Grooming Gangs: Independent Inquiry

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. The survivors are not a coterminous, cohesive group. They have different experiences and different views on what is happening. The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, and now my noble friend Lady Longfield are trying at least to meet a panel of survivors to examine how best we can involve survivors and victims in the process of both the appointment of the chair, as has been done, and the terms of reference. Again, it is important that survivors continue to express their views. We have allocated around £3.6 million this week to support Operation Beaconport, and a portion of that resource is to assist survivors and help them to be able to work with the inquiry in a positive way. That is not a finite sum and it may be reviewed at a later date, but the initial £3.65 million that we have put in place is there both to try to help to support the prosecution of historical perpetrators and to assist victims in this process, which I know is extremely difficult for them. The whole purpose of what we are trying to do, as I am sure the noble Lord will accept and support, is to not retraumatise victims as far as possible by the actions of this inquiry.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, many of the victims at the centre of the inquiry were victims at least twice over: they were abused by the gangs but also by those who were supposed to be caring for them. The inquiry will be looking at systemic failures in the system and will go on for three years. Can the Minister assure us that those who were working in the so-called care system at the time, and were responsible for effectively abandoning these children, will not be allowed to work with children again? That includes the three years during which the inquiry winds on.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Baroness invites me to come to conclusions about what the inquiry might say in any particular circumstance. Hopefully, I can reassure her by saying that the inquiry is already going to look at individual authorities urgently. If there are emerging issues, then I expect my noble friend Lady Longfield to report those to Ministers. They are beginning to look at the local authority of Oldham as a first priority, and there may be more that they look at individually. I suspect that if there are lessons to be learned during the course of the inquiry, such as those that the noble Baroness has mentioned, they will be drawn to the attention of Ministers, but we have set a remit and a scope for the inquiry and I think it fair that we let the chair and panel members, with the guidance of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, examine those issues. Self-evidently, though, if someone has not performed their duty and that has led to the exploitation and grooming of individuals and has failed in their professional duty, then they should be held to account for that. What I cannot say to the noble Baroness is who, what, where and when, because that is part of the purpose of the inquiry.