Just joining us? Watch below as the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, explains the government's plans to tackle child sexual exploitation and grooming gangs.

Alex Forsyth
Political correspondent

After weeks of pressure this is clearly a shift in the government’s position.

The issue of grooming gangs shot up the agenda again after it emerged that the Home Office had refused a request for an inquiry from Oldham council.

Yet now the Home Secretary has agreed to provide government support for local inquiries with some funding and the expertise of the KC who led the investigation in Telford.

There’s also going to be a “rapid national audit” of the scale and nature of gang-based exploitation across the country, which will also look at the “cultural drivers”.

The government’s insisting it’s not a new national inquiry, but it has clearly decided there’s a need for further action.

Cooper's announcement walks a careful linepublished at 15:59 Greenwich Mean Time

15:59 GMT

Alison Holt
Social affairs editor

This is an announcement which tries to walk a careful line between political arguments over a national inquiry into grooming gangs, and the varying needs and demands of survivors of abuse.

In the last 24-hours, the Victims Commissioner, Baroness Newlove, has written to the Home Secretary saying she has spent the last week speaking extensively to abuse survivors.

The priority for most, she says, is better support and therapeutic help.

Professor Alexis Jay, who led the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), has been clear she believes a new national inquiry would be a mistake and instead the recommendations she made after seven years of evidence need to be implemented.

At the same time those who were abused by grooming gangs in places like Oldham feel they have yet to have their voices heard so want an inquiry.

The combination of measures including local inquiries and a rapid audit of the scale of the problem are an attempt to navigate these different demands.

Rapid audit

• The home secretary announced a "rapid audit" looking at the "current scale and nature of gang-based exploitation across the country"
• The review - to be led by Dame Louise Casey - will look at "ethnicity data and demographics of gangs involved and their victims", and "cultural and societal drivers"

Five local inquiries

• Cooper also announced government backing for new "victim-centred" inquiries at the local level
• They will take place in Oldham, plus up to four other pilot areas
• Cooper said "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"

The national audit, plus the local inquiries, follow calls from the Conservatives, Reform, and a handful of Labour MPs, for a new national inquiry.

In response, shadow home secretary Chris Philp repeated the Conservatives' call for a "full national inquiry".

He said Cooper's plan was "totally inadequate", and claimed the inquiries would not have the power they need.

Responding to Labour MP Sarah Champion, the home secretary says "we are not redoing the Telford inquiry" as this was already "extensive", and "crucially involved victims and survivors throughout".

Cooper says it "led to very substantial change" and is an effective model.

As part of this new £5m funding, the home secretary says Tom Crowther KC will work specifically with the first five local authorities who want inquiries, and then use this as a model for other areas as well.

Labour MP for Rotherham, Sarah Champion, asks for clarity over whether the government will be adopting all 20 recommendations from the 2022 Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), or just those from the "grooming gangs strand".

Do local authorities as well as the police forces have to review their cases of child sexual exploitation, Champion also asks.

The MP says it's important to ensure that there's been no cover-ups, which she says can only be done on a "statutory footing".

She also asks why they need another inquiry in Telford, when it is known to be happening nationally.

• As a reminder, Sarah Champion was one of three Labour MPs to call for new national inquiries

Cooper responds to Philp by saying the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) ran for seven years, hearing testimony from 7,000 survivors across the country.

Too often, those survivors' voices have "just been ignored", she says.

The home secretary says the Conservative Party had 10 years to introduce a duty to report child abuse, to make it an offence to cover up child abuse.

"We have lost a decade as a result," she tells MPs.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp says government support for five local inquiries is "wholly inadequate when we know up to 50 towns are affected".

Philp's challenges the home secretary on how "the other 40-plus towns are supposed to get answers".

Philp goes on to say it appears the inquiries will not be "statutory inquiries" adding, "these local inquiries will not have the power to compel witnesses to attend".

"How can they possibly get to the truth when faced with cover-ups?" Philp asks.

The shadow home secretary urges a "proper full national public inquiry covering the whole country".

We're now hearing from shadow home secretary Chris Philp.

He says the prime minister characterised the raising of these issues as a "far-right bandwagon", which prompts some raised voices in the Commons and an interruption from the deputy Speaker.

He asks Cooper whether she'll apologise for the PM's comments.

