The hearing of the Home Affairs Select Committee yesterday raises yet more questions about why no action was taken by the home secretary following allegations of misconduct against Dame Lowell Goddard, the chair of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

Appointed as the fourth head of the inquiry, only Amber Rudd and her predecessor Theresa May had the power to terminate Dame Lowell’s contract. Instead, under their leadership, the inquiry was allowed to become dysfunctional to the extent that it began to lose the confidence of child abuse victims and survivors.

It was necessary to bring in an external facilitator to address the tensions between the chair and her panel. Five lawyers working for the inquiry, including their chief legal counsel Ben Emmerson QC,