Government issues 'unequivocal' apology as Yvette Cooper announces national inquiry into grooming gangs

16 June 2025, 16:08 | Updated: 16 June 2025, 17:16

Yvette Cooper has insisted grooming gangs "have no place to hide" following a "damming" report into predatory behaviour and failings by the justice system.

Speaking from the Commons on Monday, the Home Secretary revealed stark details of Baroness Casey's report, admitting "the law ended up protecting" gang members "instead of the victims they had exploited’.

Cooper insisted the government has "unequivocally" apologised for failings which have led to grooming and child sexual abuse.

The report, released on Monday, revealed that criminal cases involving grooming gangs and children under the age of 16 had seen charges regularly downgraded "from rape to sexual assault".

It follows interpretations of the law, Ms Cooper said, which implied sexual activity involving minors had been "consensual" and many had been "in love" with their attackers.

Insisting the "vile perpetrators must have no place to hide”, Ms Cooper announced government plans for a full and independent national inquiry.

Ms Cooper admitted: "the law ended up protecting them instead of the victims they had exploited".

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Adding that one of the government's most important task is "to stop perpetrators", Ms Cooper branded the legal system a “failure” where grooming gangs being brought to justice are concerned.

She explained there had been "too much denial" where 'collective failures" are concerned.

Speaking of the proposed changes in the law, Ms Cooper confirmed that new laws will ensure that "anyone convicted of sexual offences is removed from the asylum system".

Admitting there had been a "failure of our country's institutions over decades," Cooper insisted "victims and survivors need action".

It comes after Sir Keir Starmer last year accused opposition MPs of “amplifying what the far-Right is saying” and “jumping on a bandwagon” after concerns were raised in January.

Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch insisted a national inquiry into grooming gangs "must start with known hot spots".

The Home Secretary said there had been a "timeline of failure from 2009 to 2025", as she responded to Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch.

Ms Cooper said: "I don't think she can have read this report and the seriousness of its conclusions, because it sets out a timeline of failure from 2009 to 2025.

"Repeated reports and recommendations that were not acted on, on child protection, on police investigations, on ethnicity data, on data sharing, on support for victims.

"For 14 of those 16 years, her party was in government, including years when she was the minister for children and families, then the minister for equalities, covering race and ethnicity issues and violence against women and girls, and I did not hear her raise any of these issues until January of this year."

Closing her statement to the Commons on the Casey Report, Yvette Cooper said she had apologised while shadow home secretary in 2022 when Dame Alexis Jay's report was published.

She added: "I am sorry that she chose not to join in the apology to victims and survivors for decades of failure, that was a cross-party apology in 2022 and it should be again if she really had victims interests and the national interest at heart."

Ms Cooper continued: "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."