Cooper and Starmer both met survivors from Telford last week, she tells the House. They had praise for the way the local inquiry in their area was conducted after years of failings.

That local inquiry led to "tangible change'", including piloting CCTV in taxis, and appointing child sexual exploitation experts in secondary schools.

Effective local inquiries can deliver "more locally relevant answers" than a "lengthy nationwide inquiry" can provide, she says.

The government will develop a new framework to deliver locally led inquiries where they are needed, first in Oldham and in up to four other pilot areas.

This new package of local support will be backed by £5m additional funding, Cooper says.

She also says the Home Office will bolster its undercover online network of police officers to target online offenders.

The home secretary says she's asked Baroness Casey to oversee a "rapid audit" of the "current scale and nature of gang-based exploitation across the country" and make recommendations on this.

The audit will look at further evidence including ethnicity data and demographics of gangs involved and their victims, including "cultural and societal drivers" for this type of offending.

Yvette Cooper goes on to say that the data on the ethnicities of both perpetrators and victims is still "inadequate".

She says she has asked the child sexual exploitation taskforce to expand its data on ethnicities.

The police child sexual exploitation taskforce and panel will be given £2m of additional funding, Cooper says.

All police forces will be expected to implement the 2023 recommendations from His Majesty's Inspectorate, including producing "problem profiles" on the nature of grooming gangs in their area.

As well as reviewing past cases, Cooper says, we also need "much stronger action" to uncover the "full scale and nature of these awful crimes".

The home secretary confirms the government will implement all remaining recommendations in the child abuse inquiry's separate report on grooming gangs from February 2022.

Cooper adds the government's most important task to take things further is to increase investigations and prosecutions of these "horrific crimes".

The government will introduce "stronger sentences" for child grooming and new action to ensure more investigations and prosecutions can get under way.

Cooper says this will be done by extending the remit of the "independent child sexual abuse review panel" so it covers all cases since 2013, not just historic cases.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper goes on to explain the government's plan.

She says that despite all inquiries and reports, there has been "far too little action" and "shamefully little progress has been made".

"That has to change," she says.

She confirms that the government has accepted recommendations from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse and that work on these is "under way".

The government will set out a timetable for the recommendations by Easter, she adds.

Cooper continues recapping recent measures the government has taken to tackle child sexual exploitation, including mandatory reporting, tougher sentencing for perpetrators and support for local inquiries.

Survivors "who bravely testified to terrible crimes" must not be left to feel that their efforts were in vain, she says.

Following discussions with child protection expert Prof Alexis Jay, Cooper says she has an update for the Commons.

• For context: In October 2022, Prof Alexis Jay finished a seven-year inquiry into sexual abuse of children across England and Wales. It didn't include a specific focus on grooming gangs.

She says the government will "go further" in tackling sexual exploitation and grooming, on the streets and online, to keep children safe.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has just stood up to deliver her statement.

She begins by running through the government's current actions to tackle the "terrible crimes" of child exploitation.

We'll bring you all the key lines here - you can also watch her speech live at the top of this page.

As we wait for Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to give her Commons statement, we can report that she has been threatened with legal action by a former Greater Manchester Police detective who set up a charity to help abuse survivors.

Maggie Oliver - who resigned in 2012, saying victims were being let down - has sent a pre-action letter to Cooper, warning that she would take her to court unless she takes "urgent steps to allay widespread public concern" over gangs sexually exploiting children.

She says she has put the home secretary "on notice" and will commence action if Cooper fails to publish a timeline for implementing all 20 recommendations laid out in Alexis Jay's 2022 report.

A question from ITV now, who ask - do you believe it was a mistake for the Conservatives not to call for a national inquiry during their 14 years in office?

Badenoch says she believes the Tories should have had a national inquiry, but that she only thinks that now having looked through the reports.

The Conservative government had a "gangs task force" which found 550 new perpetrators, Badenoch says, which is why they need a new national inquiry.

"My view is that we should've done more... so let's do more," she says.

Badenoch has finished her speech and is now taking questions from reporters.

The BBC's Helen Catt asks about Cooper's upcoming announcement of a grooming gangs "rapid review" and local inquiries. Is that enough?

Badenoch welcomes the review, but adds she doesn't think local inquiries are enough.

"All work being done in this space is welcome," she says. "But we still need a national inquiry."

Only a national inquiry would have the power to summon people and get evidence, she says.