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.

More now from Kemi Badenoch's speech.

"In the last two weeks people have told us to be quiet about the decades-long scandal of rape gangs," Badenoch says.

"They want us to be quiet because they're uncomfortable about potential racial and cultural motivations behind these crimes.

"Well, the Conservative Party is under new leadership. We will not do that. Those victims have waited too long for justice."

Let's check in quickly with Kemi Badenoch, who is currently delivering her first major speech of 2025 - which you can watch live above.

Making a keynote address at an event by the think-tank Onward, Badenoch said: "As we saw last week, when Keir Starmer labelled people calling for an inquiry far-right, he is what is wrong with politics", referencing calls for an inquiry into grooming gangs.

Badenoch grilled Starmer on the topic during Prime Minister's Questions last week.

As we reported earlier, the government has pointed to previous inquiries, when explaining why it would not set up a new inquiry.

In October 2022, child protection expert Prof Alexis Jay finished a seven-year inquiry into sexual abuse of children across England and Wales, without a specific focus on grooming gangs.

Jay and her team investigated abuse in churches, schools, custodial institutions, political parties, religious groups, and children's homes.

She found that over decades, children had been harmed online, offline, in the UK and abroad, by individuals and paedophile networks, including grooming gangs, on the streets of British towns and cities.

There were 20 recommendations in the final report and the Conservative government was given the task of delivering them but lost last year's general election.

Now, 27 months on from the recommendations first being made, all remain outstanding. The new Labour government says it is "working at pace" to deliver them.

The Labour government has resurrected the issue, with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper telling the Commons on Monday 6 January she would introduce criminal sanctions for both the cover-up of child sexual abuse and the failure to report it.

Image source, PA

As we've reported, Yvette Cooper is expected to announce new inquiries into child sexual abuse.

There have already been some local-level inquiries.

A report in 2020 found that police and social workers investigating child sex exploitation in Manchester knew children were suffering "the most profound abuse... but did not protect them".

It was commissioned by Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, in 2017, to focus on the handling of a police investigation into child exploitation in south Manchester, and the death of Victoria Agoglia.

In 2022, an inquiry commissioned by Oldham Council found that children in Oldham were failed by the agencies meant to protect them from sexual abuse.

In the same year, there was a local inquiry in Telford. This found obvious evidence of child sex crimes in Telford was ignored for generations leading to more than 1,000 girls being abused.

The inquiry was set up after the Sunday Mirror revealed gangs had been abusing girls in the town since the 1980s, external.

In 2014, a report by Alexis Jay - who went on to lead a national inquiry - estimated that 1,400 children were sexually exploited in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013.

Survivors of abuse in Oldham have called for a new investigation into historical child sex abuse cases in the town because they felt the local review was "too limited", and many of their voices had not been heard.

The Commons announcement is expected shortly - you can watch live on this page.

As we've reported, Cooper's statement comes after three Labour MPs publicly expressed support for a national inquiry - Dan Carden, Rotherham MP Sarah Champion, and Rochdale MP Paul Waugh.

Other senior Labour figures, including Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, also joined the calls, saying they would support a limited new inquiry.

Local reviews, with a budget of £10m, will focus on the "cultural drivers" and ethnicity of the gangs, the BBC understands.

Yvette Cooper is also expected to ask police forces to reopen so-called "cold cases" relating to child sexual exploitation and abuse.

It follows calls for a national inquiry from the Conservatives, Reform UK, and some Labour MPs into the sexual abuse of girls and young women by gangs in several areas of the country.

• 13:20 GMT update: This post was updated to remove a reference to Dame Louise Casey leading local reviews

It’s understood that the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper will announce a plan to implement local inquiries into grooming gangs in a statement to the Commons later.

Rotherham MP Sarah Champion, who earlier this week called for local inquiries to report back to central government, has tweeted to say that it "looks like the Government is accepting my 5 point plan to prevent child abuse".

Last year, Oldham Council asked the government for help with an inquiry into child sexual abuse.

The request was turned down in October by safeguarding minister Jess Phillips, who argued that locally led enquiries were more effective at implementing change.

GB News reported these events on 1 January, which led Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch to accuse the government of a "cover-up".

Badenoch has since pressured the government, using last week's PMQs to repeatedly push Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to take action on the UK’s "decades-long rape gangs scandal".

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has also been vocal, frequently attacking the government on his social media platform X. In one post, he said Jess Phillips "deserves to be in prison".

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has floated setting up an unofficial inquiry into grooming gangs, and has labelled the Tories’ interest in the subject as "insincere".

And it's not just the government's opponents - Labour MPs Paul Waugh, Sarah Champion, and Dan Carden have all called for some sort of further inquiry.

Last week, victims of grooming gangs in Oldham told the BBC ministers should have spoken to survivors before deciding not to conduct a government-led inquiry.

The BBC understands that Yvette Cooper's statement is expected to include "significant measures related to child sexual exploitation and abuse".

As a reminder, we're expecting Cooper to speak in the Commons at 13:30 GMT - you'll be able to watch it live here.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch challenged the government last week over the "decades long rape gang scandal".

She accepted there had been previous inquires, but said a wide-ranging inquiry into child sexual abuse by Alexis Jay did not focus sufficiently on "rape gang activity".

In response, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said "what is needed now is action on what we already know", as opposed to a new national inquiry.

You can watch the exchange below:

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is due to make a statement in the House of Commons on grooming gangs later this afternoon.

It comes after weeks of pressure on the government to launch a national inquiry into child exploitation across the country.

The row was ignited at the start of the year, after GB News reported that the government had turned down Oldham Council's request for a government-led inquiry.

Stay with us as we bring you the key lines from Cooper's speech and analysis from our correspondents.