Labour Drops Plans for Rape Gang Inquiries

Labour has dropped its plans for five local grooming gang inquiries that it promised in January when under pressure, saying it’s now up to local councils to decide how to spend the £5 million allocated. The Telegraph has the story.

In January, Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, told MPs that the Government would provide £5 million to support up to five initial local inquiries modelled on the judge-led one into grooming gangs in Telford.

However, on Tuesday Jess Phillips, a Home Office Minister, announced that “following feedback” the Government would adopt 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 include “more bespoke work, including local victims’ panels or locally led audits of the handling of historical cases”.

The Conservatives accused Labour of watering down its response to the grooming gangs inquiry in an announcement just 45 minutes before Parliament broke for recess.

Home Office sources insisted that the change did not necessarily mean that the five inquiries would not go ahead but rather Ministers had decided to not be prescriptive following the local consultation.

But Katie Lam, the shadow Home Office minister, said: “Local inquiries are not good enough – they can’t compel witnesses, they can’t look at themes across the country, and they can’t address national issues like deportation. Now the Government is watering them down even further. We won’t let them get away with it.”

A Home Office spokesman said it was “patently false” it was watering down its plans.

“The £5 million funding announced in January is being made available to local authorities to help strengthen local responses to child sexual exploitation, and all local authorities will be able to apply for funding for local inquiries or other work in this area,” the spokesman said.

“The Home Secretary has written to every local authority on our plans to support local inquiries, and after listening to local authorities about what they need, we made the decision to implement the fund in a flexible way.”

The Government announced the local inquiries in January after huge pressure for a new national inquiry, including from Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X.

Worth reading in full.

Stop Press: Labour dropped its plans for the local grooming gang inquiries for fear of offending its Pakistani voters, Sir Trevor Phillips has claimed. The former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission said Labour’s response was “utterly shameful” because it was “so obviously political” to avoid offending a particular demographic of voters.