Cooper defends decision not to launch national grooming inquiry
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Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has defended her decision not to launch a national inquiry into child sexual abuse, as she faced MPs in the Commons. Ms Cooper also raised concerns about how police forces collect data, describing it as “haphazard”, before claiming data published on the ethnicity of perpetrators is not adequate.
This came as she announced the Government will make it mandatory to report abuse and a victims and survivors panel to advise on “wider work around child sexual exploitation and abuse” would be established. Ms Cooper told the Commons: “These crimes have not been taken seriously for too long and far too many children have been failed.
“That is why this Government is determined to act – strengthening the law, taking forward recommendations from the independent inquiries, supporting stronger police action and protection for victims.”. Shadow home secretary Chris Philp repeated calls for a national inquiry and was met with shouts of “shame” from the Labour benches as he said: “It is not far-right to stand up for victims of mass rape.”.
“Smearing people who raised those issues is exactly how this ended up getting covered up in the first place,” he added. Responding, Ms Cooper said: “The truth is there just has not been enough action to tackle these vile crimes. There hasn’t been enough change to policies, to the way in which services operate at local level, and that is a deep failing that those changes have not taken place.”.
Ms Cooper said Labour called for it to be mandatory to report abuse 10 years ago, adding: “We called for it 10 years ago. He had a decade in order to introduce that, a decade that we have now lost without having those powers and those measures in place.”.
