Last night I voted in Parliament in support of a national inquiry into the ongoing scandal of gangs of predominantly Pakistani heritage men grooming and raping young white girls. This is a national scandal that requires the full transparency that a national inquiry will bring.
None of the Labour or Lib Dem MPs in Cambridgeshire voted to support a national inquiry. Keir Starmer has sought to smear those of us supporting a national inquiry as being “far right”, even though this includes many victims of this horrific abuse.
Over recent years action has been taken to tackle grooming gangs, including commissioning the Independent Inquiry into Sexual Abuse by Professor Jay, setting up the Grooming Gang Taskforce which has led top over 500 arrests and many offenders being jailed, and a number of local inquries such as in Telford that have brought more evidence into the public domain.
Yet concerns remain that many towns and cities where these gangs have operated have still not been investigated, either because the local authority has refused to hold any inquiry such as Bradford, or because the local inquiry held was not sufficiently rigorous such as Manchester.
The role of the police, crown prosecution service and local authorities also needs greater scrutiny beyond the damning evidence from the inquiries to date. The powers a national inquiry offers, of being able to compel witnesses to give evidence and that evidence being given under oath, will allow issues uncovered to be followed up more rigorously. This includes those who claimed girls had given consent, when clearly this was not the case and they were victims of appalling abuse.
A national inquiry does not delay action being taken now. We should deport those guilty of these crimes who hold dual nationality, and use the new powers put in place by the last Conservative Government in the Nationality and Borders Act to withhold visas from countries who refuse to take people back.
Above all, given the concern that these sickening crimes are still going on, a national inquiry will lift the lid on the full extent of this national scandal, and provide the scrutiny to ensure we get to the full truth.
