Cooper tells MPs victim and survivors panel being set up as government implements child abuse inquiry recommendations
Cooper says IICSA also carried out a specific investigation into child sexual abuse by organised gangs. That reported in February 2022, she says.
Despite these different inquiries drawing up multiple recommendations, far too little has actually been done.
None of the 20 recommendations from the independent inquiry into child abuse have been implemented, as the Act on Independent Child Abuse Campaign group from the Survivors Trust has said this week.
She says two former Tory home secretaries said the IICSA report should be a watershed. But that did not happen, she says.
She says now “new impetus and action” is needed.
She announces that a new victim and survivors panel is being set up.
And she says she can announce action on three IICSA recommendations.
First, she confirms that a mandatory duty to report abuse will be included in the crime and policing bill.
Second, grooming will be made an aggravating factor in child sexual offences.
And, third, a core dataset will be established for child abuse and protection, she says.
UPDATE: Rajeev Syal has the full story here.
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Updated at 18.27 GMT
Key events
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A summary of today’s developments
The home secretary announced that professionals who work with children will face criminal sanctions if they fail to report claims of child sexual abuse under a law to be introduced this year. Yvette Cooper promised to implement a key demand from Prof Alexis Jay’s child sexual abuse inquiry after Keir Starmer turned down demands from Elon Musk and Kemi Badenoch for a new investigation into paedophile gangs. The introduction of mandatory reporting in England would be included in the crime and policing bill expected to be introduced to parliament in the spring, Cooper told parliament.
Cooper also disclosed that the government plans to introduce a victims and survivors panel to oversee reforms, make grooming an aggravating factor in child sexual offences and establish a core dataset for child abuse and protection.
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said the Tories will try to hold a Commons vote on holding a new inquiry into the child sexual abuse scandal. He said the party would do that by tabling an amendment to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill, which will get its second reading in the Commons on Wednesday.
Keir Starmer said the online debate about child sexual exploitation is based on lies with politicians “jumping on the bandwagon simply to get attention” as he hit back at Elon Musk. The prime minister said a line had been crossed when the safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, and others received serious threats as a result of the “poison of the far right”. Dtarmer also rejected calls for another review into the Oldham rape gang cases because he said the “utterly sickening” issue did not need any more consultations, it just needed action.
Private hospitals will provide NHS patients in England with as many as a million extra appointments, scans and operations a year as part of the government’s drive to end the care backlog. Keir Starmer unveiled the NHS’s growing use of private healthcare in a major speech on Monday in which he set out his new elective reform plan to address a waiting list for planned care on which 6.4 million people are waiting for 7.5m treatments.
Tulip Siddiq, the City and anti-corruption minister, has referred herself to the ministerial standards watchdog after days of allegations that she has lived in multiple properties tied to the ousted Bangladeshi government. Siddiq has asked Laurie Magnus, the prime minister’s independent adviser on ministerial standards, to investigate whether she might have broken the ministerial code. Her request came after it was revealed that Siddiq had lived in multiple properties linked to her aunt Sheikh Hasina, who recently resigned as Bangladesh’s prime minister after a popular uprising. Siddiq wrote to Magnus: “In recent weeks I have been the subject of media reporting, much of it inaccurate, about my financial affairs and my family’s links to the former government of Bangladesh. I am clear that I have done nothing wrong. However, for the avoidance of doubt, I would like you to independently establish the facts about these matters.”
The Muslim Council of Britain accused Robert Jenrick of weaponising “the horrors suffered by young girls to push a hateful agenda” after the Tory politician described Britons of Pakistani origin as “people from alien cultures”. After it emerged that the government had refused Oldham council’s request to hold another national inquiry into failings over the offences of grooming gangs, Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, claimed in a lengthy tweet that their crimes had been “legalised and actively covered up to prevent disorder” because authorities were concerned about harming community relations. The MCB said Jenrick was “surpassing” Nigel Farage – who last year claimed a growing number of Muslims “do not subscribe to British values” – in his “targeting” of British Muslims.
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, confirmed the decision to get Louise Casey to lead an independent commission on social care that was announced last week. He describes Casey as Whitehall’s best expert on getting things done.
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Updated at 19.25 GMT
An independent MP has called Elon Musk an “overseas bad faith actor” and said demonising a community risks giving potential victims “a false sense of security with people who don’t fit that stereotype”.
