In advance of the home affairs select committee session on child abuse, which was trailed as an opportunity to discuss historic sex abuse involving politicians, pressure was applied to everyone not to bring up any living politicians.

A senior Tory apprehended me inside parliament and warned me not to name a former cabinet minister. The matter had been put to bed years ago, he said, and if raised now it would probably kill the former minister. But he wasn't the only one applying pressure. Party whips, Lords, MPs and others were all involved in cajoling, arm-twisting and bullying committee members to stick to a carefully choreographed script.

In the event the select committee was one of the shortest on record and passed relatively uneventfully, except for the fact that I raised the need to question Leon Brittan about what had happened to a dossier on establishment child abuse that was handed to him in 1983.

Since then it's as though the wheels have fallen off the establishment, such has been their pitiful response. After previously denying any knowledge of the dossier, Brittan provided muddled statements. We then found out that 114 files relating to establishment child abuse had vanished.

Lord Tebbit finally confirmed that there may have been a child abuse cover-up and the instinct then was to protect the system. This was a terrible mistake, he concluded.

Even if they tried, I don't think our political rulers could have given a better impression of a scandalous cover-up.

The genie is now well and truly out of the bottle and I don't think there's much chance of it being put back. That's because the difference between today and the 1980s is that this issue is so important it goes beyond party politics. Back then Geoffrey Dickens was a lone voice with little support – even from his own party. Nowadays you'll find the likes of Tom Watson and Norman Tebbit in agreement on this. Liberal, Labour, Conservative and Green MPs are coming together united by a strong desire to face up to the failings of the past and root out powerful child abusers. It's one of the most edifying things I've ever witnessed in politics.

There is a growing realisation among some in parliament that this is not about politics – it's about children who were abused and had lives ruined.

This isn't shared yet by our political leaders and in many cases it's hard to see where political calculation ends and compassion or conviction begins. That has to change. Politics should not get in the way of dealing with child abuse.

There's been a generation of children abandoned by politics for decades. It's time they were remembered and past sins atoned for.