Cooper tells MPs findings of Casey’s audit into grooming gangs are ‘damning’ – UK politics live | Politics
Cooper tells MPs findings of Louise Casey’s audit into grooming gangs ‘damning’
Yvette Cooper is speaking now.
She says the sexual exploitation of young girls by gangs is one of the most despicable crimes.
She says in January she asked the police to identify cases closed without action. More than 800 cases have now been identified for review. That figure should rise to more than 1,000, she says.
Rapid action is under way to implement the recommendations of other inquiries, including form Alexis Jay’s inquiry. The government is legislating for a mandatory reporting duty, she says.
And she says Louise Casey was asked to carry out an audit of ethnicity in relation to these crimes – work that had never been done.
The report is “hugely wide-ranging”, she says. The findings are damning.
At their heart is a failure to treat children as children.
The findings of her audit are damning.
At its heart, she identifies a deep rooted failure to treat children as children, a continued failure to protect children and teenage girls from rape, from exploitation and serious violence and from the scars that last a lifetime.
She finds too much fragmentation in the authorities’ response, too little sharing of information, too much reliance on flawed data, too much denial, too little justice, too many criminals getting off too many victims being let down.
Key events
Cooper says law on rape being tightened so adults cannot use consent as defence against charge of raping child under 16
Cooper says the Casey report makes 12 recommendations, and the government will act on all of them, she says.
In line with the first recommendation, the government will tighten the law on rape, she says.
Baroness Casey’s first recommendation is we must see children as children. She concludes too many grooming gang cases have been dropped or downgraded from rape to lesser charges because a 13 to 15 year old is perceived to have been in love with or had consented to sex with the perpetrator.
So we will change the law to ensure that adults who engage in penetrative sex with a child under 16 face the most serious charge of rape, and we will work closely with the CPS and the police to ensure there are safeguards for consensual teenage relationships.
We will change the law so that those convicted for child prostitution offences while their rapists got off scot-free, will have their convictions disregarded and their criminal records expunged.
Audit found ‘clear evidence of over-representation’ of Asian and Pakistani men in grooming gang cases in local data, MPs told
Cooper goes on:
The audit describes victims as young as 10, often those in care or children with learning or physical disabilities being singled out for grooming precisely because of their vulnerability, perpetrators still walking free because no one joined the dots, or because the law ended up protecting them instead of the victims that they had exploited, deep rooted institutional failures stretching back decades where organisations who should have protected children and punished offenders looked the other way.
She says Louise Casey said “blindness, ignorance, prejudice, defensiveness and even good but misdirected intentions all played a part in this collective failure”.
And, on ethnicity, she says:
[Casey] has found continued failure to gather proper, robust national data, despite concerns being raised going back very many years.
In the local data that the audit examined from three police forces, they identified clear evidence of over-representation among suspects of Asian and Pakistani heritage men, and she refers to examples of organisations avoiding the topic altogether for fear of appearing racist or raising community tensions.
Cooper goes on:
These findings are deeply disturbing, but most disturbing of all, as Baroness Casey makes clear, is the fact that too many of these findings are not new.
As Baroness Casey’s audit sets out, there have been 15 years of reports, reviews, inquiries and investigations into these appalling rapes, exploitation and violent crimes against children, detailed over 17 pages in her report.
Cooper tells MPs findings of Louise Casey’s audit into grooming gangs ‘damning’
Yvette Cooper is speaking now.
She says the sexual exploitation of young girls by gangs is one of the most despicable crimes.
She says in January she asked the police to identify cases closed without action. More than 800 cases have now been identified for review. That figure should rise to more than 1,000, she says.
Rapid action is under way to implement the recommendations of other inquiries, including form Alexis Jay’s inquiry. The government is legislating for a mandatory reporting duty, she says.
And she says Louise Casey was asked to carry out an audit of ethnicity in relation to these crimes – work that had never been done.
The report is “hugely wide-ranging”, she says. The findings are damning.
At their heart is a failure to treat children as children.
The findings of her audit are damning.
At its heart, she identifies a deep rooted failure to treat children as children, a continued failure to protect children and teenage girls from rape, from exploitation and serious violence and from the scars that last a lifetime.
She finds too much fragmentation in the authorities’ response, too little sharing of information, too much reliance on flawed data, too much denial, too little justice, too many criminals getting off too many victims being let down.
Labour cutting farming budget in England by £100m a year, figures shows
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Swinney says Scotland needs ‘near complete digital refit of public realm’
The Scottish government has now published the text of John Swinney’s speech this morning proposing a “national project of renewal”.
The first minister said this would require much greater use of technology in delivering public services. He said:
Public sector, private sector, third sector. National, regional, local. The challenges are many, yes, but the opportunities are more. Working together, let’s be resolute in our belief that we’ve got the necessary knowledge and capacity to transform Scotland’s fortunes.
The task before us is difficult, but entirely achievable.
The challenges are complex, but the tools at our disposal are increasingly sophisticated.
I see first-hand, from my visits to all parts of the country, shining examples of partnership, innovation and success and I know that the first steps on the journey to better have already been taken.
But there is a reality that we must face. We are not going to be able to make the money we have available for public services match the demand for those services unless we ramp up our use of technology.
That requires a near complete digital refit of our public realm.