Shockat Adam, MP for Leicester South, said: “Perpetrators of sexual crimes must face the full force of the law regardless of their race, their religion or their nationality. But an overseas bad faith actor is using truly horrific cases of group-based child rape to demonise a community and slander a minister of the crown, someone who has genuine experiences in helping victims of abuse.
“This narrative is false and this narrative is dangerous. Many reports from 2015 to 2024 have concluded that the common denominator for sexual violence is not immigration, race or culture.
“Isn’t this the real point here? If the victims have been falsely told perpetrators look a certain way, or are part of a certain community, they will have a false sense of security when with people who don’t fit that stereotype.”
In response, the home secretary said: “One of the points that the independent inquiry made was the broad nature of this abuse, and the way in which it can be found anywhere.”
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Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Reform UK, has been on LBC’s Tonight with Andrew Marr.
On Elon Musk, Tice said: “We can agree with Mr Musk on certain things and disagree on others. … No-one can buy us (Reform UK) or our conviction. That is clear.”
“Life would be boring if you agreed on everything …this issue relates to whether we should involve Mr Yaxley Lennon, the simple answer is no. We want nothing to do with him.”
“I think Musk is entitled to (say) that (the UK government should be toppled). (But) On that issue we disagree.”
And on whether Nigel Farage regards Elon Musk as a “far-right nut job”, Tice replied: “I haven’t heard that expression. Mr Musk is a brilliant entrepreneur history hasn’t seen for centuries.”
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Updated at 19.14 GMT
Conservative former minister Simon Hoare has said victims of grooming were dismissed because they were seen as “white trash”, as he agreed with the home secretary that a new public inquiry would not present any new information.
He told the Commons: “These terrible crimes could happen to anyone and be perpetrated by anyone, irrespective of colour, class, heritage, geography. I think (Ms Cooper) is right, I think the public want to see action now.
“I remain, frankly, not convinced that a new public inquiry will throw any new light or information on this issue, and the best place for victims to have their stories told is actually in court when the perpetrators are brought to justice.
“But could I ask the home secretary to make clear to the world of local government and policing that the implementation of rules and regulations are colour and class blind. Too many of these victims were just simply dismissed, as – to use that media phrase – ‘white trash’. They were poor, not particularly well-educated in many instances, often in trouble with the authorities and too easily dismissed. That’s where the failure really took place.”
Cooper replied: “We did have young people who were dismissed actually because they were vulnerable, because of the difficult experiences that they might have had, often young girls just not taken seriously and the myths that were operating within the way that services responded.”
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Updated at 19.15 GMT
The Reform UK MP Lee Anderson said Labour should “hang their heads in shame” and claimed “young, British, white girls are being systematically raped by men of Pakistani heritage”.
He told MPs: “The Labour lot over there are banging on about playing politics with this important issue, but the last time I attended a debate on child rape gangs there was just one Labour backbencher turned up, they should hang their heads in shame.
“But will the Home Secretary agree with me that we need a specific inquiry into why young British, white girls are being systematically raped by men of Pakistani heritage?”
Cooper replied: “These are vile crimes against children and across the country we have seen young girls, we have seen teenagers, and we have seen young boys who have been exploited in the most cruel and horrendous way by perpetrators.
“We have seen the abuse by Pakistani heritage gangs, paedophile gangs operating online, we have seen abuse in communities and institutions and in family homes. All of those crimes are truly horrendous.”
She added: “I called for the law to be changed so that it was a responsibility on public servants to report child abuse, and that it would be an offence to cover up child abuse. The government that (Anderson) was part of for many years failed to bring that duty to report in.”
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Robbie Moore, Conservative MP for Keighley and Ilkley, told the Commons: “Rape gangs and the grooming of children has haunted Keighley and the wider Bradford district for decades, yet local leaders have consistently refused to launch an inquiry.”
Moore said the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse did not reference Keighley or Bradford, adding: “Despite many, including myself, fearing that the scale of this issue across the Bradford district will dwarf that of Rotherham.”
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Labour MP Debbie Abrahams, who represents Oldham East and Saddleworth, told the Commons: “If it is the will of these victims of abuse in Oldham to have an additional review of the circumstances which led to their abuse, then I will also be wholeheartedly supporting that.”
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Labour MP Paul Waugh (Rochdale) said some people had treated child rape as a “political game” in recent days, rather than as an “appalling crime”.
He told the Commons: “In the last few days my hometown’s name, Rochdale, has been exploited by some people who treat child rape as a political game rather than as an appalling crime that should be dealt with.
“The horrific abuse of children by grooming gangs, many of them predominantly Pakistani heritage grooming gangs, was compounded by failures by my local council and by the local police.”
