Former deputy PM becomes 37th Conservative MP to announce they will stand down
Yesterday Suella Braverman, the home secretary, made a statement to MPs about the government’s response to the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA). She implied she was accepting almost all its recommendations, saying: “We are accepting the need to act on 19 out of the inquiry’s 20 final recommendations.”
But her response has been strongly criticised by people involved in the inquiry. Yesterday Prof Alexis Jay, who chaired the inquiry, said she was “deeply disappointed” that the inquiry’s recommendations were not being accepted in full.
Actually, when you look at it, they are absorbing many of the recommendations in existing structures. We know that if they were working, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
To really truly tackle this, we need a complete culture change and a complete reform of the system.
Rather than accepting those, she’s kicked it into the long grass with consultations, with 13 weeks of calls for evidence which conveniently takes her into summer recess when parliament isn’t sitting.
I find it incredibly insulting to, yes, the taxpayers’ £200m [the cost of the inquiry], but more so to the 7,000 victims.
He knew he was going to lose. We have been working really well there.
We’ll be working every day to earn the trust of people in Esher and Walton.
