Urgent review to be held into grooming gangs

Yvette Cooper announced an urgent national review of the scale of grooming gangs along with a series of other new measures to tackle them, in a significant shift of approach yesterday following intense political pressure.

- Peter Walker

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 it was taken up by Elon Musk, whose often misleading comments on the subject were seized on by the Tories and others.

It also adds to a difficult week for Keir Starmer, just two days after he accepted the resignation of the Treasury minister Tulip Siddiq, who 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".