The UK government announced its backing for a series of local inquiries into a series of cases of organized child sexual abuse across the country on Thursday.
Stronger sentences will be brought in for child grooming, making it an aggravating factor to organize abuse and exploitation, Cooper said, as she promised more investigations and prosecutions in the future.
She added that the “most important task should be to increase police investigations into these horrific crimes and get abusers behind bars.”
The core of the issue under investigation is that, for decades, poor white girls in towns across England were targeted and groomed for sex by Muslim men of Pakistani heritage, while local officials turned a blind eye over fears of being labeled racist and damaging community cohesion.
At the start of the new year, the issue caught the eye of Musk, who promptly took to his X platform to discuss the issue and repeatedly condemn a host of British politicians, including Labour Party Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Musk rebuked Starmer for not backing a national inquiry into the matter following a request from the local authority in Oldham, a town in the north of England where it was found that girls under 18 were sexually exploited by groups of ethnically Pakistani men throughout the 2000s and 2010s.
The billionaire further accused Starmer of failing to bring the perpetrators to justice when he was director of public prosecutions, a role that meant he was England’s chief prosecutor, between 2008 and 2013.
Starmer has strenuously denied the second allegation and initially ignored the X owner’s opprobrium as well as calls for a national inquiry into the gangs.
This new decision, to back a local inquiry in Oldham, as well as four other areas across England, is a shift in the government’s position, which was that there was no need for further investigation following a string of previous local and national inquiries
The previous Conservative government conducted a seven-year inquiry into the issue, but much of the 20 recommendations it made at its conclusion in 2022, including compensating victims, have as yet not been implemented.
However, Cooper said that the government will act on them as soon as possible, adding that “much valuable time has already been lost” since the final report was published, “causing even more trauma to many victims and survivors.”
Cooper said the government will provide 10 million pounds ($12.5 million) to support its announcement, half of which will go on the inquiries.
“As we have seen, effective local inquiries can delve into far more local detail and deliver more locally relevant answers, and change, than a lengthy nationwide inquiry can provide,” she said.
The opposition Conservative Party, whose earlier calls in Parliament for a national inquiry were voted down by Labour, have labeled the measures insufficient with shadow home secretary Chris Philp saying: “We now believe as many as 50 towns could have been affected, so the [Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse] barely scratched the surface. The home secretary has announced Government support for only five local inquiries. Let me say this is wholly inadequate when we know up to 50 towns are affected.”
Conservatives also expressed concerns that local inquiries won’t be able to summon witnesses, whereas a national inquiry would have been able to, a point Cooper is yet to clarify.
Some high-profile Labour figures, including Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham as well as MPs Dan Carden and Sarah Champion, have broken with the government by also calling for a national inquiry.
