Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will direct (1) the Home Office, and (2) other government departments, to stop using the terms "Asian men" and "men of Pakistani origin" to describe the members of the child sexual exploitation gangs in Rotherham and Telford.

In 2020 the Government published a paper on the characteristics of group-based child sexual exploitation, setting out the best available evidence on offender characteristics. We know that child sexual exploitation is not exclusive to any single culture, community, race or religion. However, political or cultural sensitivities must not get in the way of uncovering and tackling these devastating crimes, and understanding local community and cultural factors is clearly an important part of this.

That is why the Government is working with policing to drive up the quality of police data on child sexual exploitation. As part of this, the Home Secretary has made it mandatory from March 2022 for police forces to record the ethnicity of those held on suspicion of group-based child sexual exploitation. We are also funding dedicated child sexual abuse and exploitation analysts in every policing region, and we will shortly publish an updated version of our Child Exploitation Disruption Toolkit, supporting police and local agencies in working together to better understand and disrupt offending in their areas.

In addition, the Home Secretary has recently commissioned the policing inspectorate to conduct an inspection into how the police respond to group-based child sexual exploitation. This will ensure policing is learning from past mistakes including those highlighted in the local inquiries in Rotherham and Telford, and that the very best practice is now being put in place by forces across the country.