Yvette Cooper Slams 'Party Political Misinformation' Around Grooming Gang Probes

Yvette Cooper, Home SecretaryYvette Cooper has accused Labour’s critics of spreading “party political misinformation” around the government’s plan to investigate local grooming gangs.The home secretary announced a three-month review into such groups in January while putting £5m a side for five local inquiries, although she only named Oldham.It came about Labour refused to launch another national inquiry into grooming gangs, after tech magnate Elon Musk revived the issue at the start of the year.Home Office minister Jess Phillips then updated the Commons this week by saying there would be “flexible approach to support full independent local inquiries and more bespoke work, including local victims’ panels or locally led audits of the handling of historical cases”.The Tories and Reform UK have claimed this was proof that these probes have now been watered down.And the former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission Trevor Phillips said this week that the government is not naming locations for “obviously political” reasons and “because of the demographic of the people involved”.But Cooper rejected all of these claims repeatedly this morning.She told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme that Phillips comments were “total nonsense” and “there hasn’t been a change” in the way they’re handling the inquiries.She also noted said police investigations are more effective than inquiries at unpicking such scandals.The home secretary then told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “What we are doing is increasing the action on these vile crimes, child exploitation and abuse.“And understandably, victims and survivors want stronger action. That’s what we are doing. “There has been a huge amount of misinformation this week, sadly party political misinformation. It is just wrong, we are not watering anything down.“We are actually increasing and strengthening the action we are taking. So we are supporting local inquiries, the first one will be Oldham, but there will be other local inquiries. “We also said we would do more to support victims and survivors. We are also providing additional therapeutic support for victims and survivors of awful child abuse and exploitation.”She said they were also increasing police investigations into these “appalling, appalling crimes so we get the perpetrators behind bars”.Following the government's decision to drop its grooming gang inquiry commitments, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is asked to explain the reasoning.She hears from a father who's daughter was groomed who says he feels 'disgusted and let down' by the decision. pic.twitter.com/HMWjKI9ysC— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) April 10, 2025Labour refused to implement a second national inquiry earlier this year, hitting back at Tory criticism over their decision by pointing out that the Conservative government failed to implement 20 of the recommendations from the first probe, published in 2022.Even so, Katie Lam MP, shadow Home Office minister, still insisted that this was a U-turn on Thursday.She said: “The government thought that they could quietly cancel these inquiries on the last day of parliament.“The public is rightly outraged and now ministers are panicking, making it up as they go along.“The Telford inquiry alone cost £8m. How exactly are they going to hold ’more than five”’proper independent inquiries for only £5m. “And how many more than five? Why not fifty? Why shouldn’t all victims get the justice that they deserve?“Will local councils — many of which stand accused of covering up these vile crimes — still be able to choose whether they are investigated?“We need a national inquiry. And any local inquiries must be genuinely independent and properly funded. Until the government can commit to that, these announcements aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.”Related...MPs Reject Tory Calls For National Inquiry Into Child Grooming ScandalKeir Starmer Puts Kemi Badenoch On The Spot Over Her Past Silence On Grooming Gangs'Shockingly Offensive': Kemi Badenoch Slammed For Blaming Grooming Scandal On 'Peasants'

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