Cooper hits back over ‘utterly shameful' approach to grooming gangs

Yahoo

10-04-2025

Yvette Cooper has hit back at criticism of the Government's grooming gang plans after Labour was accused of watering down proposals to investigate the scandal.
The Home Secretary denied scaling back plans for independent local inquiries into grooming gangs over fears that they would offend Pakistanis and other ethnic minority voters.
She was responding to comments by Sir Trevor Phillips, the former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who said Labour's approach to the grooming gangs scandal was 'utterly shameful' because it was 'so obviously political' to avoid offending a particular demographic of voters.
The broadcaster, who previously stood as a Labour candidate for London mayor, said the move risked providing an 'open goal' to Right-wing critics of the party's policies on immigration.
However, Ms Cooper told the BBC Today programme: 'This is total nonsense. There's been a lot of misinformation, and sadly, party political misinformation being put out about this and it's just fundamentally wrong.
'So not only are we continuing with the plans for local inquiries, as we set out in January, that has not changed. We're also saying we will support areas that want to do more to work with victims and survivors. That has not changed.
'But most crucially of all, we are supporting increased police investigations into these vile crimes. We have got increased investigations taking place.'
Her comments came after home office minister Jess Phillips told MPs the Government was shifting from prescribing up to five inquiries backed by a £5 million fund to a 'flexible approach', where the money would be available for local councils to use as they wished to support grooming gang work.
She said that this could mean full independent local inquiries, but could also mean 'more bespoke work, including local victims' panels or locally led audits of the handling of historical cases'.
Home Office sources insisted the change did not necessarily mean that five inquiries would not go ahead but ministers had decided to not be prescriptive following the local consultation.
The Conservatives accused Labour of watering down their response to the grooming gangs inquiry in an announcement just 45 minutes before Parliament broke for recess.
Ms Cooper said: 'We're increasing the action on child sexual exploitation and child sexual abuse. These are some of the most vile crimes... grooming gangs, rape, coercion, exploitation and horrendous crimes.
'Both of these were obviously covered as part of the national statutory inquiry [by Professor Alexis Jay], the seven-year inquiry that took place.
'But we're also supporting local inquiries. We've already said we'll support Oldham to have a local inquiry, and we're currently drawing up the framework for further local inquiries.
'We always said from the start we would also support areas that wanted to set up victim panels, but we're continuing to support the local inquiries too, just as we said earlier this year.'
The scale of and driving factors for grooming gangs is currently being audited by Baroness Casey, a Whitehall troubleshooter who has specialised in fast-track investigations into sensitive issues such as the Metropolitan Police's culture and standards.
The Home Office says the framework for local areas to be identified for inquiries will be set out 'shortly' and will be informed by Baroness Casey's audit.
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