Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the report by Malcolm Newsam and Gary Ridgeway Independent assurance review into historic child sexual exploitation (CSE) in Rochdale, published on 15 January, what percentage of those involved in the grooming gangs were Muslim.

The independent review into historic child sexual exploitation in Rochdale identifies widespread organised sexual exploitation of children involving multiple ‘grooming gangs’. It also highlighted that many potential perpetrators were never investigated or identified.

The report does not disaggregate known offending by individual ‘grooming gang’ nor by ethnicity or religion. However, there are references throughout the report to perpetrators in these particular cases being predominantly ‘Asian’ or British-Pakistani men.

The 2020 Home Office report on Group Based Child Sexual Exploitation sets out the best evidence on ethnicity, age, offender networks, the context in which these crimes are committed and implications for national and local policy. As noted within the report, beyond specific high-profile cases such as in Rochdale or Rotherham, the academic literature highlights significant limitations to what can be said about links between ethnicity and group-based child sexual exploitation.