(Bloomberg) — UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced a series of local probes into so-called child grooming gangs just weeks after the billionaire Elon Musk ramped up pressure on the government to hold a national inquiry into the decades-old issue.
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Cooper told the House of Commons on Thursday she’d asked Louise Casey, a member of the House of Lords, to conduct an “audit” to fill an evidence gap that hampered previous inquiries into child sexual exploitation, including looking into the ethnicity of gangs and victims.
She also appointed Tom Crowther, a barrister who oversaw a previous probe into child sexual abuse in the town of Telford, to work with local officials in Oldham and up to four other as yet undefined locations to conduct local investigations.
The government “will provide stronger national backing for local inquiries where they are needed to get truth and justice for victims and survivors,” Cooper said.
The announcement marks a partial retreat by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who had pushed back against demands by Musk and others for a fresh national inquiry into the child rape gangs. The premier had argued his priority was to act on the recommendations of an earlier investigation that reported in 2022 and whose 20 recommendations the previous Conservative administration had failed to implement. Earlier this month, the Commons rejected a bid by the Tories to force a fresh review.
By holding a set of localized probes, Starmer gives victims the chance to be heard, without giving in to the full demands made at the beginning of the year by Musk on the social media platform he owns, X. The world’s richest man had attacked the Labour government for rejecting an inquiry, criticized the premier’s previous record as the UK’s chief prosecutor, and hurled insults at Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips.
“Effective local inquiries can delve into far more detail and deliver more locally relevant answers and change than a lengthy nationwide inquiry can provide,” Cooper said.
Thursday’s announcement comes after Starmer’s spokesman last week refused to rule out a future probe, while Phillips told the Electoral Dysfunction podcast that “nothing is off the table,” suggesting victims could have such a probe if they wanted one.
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