Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 8 January 2025 to Question 21677 on Offences Against Children, whether her Department plans to reform the collection of data on grooming gangs.

I refer the Rt Hon Member to the Home Secretary's statement made on 16 January 2025, in which she announced the appointment of Baroness Louise Casey to lead a rapid three-month audit into these issues. The audit will examine all the currently available data and evidence to help us to better understand the nature, scale and profile of group-based child sexual abuse and exploitation being dealt with by police forces in the UK today, including ethnicity; to identify gaps in existing knowledge; and to make recommendations that can then be applied at local level.