Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in how many council areas have grooming gangs been reported.

Child sexual abuse and exploitation, including group-based offending or ‘grooming gangs’, remains under-identified and under-reported. Police recorded crime figures are captured by Police Force Area, which equates to local authorities in many instances. Analysis by the police found that there were 115,000 cases of child sexual abuse recorded by the police in England and Wales in 2023, with 4,228 group-based offences identified by the Taskforce, which is likely to be a significant under-estimate.

That i’s why all 43 police forces in England and Wales have been tasked with looking again at historic cases of group-based Child Sexual Exploitation which were closed with No Further Action, and to re-open investigations and pursue new lines of inquiry where appropriate.

Baroness Louise Casey is also currently conducting a national audit into the nature, scale and profile of grooming gangs offending across the UK, which will report back next month.