PM announces national inquiry into grooming gangs
The prime minister has announced there will be a full national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs.
Sir Keir Starmer said he had accepted the recommendations of an audit by Baroness Louise Casey into the data and evidence on the nature and scale of group-based child sexual abuse.
Baroness Casey has recommended a national inquiry is required, he said. The inquiry will cover England and Wales.
For months, Sir Keir has faced criticism for not being willing to set one up.
At the start of the year, the government dismissed calls for a national inquiry, arguing it had already been examined in a seven-year inquiry led by Professor Alexis Jay.
But speaking to reporters on his way to the G7 summit, which begins in Canada tomorrow, the prime minister said: "I've never said we should not look again at any issue."
He added that Baroness Casey had originally thought a new inquiry was not necessary, but she had changed her mind having looked into it in recent months.
"She's come to the view there should be a national inquiry on the basis of what she's seen," Sir Keir said.
"I've read every single word of her report, and I'm going to accept her recommendation.
"I think that's the right thing to do, on the basis of what she has put in her audit.
"I asked her to do that job, to double-check on this.
"She's done that job for me, and having read her report… I shall now implement her recommendation."
He added that it "will take a bit of time" to set up the inquiry, but added that "it will be statutory under the Inquiries Act".
This means the inquiry will be able to compel witnesses to provide evidence.
It "will co-ordinate a series of targeted local investigations" a senior government source said.
This will include new local investigations, which will take place even if local authorities don't want one.
The local investigations will have the power to compel evidence to be given and witnesses to appear.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is expected to make a statement in the Commons on Monday, and Baroness Casey's report will be published alongside this.
Minister apologises for grooming gangs report delay
Badenoch accuses government of failure on grooming gangs
The 20 child abuse inquiry proposals - what has happened so far?
The grooming gangs issue was thrust into the spotlight at the start of this year, fuelled partly by tech billionaire Elon Musk, who criticised the prime minister for not calling a national inquiry.
A row between the two centred on high-profile cases where groups of men, mainly of Pakistani descent, were convicted of sexually abusing and raping predominantly young white girls in towns such as Rotherham and Rochdale.
In January, the government stopped short of launching a statutory national inquiry into grooming gangs, despite the idea receiving support from some Labour MPs.
Instead, Cooper announced a "rapid" three-month audit, led by Baroness Casey, into the data and evidence on the nature and scale of group-based child sexual abuse.
Cooper said the review would include examining the demographics of the gangs and their victims, as well as "cultural drivers" behind the offending.
The home secretary also unveiled plans for five government-backed local inquiries - to be held in Oldham and four other areas yet to be named.
Baroness Casey's review, which began in January, was due to take three months and had been delayed.
Earlier this month, Home Office Minister Jess Phillips apologised for the delay, saying Baroness Casey had requested a "short extension" and that the report was expected "very shortly".
The Conservatives have long been calling for a nationwide inquiry into grooming gangs, with the power to compel people to give evidence.
Reacting to Saturday's announcement, the party's leader, Kemi 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.
"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."
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage called the decision "a welcome U-turn".
In a post on X, Farage wrote: "A full statutory enquiry, done correctly, will expose the multiple failings of the British establishment. I repeat the words 'done correctly' - this cannot be a whitewash.
"It's time for victims to receive the justice they deserve and for perpetrators to face the full force of the law."
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The rich are fleeing Labour's Britain. We could all pay the price
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Five years in, I effectively get told 'We don't need your money, and we don't want you in the country'.' Wierzycka, who was a non-dom until the status was abolished, can now only stay in Britain for 91 days a year before incurring tax on her global earnings and gains, with a lower limit on how many days she can work. As a result, she is reluctantly planning to return to South Africa. Reeves's decision to raise taxes on people like Wierzycka was a calculated gamble. The Chancellor hopes that most of the rich will choose to stay in Britain and pay higher taxes, boosting public coffers by £5bn a year. The money will help pay for free breakfast clubs for children and plug gaps in stretched public finances. Yet the list of wealthy emigres has been growing steadily since tax changes took effect April. It includes people like South African national Richard Gnodde, Goldman Sachs' best paid banker outside the US, Aston Villa co-owner Nassef Sawiris and steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal. Those are the names we know of. How many others are leaving? 'We really don't know anything at this stage,' says Arun Advani, an associate professor of economics at the University of Warwick. 'The only way to know about what non-doms are doing is to look at the tax data. The data for the last tax year that ended in April, people don't even file those taxes until January of next year. 'Late filing is particularly prevalent at the top of the income distribution, where the £100 late fee is not really that costly. We don't really get that information here until, in I guess, 18 months.' It will be a nervous wait for the Chancellor. If 25pc of non-doms quit the UK, the Treasury would make no extra money from scrapping the tax status. If a third left, the UK would lose £700m in the first year of the policy, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). 'I love this country,' says entrepreneur Bassim Haidar, who was born in Nigeria but has Lebanese citizenship. 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One describes it thus: 'It's like boiling a frog, except in this case the frog can jump out of the water.' There were 68,900 non-doms living in Britain in the 2022 tax year, the latest HMRC data shows. They are typically employed in lucrative professions and are highly mobile. You would expect a high share to leave in any given year, which can make it difficult to discern genuine trends without hard evidence. One place to look for clues is in London's most well-heeled neighbourhoods. At private members' club Walbrook, in the City of London, between 20 and 50 clients have cancelled their memberships as a result of the tax changes. 'The exodus actually began last year,' says managing director Philip Palumbo. 'The City seems to lack confidence, purpose. It feels over-taxed, over-regulated, and we are haemorrhaging good people to artificial places like Dubai, which is just so unacceptable.' 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When Reeves announced her changes in October's Budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said the measures would raise £5.2bn a year by the end of the decade. This reflects only the direct tax take, not wider impacts on investment, staff and businesses relying on these very wealthy individuals. The fiscal watchdog assumed that 12pc of non-doms without trusts and 25pc with trusts would go. However, the OBR warned that predicting behavioural responses was difficult. Reeves has softened some measures slightly since October after a backlash from the wealthy, but the OBR said the tweaks did 'not materially affect' its forecasts. Britain relies more on high earners than many other countries, with the top 1pc paying 28pc of all income tax. If you broaden it to the top 10pc, the figure rises to 60pc of receipts. 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