Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she expects the independent inquiry into grooming gangs to commence taking evidence; and what steps she is taking to support cross-Government cooperation with the inquiry.

On 9 December 2025 the Home Secretary announced Baroness Anne Longfield as Chair of the Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs, alongside panellists Zoë Billingham CBE and Eleanor Kelly CBE. She also published the draft Terms of Reference, which she has asked the Chair to consult on. The final version will be published by 31 March 2026, after which the inquiry will formally commence. Under the Inquiries Act 2005, the conduct and procedure of the inquiry are a matter for the Chair.

The Home Secretary has been clear that the inquiry will act without fear or favour, identifying individual, institutional and systemic failure, inadequate organisational responses, and failures of leadership. The government is fully committed to supporting the Inquiry.