Kemi Badenoch shadow minister rejected requires necessary baby abuse reporting in 2018

A member of Kemi Badenoch’s shadow cabinet rejected calls for the mandatory reporting of child abuse as a minister, the Sunday Mirror can reveal.

It comes after the Tories mounted a shameless stunt, threatening to derail the child welfare bill if the government didn’t agree to another national inquiry on grooming gangs.

The Tory government failed to act on the recommendations of the last abuse inquiry – which called for mandatory reporting – before the last election.

And in 2018, when she was safeguarding minister, Victoria Atkins rejected the idea in response to a government consultation.

She is now Ms Badenoch’s Shadow Environment Secretary.

But under her previous role, she published the Conservative Government’s response to a consultation on reporting or acting on instances of child abuse and neglect.

In the response, she wrote that “the case for the introduction of a mandatory reporting duty or a duty to act has not been made, and would not, against the landscape of our current arrangements, deliver better protection for children.”

The consultation asked specifically for views on whether it should be a legal requirement for “certain practitioners or organisations to report child abuse or neglect if they knew, or had reasonable cause to suspect, it was taking place.”

Victoria Atkins made the statement alongside then-Children’s Minister Nadhim Zahawi, who was shortly afterwards replaced in the role by Ms Badenoch.

A change in the law to make it mandatory to report suspected cases of child sexual exploitation was drafted and written into the Criminal Justice bill last year.

But 12 days after it was published, Rishi Sunak called an election and the bill was ditched.

Keir Starmer first called for mandatory reporting to be introduced in 2013.

Last week Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary confirmed the Labour government’s plans to make it mandatory to report child sexual abuse.

A spokesperson for Ms Atkins said: “All Safeguarding Ministers of every political colour have cared deeply about this issue and worked to secure justice and support for victims.

“The Conservative government set up the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, carried out extensive work on all forms of CSEA over the years, including consulting on mandatory reporting four years before the final IICSA report.

“The responses were against such a duty at that time and so we continued to review the situation. When the final IICSA report was published with further in depth evidence in favour of a duty, we accepted that and changed our policy,”