Home secretary outlines key changes after 'disturbing' report into grooming gangs
Yvette Cooper set out a series of reforms in response to Baroness Casey's report
The home secretary has revealed the 'deeply disturbing' findings of a review into child sex abuse by grooming gangs.
In a statement in the House of Commons, Yvette Cooper outlined the government's response to Baroness Louise Casey’s review, which found suspects were often "disproportionately likely" to be Asian men.
It comes after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer committed to launching a national inquiry into the abuse following the convictions of seven members of an Asian grooming gang who sexually exploited two white teenage schoolgirls in Rochdale.
Ms Cooper told the Commons: "The sexual exploitation of children by grooming gangs is one of the most horrific crimes. Children as young as 10 plied with drugs and alcohol, brutally raped by gangs of men and disgracefully let down again and again by the authorities who were meant to protect them and keep them safe."
Describing the findings as "deeply disturbing", Ms Cooper noted that many of them "are not new". She said the results of Baroness Casey's audit were "damning" and the report identified a "continued failure to gather proper robust national data despite concerns being raised going back very many years".
She said Baroness Casey's review found that the overrepresentation of Asian men could be seen in local data for three police force areas in England, including Greater Manchester.
The home secretary said data from the police forces identified "clear evidence of overrepresentation among suspects of Asian and Pakistani heritage men".
She told MPs: "While much more robust national data is needed, we cannot and must not shy away from these findings, because, as Baroness Casey says, ignoring the issues, not examining and exposing them to the light, allows the criminality and depravity of a minority of men to be used to marginalise whole communities."
She said that Baroness Casey refers to examples of organisations "avoiding the topic altogether for fear of appearing racist or raising community tensions".
Ms Cooper confirmed that a national inquiry into grooming gangs will take place to tackle "continued denial, resistance and legal wrangling among local agencies".
The home secretary set out a series of reforms in response to the report. She told the Commons that changes to the law will ensure rape charges against those who engage in penetrative sex with children under 16.
Setting out the "next steps", she said: "Baroness Casey’s first recommendation is we must see children as children. She concludes, too many grooming cases have been dropped or downgraded from rape to lesser charges because a 13 to 15-year-old is perceived to have been in love with or had consented to sex with the perpetrator.
"So, we will change the law to ensure that adults who engage in penetrative sex with a child under 16 face the most serious charge of rape, and we will work closely with the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) and the police to ensure there are safeguards for consensual teenage relationships.
"We will change the law so that those convicted for child prostitution offences while their rapists got of scot-free will have their convictions disregarded and their criminal records expunged."
She also announced that the ethnicity and nationality of suspects in child sexual abuse and exploitation cases will be recorded on a mandatory basis for the first time.
Ms Cooper said: "Baroness Casey’s audit confirms that ethnicity data is not reported for two-thirds of grooming gang perpetrators, and she says it is not good enough to support any statements about the ethnicity of group-based child sexual exploitation offenders at the national level.
"I agree with that conclusion. Frankly it is ridiculous and helps no-one that this basic information is not collected. Especially when there have been warnings and recommendations stretching back 13 years about the woefully inadequate data on perpetrators which prevents patterns of crime being understood and tackled."
Ms Cooper added: "Baroness Casey’s review also identifies prosecutions and investigations into perpetrators who are white, British, European, African or Middle Eastern, just as Alexis Jay’s inquiry concluded that all ethnicities and communities were involved in appalling child abuse crimes.
"So to provide accurate information to help tackle serious crimes, we will make it a formal requirement for the first time to collect both ethnicity and nationality data for all cases of child sexual abuse and exploitation, and we will commission new research into the cultural and social drivers of child sexual exploitation, misogyny and violence against women and girls."
She told MPs that any asylum seekers who are found guilty of grooming children or committing sexual offences will have their applications rejected, saying the government "will do everything in our power to remove them".
"I do not believe the law is strong enough, that we have inherited, so we are bringing forward a change to the law so that anyone convicted of sexual offences is excluded from the asylum system and denied refugee status," Ms Cooper announced.
Concluding her statement, she told the Commons: "The reforms I’ve set out today will mean the strongest action any government has taken to tackle child sexual exploitation, more police investigations, more arrests, a new inquiry, changes to the law to protect children, and a fundamental overhaul of how organisations work to support victims and put perpetrators behind bars. But none of this will work unless everyone is part of it. Unless everyone works together to keep our children safe."
Sir Keir announced the full national inquiry into grooming gangs after months of resistance.
The government had dismissed calls for a public inquiry, saying its focus was on putting in place the outstanding recommendations made in a seven-year national inquiry by Professor Alexis Jay.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), led by Prof Jay, found institutional failings and tens of thousands of victims across England and Wales.
However on Monday morning, a No 10 spokesman confirmed a "full statutory inquiry" would take place to "build on the work carried out by Alexis Jay and her independent inquiry".
The spokesperson said the new inquiry would "look specifically at how young girls were failed so badly by different agencies on a local level".
The Home Office has also said the National Crime Agency (NCA) will carry out a nationwide operation targeting people who have sexually exploited children, and follow up on more than 800 cold cases.
According to the Home Office, the NCA will work in partnership with police forces to investigate cases that “were not progressed through the criminal justice system” in the past.