Rape Gangs: National Statutory Inquiry

Chris Philp Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary to make a statement on the recent criticism of the statutory inquiry into the rape gang scandal.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)]

As stated in my previous statement to the House on 2 September and in my letter to the Home Affairs Committee yesterday, the Government remain resolute in delivering Baroness Casey’s recommendations following her national audit of group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse. These crimes committed by grooming gangs are among the most horrific imaginable. Baroness Casey’s report exposed more than a decade of institutional inaction, and we are determined to ensure that such failures are never repeated.

Central to our response is a statutory national inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005. It will oversee local investigations and will have full powers to compel evidence. It will also be time-limited to three years to ensure that victims and survivors receive answers swiftly. The inquiry will examine safeguarding systems, accountability and intersections with ethnicity, race and culture, identifying failures and good practice. The inquiry will work alongside Operation Beaconport, a national police operation.

The appointment of the chair is at a critical stage, and we hope to confirm its conclusion soon. Victims and survivors have been at the heart of the process, with trauma-informed opportunities to share their views. We have engaged with them on the chair appointment and the terms of reference, which will be shaped by the chair in public consultation with stakeholders. As has been widely reported in the media, victims and survivors are meeting prospective chairs this week—today, in fact. This process, contrary to the reporting, was managed not by the Home Office but by the independent child exploitation charity NWG Network. We are gathering views to ensure that the perspective of victims and survivors remains central.

We must avoid delays, as were seen in the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, and we are progressing as swiftly as thoroughness allows. Misinformation undermines this process. Allegations of intentional delay, lack of interest and a widening or dilution of the inquiry’s scope are false. The inquiry will remain laser-focused on grooming gangs, as Baroness Casey recommended.

[Chris Philp]

This scandal arose because young, mainly white girls were systematically gang-raped and it was covered up by those in authority because the perpetrators were mainly of Pakistani origin. It is all the more shocking that when calls for a national inquiry became public in January, the Prime Minister smeared campaigners as

“jumping on a far-right bandwagon”.

Comments like that are a disgrace and are what led to this scandal being covered up in the first place. Months later, just two days before facing a vote in Parliament, the Government finally agreed to the inquiry, but it is clear that they never wanted this inquiry and were forced into it. Perhaps that is why, months later, the Government have said nothing substantive publicly and their inquiry is descending into chaos.

What we have heard publicly is that victims and survivors on the liaison panel have no confidence in the Government or the inquiry. In the last 24 hours alone, two have resigned. Fiona Goddard resigned from the panel, saying that

“the secretive conduct and conditions imposed on survivors”

—by the Government—

“has led to a toxic, fearful environment, and there is a high risk of people feeling silenced all over again.”

Hours later, Ellie-Ann Reynolds also resigned, saying that the remit of the inquiry had been widened to

“downplay the racial and religious motivations behind our abuse.”

The Minister shakes her head, but that is what Ellie-Ann Reynolds said.

Fiona also raised the issue of Sabah Kaiser, who has been acting as a liaison officer on behalf of NWG. Just two years ago, Ms Kaiser described calling out the fact that the majority of perpetrators were of Pakistani heritage as “destructive, distracting, irresponsible”. Given those frankly appalling views and the complaints about them by survivors, will the Minister ensure that Ms Kaiser plays no further role?

Victims and survivors have also questioned the suitability of former police officers or social workers to chair the inquiry. They do not believe that people from the professions that failed them so badly are suitable. Will the Minister accept this feedback and appoint a judge to lead the inquiry? Will the Minister confirm that the scope of the inquiry will not be diluted, as both Fiona and Ellie-Ann say is now happening, and that it will focus on the cover-up of the rape gangs scandal because of the fact that the majority of perpetrators were of Pakistani origin?

Finally, Fiona said this yesterday:

“I just won’t be gagged and controlled by the Government while they turn this inquiry into a cover up.”

Will the Minister apologise to Fiona and Ellie-Ann?

[Jess Phillips]

The right hon. Gentleman cannot have listened to my remarks at all if he is suggesting that the Government have silenced anybody. The Government have not handled the process; it has been handled by a grooming gang charity. He cited and named a victim of crime.

If the right hon. Gentleman had done anywhere near the level of work that I have done, he would know that not all victims and survivors are of the same opinion. They are not one homogeneous group of people who all think the same thing, who all want the same exposure and who all want their identities known. I have spoken to Fiona Goddard many times, and I will continue that relationship with her, should that be what she wishes. Every single survivor who has been engaged with—there have been many—will have different feelings on the subject.

With regard to the right hon. Gentleman requiring a judge, Baroness Casey said to the House in the Home Affairs Committee that she did not want a traditional judicial-led inquiry. She was explicit about that. Can anyone in the House find me an institution that did not fail these girls over the years? That includes our courts, which took children away from the grooming gang victims and which criminalised some of them. There is no institution in our country that has not failed.

Today, I will meet many of the victims and get their feedback, and I will continue to progress with that in mind. I will engage with all the victims, regardless of their opinions, and I will listen to those who have been put in the media and are put in panels. I will always listen, and I will speak to all of them.