Grooming Gangs

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

This is not by any means a subject that I, or I suspect any of us, find easy to discuss, but the difficult conversations are always the most important to have, and it is our duty, for our constituents, to have them.

It is now more than 20 years since one of my predecessors as MP for Keighley, Ann Cryer, first raised her concerns about grooming gangs and child sexual exploitation within the Pakistani community in West Yorkshire. Ann did a good job; she brought the issue to the forefront of the conversation and did the right thing in raising it. I have been a Member of this House for only just over a year, and I have been taken aback by the amount of correspondence that I have received on this issue. I am afraid to say that more than 20 years have gone by and nothing has really changed. Luckily, I am able to represent one of the best communities we have in this country.

I am incredibly conscious of just how delicate this subject is, but it should not be. My view is that unless we talk about it openly we are failing, so let us call this problem out for what it is: predominantly a small minority of largely Muslim men in West Yorkshire—including, I am sad to say, in Keighley—have been sexually exploiting young children for far too long. The Muslim community are quite rightly outraged at the entire community being branded with the same accusation. It is not fair and it is deeply offensive.

The consequences of not taking action are extremely serious. If we tiptoe around the edges or fail to talk openly about these challenges, we are failing both the victims and the Pakistani community. These victims, mainly young girls, are having their lives ruined at a young age by this vile and disgusting sexual abuse. In 2016, a group of 12 men who committed serious sexual offences against two girls in Keighley and Bradford were jailed for a collective 130 years. One of those girls was raped by five men in succession. Live cases involving grooming gangs are still working their way through the courts. Only last October, 21 men from Keighley and Bradford were arrested for being linked to offences that allegedly occurred against a young female between 2001 and 2009. I know the police are working on many other cases.

If we fail to address all these interlinked social and societal issues, we run the real risk of failing our communities and making them suffer even more, and unfortunately the worst of humanity will exploit it for their own game. This has already happened. In the 2005 general election, on the back of these very issues, the British National party made my constituency of Keighley their No. 1 target seat. It was a campaign that damaged race relations and caused huge upset and hurt. The people of Keighley, quite rightly, rejected the BNP’s nonsense, but if we do not tackle this issue with urgency, we run the risk that others will try to take advantage of it.

These are difficult issues to tackle, but all of us in this House have a responsibility to take action, because if we do not, we will have failed, and the consequences for our communities will be far too great. I say to everyone across Keighley that I will represent them as best I can.