Yvette Cooper has announced an urgent national review of the scale of grooming gangs amid a raft of other new measures to tackle them, in a significant shift of approach on the issue after intense political pressure.
The announcement does not create the full national inquiry the Conservatives have demanded.
It is undeniable, however, that ministers have been pushed into moving further and faster on the long-running scandal after the issue was taken up by Elon Musk, whose often misleading comments on the subject the Tories and others seized on.
It also adds to a difficult week for Keir Starmer, coming just two days after he accepted the resignation of the Treasury minister Tulip Siddiq, after she was embroiled in allegations of corruption connected to her aunt, the ousted prime minister of Bangladesh.
Addressing the Commons, the home secretary said Louise Casey, who produced a report into sexual abuse in Rotherham, would lead a three-month review into what was known about the scale and extent of grooming gangs.
Cooper said Casey would examine data not available to the initial national inquiry into gangs led by Prof Alexis Jay, and would look into the ethnicity and demographics of abusers and victims, as well as “the cultural and societal drivers for this type of offending, including amongst different ethnic groups”.
In parallel, Cooper said, Tom Crowther KC, who led a much-praised local investigation in Telford, would help devise a model for a series of similar investigations. This would begin, she said, with five pilot areas, including Oldham.
It was the government’s decision to refuse Oldham council’s request for a second national inquiry, a decision spotted by Musk, the billionaire and Donald Trump aide, that catapulted the subject back into public consciousness.
Some MPs praised the plans, but others questioned whether the local inquiries would be able to properly examine possible cover-ups of past abuse, for example by council officials or police, without the powers to compel witnesses to give evidence.
Pressed repeatedly on whether the inquiries would have these so-called statutory powers, Cooper indicated not, but insisted they would nonetheless be able to get to the truth.
One element of this, she said, would be the planned “Hillsborough law”, which brings in a duty of candour for public bodies, with potential criminal sanctions for misleading or obstructing investigations.
The Labour MP for Rotherham, Sarah Champion, who has long campaigned on sexual exploitation, questioned Cooper on how the local inquiries could examine potential cover-ups of abuse without statutory powers.
Cooper pointed to the inquiries in Rotherham and Telford, saying these “did manage to uncover truths in different areas”, while also promising that the government would work with councils and mayors to ensure that obligations under the Hillsborough law were met.
Other new initiatives Cooper set out include widening the remit of the child sexual abuse review panel so victims can seek a review of their cases even if they took place after 2013; a push for chief constables in England and Wales to look at past grooming cases; and improving the recording of data on offenders’ ethnicity.
She also promised that the government would set out a timetable for implementing the recommendations of Jay’s report, published in 2022, by Easter.
“For too long, this horrific abuse was allowed to continue, victims were ignored, perpetrators were left unpunished and too many people looked the other way,” Cooper told MPs.
“And even when these shocking crimes were brought to light, national inquiries were commissioned to get to the truth, the resulting reports were too often left on the shelf as their recommendations gathered dust. So under this government, that has changed.”
The shadow home secretary, Chris Philp, condemned the proposals, saying the starting point of five pilots was “wholly inadequate” given the number of towns affected, while the lack of a statutory footing made them toothless.
“If that’s the case, how can they possibly get to the truth with cover-ups?” he said.
Cooper responded that one of the key findings of Jay’s inquiry was the lack of information and data about the offences, which Casey’s report was intended to address.
“In the way that we know she’ll conduct this inquiry, to actually fill the gaps in the evidence rather than rerun the same questions without the evidence and data that we badly need,” Cooper said.
Casey, a crossbench peer who also led a report into institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia in the Metropolitan police, was tasked earlier this month with leading a longer-term review into social care. Downing Street said this was not scheduled to start until April, by which time the grooming gangs review would be complete.
The new measures are unlikely to quell demands from the Conservatives and Reform UK for another full national inquiry, something Cooper and other ministers say would take too long and get in the way of implementing measures to help victims.
Some Tories did praise Cooper. The veteran backbencher Bernard Jenkin told the home secretary there was much to welcome in her announcement. “She has travelled a long way since last week,” he said.
