Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she expects the National Audit on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse to be published.

Baroness Louise Casey is currently completing her audit into the nature, scale and characteristics of grooming gangs offending.

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 abhorrent criminality.

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.