Esther McVey is demanding government force councils, police and other bodies to record and publish the nationality, ethnicity, immigration status and religion of anyone involved in child sexual exploitation – in a bid to safeguard children.
Ms McVey said for too long institutions have shied away from these issues for fear of being branded racist.
Speaking in Parliament she said the only thing that mattered was protecting children.
Ms McVey said: “If we want to successfully end these appalling sexual crimes against children, we must fully understand what is happening and to do that we need the data. It is not racist to examine the ethnicity of these criminals, nor is it discriminatory to examine their immigration status. We must follow the evidence wherever it leads, no matter how uncomfortable the truth is.
“These awkward conversations must finally be had and anyone who might be avoiding them because of a self-serving sense of political correctness must now decide to put the safety of children first. This is not a political football, a right-wing bandwagon or a dog-whistle issue this is about life-altering suffering and abuse of the most shocking kind. Suffering and abuse that could have been prevented and the survivors deserve to know the truth about the failings that were allowed to happen.”
She made the comments as MPs debated calls from more than 260,000 members of the public, including 435 from the Tatton constituency, for data collection to be mandatory.
Last year an audit by Baroness Louise Casey into Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse concluded that catastrophic systemic failures and institutional inaction had allowed grooming gangs to operate freely for many years. It recommended government should mandate ethnicity and nationality data be published and recorded but did not go as far as religion and immigration status – something Ms McVey believes should also be published.
The Jay report in 2014 also found a “reluctance to discuss offender ethnicity openly.”
Ms McVey fears political correctness led to the lack of investigating, with authorities concerned it would reveal something “that didn’t fit their ideology of multiculturalism.” She said this resulted in white working-class girls, many vulnerable, some branded “white trash” being let down by a system which should have protected them. Instead, these girls were the victims of sustained rape, abuse and torture.
Ms McVey criticised government for failing to act a year on from Dame Casey’s report and accused them of treating victims with the same contempt it showed dragging its heels over holding a rape gang enquiry (which still has not happened).
Ms McVey assisted in the alternative rape gang enquiry set up by Restore MP Rupert Lowe.
