Statement on Baroness Casey’s Audit into Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation
The findings published in Baroness Casey’s audit are among the most disturbing in recent memory. They expose the systematic, cruel exploitation of vulnerable children — many in care, many with disabilities — who were targeted, abused, and passed between perpetrators, while those in authority looked away or failed to act.
This is a profound moral failure. Victims were not only harmed by the perpetrators but betrayed again and again by institutions that they should have been able to trust but failed to protect them.
While we cannot undo that pain. We can and must now act with honesty and urgency.
It is imperative that we (everyone with the power to exercise power and influence in our Parliament and our institutions) do not repeat those mistakes. This Labour Government is committed to tackling child sexual exploitation and abuse in all its forms, and to finally delivering truth, accountability, and justice for those who have been so badly let down.
I welcome the Government’s decision to accept all twelve of Baroness Casey’s recommendations in full, alongside the significant work already underway to respond to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. Taken together, the measures we set out in January and the steps we are taking today represent the largest programme ever undertaken to root out grooming gangs and child sexual exploitation.
That is why we will introduce:
New laws to protect children and support victims — so they are never again blamed for the crimes committed against them.
A new national criminal operation into grooming gangs, led by the police and overseen by the National Crime Agency. For the first time, this will bring together all arms of the policing response and develop a rigorous national operating model for use by forces across the country.
A national inquiry, with powers to co-ordinate local investigations and hold institutions to account for past failures.
New police investigations to pursue perpetrators and bring them to justice.
Better data and research on offender ethnicity, so we face the facts about abuse without fear or evasion.
Stronger action across children’s services and safeguarding agencies to better identify and support children at risk.
Further measures to support victims and tackle emerging forms of exploitation, including online abuse.
This is a moment to confront hard truths with clarity and resolve. Baroness Casey has shown how fear, prejudice, and institutional inertia allowed abuse to go unchallenged. That must never happen again.
We cannot allow cultural sensitivities to override child protection. We cannot accept institutional failure or bureaucratic excuses. We must act so that every child is safe, and every survivor can see justice done.
This is fundamentally about who we are as a society — whether we stand with the vulnerable or stay silent in the face of harm. We choose to act.
None of our children must ever be left to suffer in silence again. We must confront the past and build a system that protects every child and earns the trust it was meant to uphold.