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokeswoman Lisa Smart said: “Victims and survivors deserve more than warm words, they deserve action and it is my sincere hope that we across this House can work together to make this a reality and resist turning far too many children’s suffering into a political football.”
Conservative MP Nick Timothy (West Suffolk), who previously worked as an adviser in the Home Office, suggested creating a unit in the National Crime Agency dedicated to investigating not only untried perpetrators but the police officers, social workers and local councillors “complicit in these disgusting crimes”.
Last week, a former chief prosecutor and a police whistleblower who uncovered a notorious paedophile gang hit back at demands from senior Conservatives and the billionaire Elon Musk for a national inquiry into child sexual exploitation.
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Lib Dem MP Josh Babarinde said he has also tabled a Bill to create a dedicated set of domestic abuse offences in the law for the first time and asked whether the home secretary would meet him to discuss this.
Cooper replied: “Can I just thank (Mr Babarinde) for speaking out about his personal experiences, because I realise that that is never an easy thing to do, and to just show respect to him for doing so.
“He is also right that there are all kinds of links that domestic abuse in the household has an incredibly damaging impact on the family, on children growing up, and we have to see the work around the protection of children as part of wider work around public protection.”
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Cooper said the Tories failed to take “enough action” to tackle the issue of grooming gangs, while she raised concerns about how the police collect data.
Responding to shadow home secretary Chris Philp, she said: “The truth is there just has not been enough action to tackle these vile crimes. There hasn’t been enough change to policies, to the way in which services operate at local level, and that is a deep failing that those changes have not taken place.”
Cooper said Labour called for it to be mandatory to report abuse 10 years ago, adding: “We called for it 10 years ago. He had a decade in order to introduce that, a decade that we have now lost without having those powers and those measures in place.”
She continued: “He refers to the ethnicity data – it’s already been published, it was published in November, the latest report was published in November … as a result of the work of the taskforce.
“I would just say to him, though, I don’t think that the data that they have gathered actually is adequate. I don’t think it goes far enough. I think there’s a real problem with the way in which we collect data, and police forces collect data.”
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Josh Babrinde, the Lib Dems justice spokesperson, said he was a survivor of childhood abuse and is “appalled to see the shadow home secretary weaponise this issue” and appalled that Reform are playing the issue like “a political football” and that zero of the recommendations from Professor Alexis Jays’s report have been implemented.
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The shadow home secretary Chris Philp has reiterated calls for a national inquiry, adding it is “not far-right to stand up for victims of mass rape”,
Philp was met with shouts of “shame” from the Labour benches as he told the Commons: “It is not far-right to stand up for victims of mass rape.”
“Smearing people who raised those issues is exactly how this ended up getting covered up in the first place,” he added.
Philp also asked the home secretary to confirm if data from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse on the ethnicity of perpetrators will be published.
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Aletha Adu
Labour MPs have been warned not to ignore the publics petition for a general election, or risk fuelling the rise of extremist parties.
Conservative MP Sir Edward Leigh, father of the House, told a Westminster Hall debate that it will be “foolish” for the government to “go ahead ignoring what most people are frustrated about”, even if they ignore calls for another general election.
The House of Commons petition, launched by Michael Westwood, has been signed by 3.2million people, following July’s poll which saw Labour win 411 seats to the Tories 121 seats.
Leigh, the MP for Gainsborough said the petition is an “expression of public disappointment and anger”.
He added: “I don’t want to be overtly party political here, but I do think that it would be Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and MP for Clacton was present for the debate, missing the home secretary’s statement on child exploitation because of the sheer number of his own constituents that backed the petition.”
Farage said: “Over 50 years, I can’t think of a government that’s seen a collapse in confidence as quickly as this one has”, and claimed Keir Starmer and the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, “look like they’re going to a family funeral every day”.
He told MPs: “I don’t think the 8,000 people in Clacton that signed this did so just to get a fresh general election, because they knew that wouldn’t happen.
“What they were actually expressing was a sense of utter disenchantment with the entire political system.
“And this debate can be used as a game of ping-pong this afternoon between the two political parties that have dominated British politics since the end of the first world war, but actually something bigger is going on out there.”
Labour MP Yasmin Quereshi was heckled in the hall as she said: “This petition has grown, some of it to do with a lot of misinformation, some of it to do with foreign interference.
“You may laugh at it, but that happens to be correct as well.”
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Updated at 18.34 GMT
Cooper said a “significant package of measures” will be announced by the government in the next few weeks aimed at tackling online child sexual exploitation and abuse.
