Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of establishing a police task force to (a) identify and (b) investigate (i) local and (ii) national officials that had knowledge of and failed to act against Pakistani heritage grooming gangs.

This Government is focused on delivering meaningful change for victims and survivors impacted by these horrendous crimes, safeguarding children, and ensuring law enforcement have the tools and capabilities to pursue and bring offenders to justice.

This includes continuing to fund the work of the Child Sexual Exploitation Police Taskforce, which is working to give practical, expert, and on the ground support for local forces investigating child sexual abuse, with a focus on complex and organised child sexual exploitation. The Taskforce has brought together the best police data that is available on group-based offending which was published in November 2024. In this context group-based offending includes any offence with two or more perpetrators. That data is available publicly online via https://www.hydrantprogramme.co.uk/publications/hydrant-publications#LatestNews). We will work further with the Taskforce to improve the accuracy and robustness of the data and analysis.

The Home Office also collects and publishes data annually on police misconduct cases finalised during a financial year period in the ‘Police misconduct, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin. This data is broken down by allegation category but does not cover the specific circumstances of individual allegations such as those described.

Launching any investigation is a decision for the police to make. But the Government will continue to ensure that all institutions and individuals remain responsible and accountable for protecting children against this vile abuse. An important part of this includes delivering on the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse recommendation of a mandatory reporting duty, which we will deliver through the upcoming Crime and Policing Bill.

The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 already protects workers who wish to make disclosures about child protection or welfare concerns. In 2015 the Home Office commissioned the NSPCC Whistleblowing Advice Line, which serves as a national single point of contact for child abuse-related whistleblowing reports.