UK government announces new local inquiries into child sex abuse

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper says government will also undertake a ‘rapid’ review of child sexual abuse in the UK.

The United Kingdom’s government has announced it will back new local inquiries into child sexual abuse and undertake a “rapid” review of the extent of child sexual exploitation in the country, following criticism over historic grooming scandals from the US technology billionaire Elon Musk.

The scandals involved organised groups sexually exploiting vulnerable girls from the 1980s until at least the 2010s. A 2014 inquiry found at least 1,400 children were subjected to sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013.

The issue was at the centre of a political firestorm last week when a war of words broke out between Musk and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who was director of public prosecutions in England when the scandals came to light.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper on Thursday said the government would set out a timetable to implement the 20 recommendations of a national inquiry published in 2022 but would also go further and back new local investigations.

“Despite all those national inquiries, reports and hundreds of recommendations, far too little action has been taken, and shamefully little progress has been made,” Cooper told Parliament.

She stopped short of announcing a new national public inquiry into the scandal, which Musk and the opposition Conservative Party have called for.

“This is a step in the right direction, but the results will speak for themselves,” Musk wrote on X, reposting a government announcement on the new measures.

The historic scandals have long been seized on by far-right figures, in particular the imprisoned Tommy Robinson, one of the UK’s best-known far-right activists, whom Musk has praised.

In a post shared on X, Musk claimed that Robinson was in prison “for telling the truth” and “should be freed”. Musk also described Starmer’s safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, as a “rape genocide apologist”.

In response, Starmer said “those that are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible are not interested in victims, they are interested in themselves,” without mentioning Musk by name.

Musk’s tirade, which included demands for a new public inquiry into the scandal, prompted some within the opposition Conservative Party to join calls for a new national probe.

‘Locally relevant answers’

Yvette Cooper told Parliament on Thursday that she had ordered a three-month “rapid audit of the current scale and nature of gang-based exploitation across the country”.

The review will look at “cultural and societal drivers” of child sex abuse and “properly examine ethnicity data and the demographics of the gangs involved and their victims,” she added.

Cooper noted that several local reviews, similar to ones that have already taken place, would be launched, rejecting calls by the opposition Conservative Party for a new national inquiry.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who has repeatedly clashed with the prime minister over calls for a national inquiry into grooming gangs, insisted: “I don’t think that local inquiries are enough.”

In response, Cooper said, “As we have seen, effective local inquiries can delve into far more local detail and deliver more locally relevant answers, and change, than a lengthy nationwide inquiry can provide.”