK party would fund an inquiry into child sexual abuse in the absence of a national inquiry ordered by the Government.
But, asked about a political party setting up their own inquiry, Prof Jay said: “I can’t see what’s to be gained from it.”
IICSA secretary John O’Brien, who also appeared at the committee, suggested it would be “quite tricky” to see how an inquiry ordered and led by a particular political party would be independent.
Part of the Government’s three-month national audit is aimed at filling a data gap, including proper collection and examination of ethnicity data across the country.
Prof Jay said the ethnicity of both abuse victims and perpetrators should be collected, and that she hoped it would provide a “factual basis” for statements in a debate which is “rampant with all sorts of disinformation”.
She also warned the “baseline across the board needs to be consistent” in terms of how police forces record data and the descriptors they use, “to gain an accurate picture of where there are very serious problems that need to be addressed”.
The Home Office has pledged to ensure police forces in England and Wales learn lessons from the past, requiring them to improve data collection on child sexual abuse, including ethnicity.
Meanwhile, both Prof Jay and Mr O’Brien said they see a lack of independent oversight monitoring how and when recommendations will be implemented as a failure of the current public inquiry system.
Prof Jay told MPs: “I think it’s probably one of the biggest questions facing public inquiries and it’s good that it is being aired.
“Because it’s, from my perspective … it’s the biggest weakness, the lack of follow-up and monitoring built into the process.”
Mr O’Brien said: “The biggest failure of the whole system is the failure to have any independent oversight.”
This issue has been raised before by other campaigners, including the Grenfell Tower fire bereaved and survivors, who have previously called for a national oversight mechanism – an independent public body – to be put in place, responsible for collating, analysing and following up on recommendations from public inquiries.
