Thank you for contacting me about the Home Secretary's comments about grooming gangs.
Grooming gangs have been devastating to children and young women. This is why a new Grooming Gangs Taskforce will see specialist officers parachuted in to assist police forces with live child sexual exploitation and grooming investigations to bring more of these despicable criminals to justice. Data analysts will work alongside the taskforce using cutting edge data and intelligence to identify the types of criminals who carry out these offences.
In addition, the Home Secretary has introduced mandatory reporting for adults working with children, and the Victims and Prisoners Bill which is going through Parliament will introduce tougher sentences to keep dangerous gang members in prison.
I fully agree with the Prime Minister that, “The safety of women and girls is paramount. For too long, political correctness has stopped us from weeding out vile criminals who prey on children and young women”. These measures proposed by the Government, which stem from the recommendations of the 2022 Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, will be a data led, evidence-based approach to help support the police. This means that the focus is on any perpetrator of sexual abuse irrespective of their ethnicity.
From what I understand the Home Secretary was referring to specific cases in which these grooming gangs were largely made up of British Pakistani men. I believe that is factually accurate. She also made clear this was not a reflection of the Pakistani Community as a whole. The most important element of the Government’s approach is stopping these evil grooming gangs by providing new resources and data. This action is paramount if we are to make further progress in tackling this awful crime.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.