Above all, systems that are designed to serve the public first. In the NHS, making it easier to manage appointments, making it simpler to access test results, and providing new digital access points to tools designed to support us in healthier living.
Louise Casey was not seen as a supporter of holding a national inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal when she was appointed in January to carry out an audit of what is known about what happened.
According to the BBC’s Judith Moritz, meetings with survivors may have changed her mind. Explaining why Casey took longer than expected to conclude her report, Moritz says:
I understand that [Casey] felt it was vital to ensure the voices of survivors were at the centre of her work and she took the extra time so that she could meet with a number of them, to hear their testimony at first hand.
I’m told that it was an emotional but necessary experience – and the views that she heard are likely to have coloured her approach to the report, and the recommendations which she is making – very possibly including the matter of a public inquiry.
Keir Starmer is sensitive to the charge that he is complacent about grooming gangs and child sexual abuse because, as director of public prosecutions, he changed CPS guidelines significantly to make grooming gang prosecutions more likely.
At the time (in 2013) the Guardian reported his initiative here.
And here is an article that Starmer wrote for the Guardian about the Rotherham grooming gangs scandal in 2014, when he was no longer DPP but before he was elected to parliament.
Sophie Huskisson at the Mirror has a good write-up of Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, struggling to explain in an interview with Sky News this morning why it was fair for the Tories to criticise Keir Starmer for taking a few months to order a national inquiry into grooming gangs when the last government managed 14 years without setting up an equivalent inquiry themselves. (See 12.41pm.)
Reeves says government going ‘all in’ to repair damaged bridges
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has been in Gateshead this morning promoting a £1bn government fund to repair bridges, tunnels and flyovers. In its news release, the Treasury says:
Across Great Britain, approximately 3,000 bridges are currently unable to support the heaviest vehicles, restricting access for agricultural and freight transport in regions, and slowing down journeys.
And nationally, the number of bridge collapses has also risen – a stark reminder of the need for urgent action to turn the tide on the decade of neglect.
The structures fund will inject cash into repairing run down bridges, decaying flyovers and worn out tunnels across Britain, and ensure other transport infrastructure is both more resilient to extreme weather events and to the demands of modern transport – making everyday journeys safer, smoother and more dependable.
And Reeves said:
When it comes to investing in Britain’s renewal, we’re going all in by going up against the painful disruption of closed bridges, crossings and flyovers, and ensure they’re fit to serve working people for decades to come.
No 10 sidesteps questions about whether goverment making plans to evacuate Britons from Israel
At the Downing Street lobby briefing the No 10 spokesperson sidestepped questions about whether the government is making plans to evacuate Britons from Israel, in the light of its conflict with Iran.
Asked about this, the spokesperson said:
We, of course, recognise this is a fast-moving situation that has the potential to deteriorate further, quickly and without warning.
That is why we are encouraging British nationals to read the FCDO [Foreign Office] advice on if you’re affected by a crisis abroad. We also advise British nationals to read our advice on how to deal with a crisis overseas.
We are keeping all our advice under constant review and we plan for a variety of developments, as you would expect.
The Foreign Office is advising against all travel to Israel.
Asked if the UK was aware of the reported Israeli plan to kill Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (supposedly vetoed by President Trump), the No 10 spokesperson said he would not comment on private conversations or intelligence matters.
Yvette Cooper to make statement to MPs about grooming gangs inquiry at 3.30pm
There are three ministerial statements today, on grooming gangs, the Israel/Iran conflict and the Air India crash, in that order. No urgent questions have been announced, and that means Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, will address MPs at 3.30pm. The Louise Casey report into the scale of the grooming gangs scandal will be published around same time.
No 10 says national grooming gangs inquiry will ‘direct and coordinate’ local inquiries
At the Downing Street lobby briefing the No 10 spokesperson said the national inquiry into grooming gangs being set up by the government would “direct and coordinate” local inquiries.
Explaining the reason for the decision, the spokesperson said:
More than a decade ago the prime minister, as DPP, prosecuted the first grooming gang case in Rochdale, and this government is determined to root out these heinous crimes, and that’s why it’s ordered every police force in the land to review historic cases and reopen investigations into grooming gangs.
More than 800 cold cases will now be followed up by the National Crime Agency. The government supported the setting up of new local investigations, it’s begun acting on recommendations from the Jay inquiry into child sexual abuse. The previous government failed to implement a single one. And it has asked Baroness Casey, who led the Rotherham inquiry, to conduct a rapid audit on the scale and nature of grooming gangs across the UK and advise on any further steps that are needed to get to the truth.
The home secretary will obviously set up the government’s full response to Baroness Casey’s audit, which details the most appalling, violent and cruel abuse of young girls. She makes clear that a further national assessment, effectively re-running the Jay inquiry, is not the best way forward, that work to uncover how young girls were failed so badly by different agencies must take place at the local level, which we have always supported.
And she has also identified that a statutory national inquiry is needed to direct and coordinate that work, deciding where independent local investigations take place, and providing the powers to compel witnesses evidence and to get to the truth.
The PM has been clear that the grooming scandal was one of the greatest failures in our country’s history, with vulnerable young people let down time and again, and he is determined to finally get them justice.
Asked if this meant the national element to the inquiry would be limited, the spokesperson said the full details would be given by Yvette Cooper later.
