PM announces national inquiry into grooming gangs scandal
Sir Keir Starmer has announced the government will launch a national inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal, despite resisting calls for one for months.
It comes after the government commissioned a review into the scandal by Baroness Louise Casey, which has recommended a national inquiry and is due to be published in full next week.
The prime minister told reporters as he travelled to the G7 summit in Canada: 'I have read every single word of her report and I am going to accept her recommendation. That is the right thing to do.'
Since the scandal became a point of fierce political discussion earlier this year, the government has repeatedly insisted there was no need for a national inquiry, instead launching five locally-led investigations.
The prime minister had previously argued another inquiry would delay justice for the victims of the scandal, saying the government wanted to get on with implementing the recommendations of a 2022 inquiry into child sexual exploitation. Baroness Louise Casey was commissioned to carry out a 'rapid' national audit on the scandal. / Credit: James Manning/PA
'From the start I have always said that we should implement the recommendations we have got,' the PM told reporters.
'I have never said we should not look again at any issue – I had wanted to be assured that on the question of any inquiry, that's why I asked Louise Casey, who I hugely respect, to do an audit.'
Pressed on the detail of the inquiry, the PM said: 'It will be statutory under the inquiries act, that will take a bit of time to sort out exactly how that works and we will set that out in an orderly way.'
Debate around tackling grooming gangs raged earlier this year after tech billionaire and X owner Elon Musk began attacking Sir Keir Starmer and his government, accusing them of being 'complicit' in the scandal.
Both the Conservatives and Reform UK have repeatedly called for a national inquiry into the scandal.
Starmer previously accused Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch of 'jumping on the bandwagon', by calling for a national investigation.
The Conservatives had tabled an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill that was due to be voted on in Parliament next week, calling for the government to set up a national statutory inquiry within three months.
In response to the announcement on a statutory inquiry Badenoch said: 'Keir Starmer doesn't know what he thinks unless an official report has told him so.
'Just like he dismissed concerns about the winter fuel payment and then had to u-turn, just like he needed the Supreme Court to tell him what a woman is, he had to be led by the nose to make this correct decision here.
'I've been repeatedly calling for a full national inquiry since January. It's about time he recognised he made a mistake and apologise for six wasted months.'
The government had previously argued that there had already been a national inquiry into the grooming gangs, referring to the 2022 Jay Inquiry into child sex abuse. Debate around grooming gangs was reignited this year after tech billionaire Elon Musk attacked Starmer and his government. / Credit: AP
The Jay inquiry described the sexual abuse of children as an 'epidemic that leaves tens of thousands of victims in its poisonous wake'.
It looked into abuse by organised groups following multiple convictions of sexual offences against children across the UK between 2010-2014, including in Rotherham, Cornwall, Derbyshire, Rochdale and Bristol.
In November last year, Professor Jay said she felt 'frustrated' that none of the probe's 20 recommendations had been implemented more than two years after its conclusion.
Reports in The Times newspaper suggest the Casey review will say that white British girls who were targeted by grooming gangs were 'institutionally ignored for fear of racism'.
The Casey audit was originally due to take three months from when it was announced in January.
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