Havant MP Alan Mak welcomes Labour u-turn on national rape gangs inquiry after 11-month campaign
Havant MP Alan Mak has welcomed the Labour Government's u-turn on holding a national public inquiry into rape and grooming gangs.
But he has also called for the Government to apologise to victims who have been demanding such an inquiry for years.
Earlier this year the Government said the issue had already been examined in 2022 and Labour MPs voted in Parliament to stop a statutory inquiry.
But now, following the publication of Baroness Casey's report into the grooming gangs, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced that an inquiry will be held.
After the report said there had been a 'collective failure' to address questions about the ethnicity of perpetrators, the Government is to make it a formal requirement for ethnicity and nationality data to be collected for all child sexual abuse cases.
Mr Mak, who was on the Opposition Front Bench when Home Secretary Yvette Cooper addressed Parliament on this issue, said: "The last Conservative Government set up the Grooming Gangs Taskforce, which found 4,000 new victims and led to the arrest of 807 perpetrators last year.
"These figures showed that more must be done. A full national public inquiry into this scandal, with the power to compel witnesses to give evidence under oath, is the only way to get to the truth.
"We must not allow religion, race, culture, political correctness or any other reason to stand in the way of victims getting justice.
"So I welcome the Government finally being dragged into a u-turn in the face of 11 months of campaigning by the Conservatives.
"But it should not have taken this long and the Government should apologise to all the victims."