The policies would also target abuse images generated using artificial intelligence.
She said: “We have to face the serious challenge that the fastest growing area of grooming and child abuse is now online.
“So we will also take much stronger action to crack down on rapidly evolving forms of child sexual exploitation and abuse, and grooming online, including to tackle the exponential rise in AI facilitated child sexual abuse material and we will set out a significant package of measures to strengthen the law in this area in the coming weeks.”
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Here is more from the home secretary on those three key recommendations.
Cooper told MPs: “First, I can confirm we will make it mandatory to report abuse, and we will put the measures in the Crime and Policing Bill that will be put before Parliament this spring, making it an offence with professional and criminal sanctions to fail to report or cover up child sexual abuse.
“The protection of institutions must never be put before the protection of children. This measure is something I first called for in response to the reports and failings in Rotherham 10 years ago. It’s something that the Prime Minister first called for 12 years ago based on his experience as director of public prosecutions, and the case was clear then, but we have lost a decade, and we need to get on with it now.
“Second, we will also legislate to make grooming an aggravating factor in the sentencing of child sexual offences, because the punishment must fit the terrible crime.
“Third, we will overhaul the information and evidence that is gathered on child sexual abuse and exploitation and embedded in a clear new performance framework for policing so these crimes are taken far more seriously.
“The independent inquiry recommended as one of its first recommendations a single core data set on child abuse and protection, but that’s never been done. We will introduce the single child identifier with the Children’s Wellbeing, Bill, and a much stronger police performance framework, including new standards on public protection, child abuse and exploitation.”
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Cooper said the government supported work by the mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham into abuse in Oldham, which she said had led to new police investigations, arrests and convictions.
She added: “The leader of Oldham Council has confirmed this week work to set up a further local independent inquiry is already under way, including liaison with Oldham survivors. We welcome and support this work, which will put victims’ voices at its heart.”
Cooper also announced that Tom Crowther, who led the inquiry into abuse in Telford, Shropshire, will be working with the government and councils to engage more with victims and survivors.
She said: “We should also be clear, wherever there have been failings or that perpetrators of terrible crimes have not been brought to justice, the most important inquiries and investigations should be police investigations to track those perpetrators down, to bring them before the courts, and to get the victims the protection that they deserve.”
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Yvette Cooper said arrests made by the child sexual exploitation police taskforce had increased by 25% between July and September last year.
The home secretary acknowledged the previous Conservative government for setting up the body, which targets group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse.
She told the Commons: “That sits alongside the Tackling Organised Exploitation programme, which is using advanced data and analytics to uncover the complex networks.”
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Tories to press for vote on new inquiry into child rape scandal by tabling amendment to children’s wellbeing bill
Andrew Sparrow
In the Commons Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, also said the Tories will try to hold a Commons vote on holding a new inquiry into the child sexual abuse scandal. He said the party would do that by tabling an amendment to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill, which will get its second reading in the Commons on Wednesday.
That is all from me for today. Nadeem Badshah is now taking over.
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David Lidington says Tories should respond to Musk’s comment about Jess Phillips with ‘disgust and contempt’
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, responded to Yvette Cooper’s statement in the Commons.
He claimed that last government was in the process of implementing the IICSA recommendations.
In an interview on Radio 4’s PM programme, David Lidington, who was de facto deputy PM when Theresa May was in Downing Street, said he wanted to see Tories defend Jess Phillips in response to Elon Musk’s claim that she was a “rape genocide apologist”. Lidington said:
I think it’s right that politicians left, right and centre in our democratic space should speak out very strongly when the sort of language, whether from Mr Musk or anybody else, comes close to putting at risk the safety of people who are exposing themselves to the democratic verdict in public life.
Frankly the reaction of any British political party to what Mr Musk said about Jess Phillips should be a mix of disgust, anger and contempt.
I would like to see leading members of my party come out to defend Jess Phillips, a Labour minister, against the sort of abuse she’s been getting. I think you can criticise her policies and her competency as a minister as much as you like, that’s perfectly fair game. But the sort of things we’ve had in recent days are despicable and should be rejected across the political spectrum.
In an interview on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg yesterday, Philp said the bare minimum when asked to condemn Musk’s comment about Phillips. “The specific language used about Jess Phillips is not appropriate,” he said.
In his response to Cooper, Philp was marginally more robust. He said attempts to threaten or intimidate Phillips were “completely wrong”.
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Updated at 18.17 GMT
