Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 29 May 2025 to Question 52623 on Offences Against Children, if she will place in the Library (a) a copy of the letter sent to all local authorities on 12 March 2025, and (b) the information sent to local authorities on how they can claim funding from the new national fund to support independent local inquiries.

Baroness Louise Casey was commissioned to undertake a comprehensive audit into the nature, scale, and profiles of group-based child sexual exploitation. I updated the House on 2 June that Baroness Casey has requested a short extension to her work from the Home Secretary to allow her to speak directly to victims, fully access the scale of the issue, and submit meaningful evidence-based recommendations to further tackle this vile type of offending.

The completed audit will provide the most up-to-date information to this government’s commitment to support local areas to lead their own independent inquiries and related work to understand this issue and the effectiveness of their responses to it. We expect to receive the report very shortly. We will then set out a comprehensive response, as well as next steps on the action we have already announced, including details of support available for local areas.

My officials will happily place the 12 March letter from the Home Secretary to all local authority leaders in the Common’s Library which makes clear the Government’s commitment to working closely with local areas to confront these terrible crimes.