‘It clearly isn’t enough!’ Robert Jenrick blasts Labour’s local inquiries into grooming gangs: ‘We’ve got to take action’

Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick has criticised Labour’s announcement of five local inquiries into grooming gangs, saying the plan falls short of what’s needed to uncover the full truth of the scandal.

Speaking to GB News, Jenrick acknowledged the move as “welcome” progress, but insisted it was insufficient given the scale of the problem.

“This clearly isn’t enough,” Jenrick said, just days after Labour’s announcement of locally led investigations to be overseen by Baroness Casey.

The Shadow Justice Secretary pointed out that while the inquiries would only cover five areas, evidence suggests grooming gangs are operating in at least 50 locations across the country.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced yesterday that the Government would back five local inquiries into grooming gangs, including one already agreed upon in Oldham.

The “rapid audit” will take three months and will be overseen by Baroness Casey, who currently leads an independent commission into adult social care.

The inquiries, however, will not have powers to compel witnesses to give evidence, despite calls from Rotherham MP Sarah Champion for such authority.

Jenrick highlighted specific concerns about the limitations of local inquiries, citing a previous failed investigation in Greater Manchester, where two inquiry leaders resigned because “they said it didn’t work”.

“Local inquiries do not have the powers to get to the truth – you can’t request witnesses to come, they’re not giving evidence under oath, you can’t ensure that the documents are coming forward,” he told GB News.

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Throwing his support behind Baroness Casey, Jenrick admitted that he “has faith” in her, and hope she “also calls for a national inquiry”.

Jenrick explained: “I do have some confidence in Casey, as she wrote an excoriating report about what she found in Rotherham.

“There was a culture of denial, there was cover ups by the officials, so a lot now rests on Louise Casey’s shoulders if Yvette Cooper and Keir Starmer are not willing to take action today.

“And I hope that Louise will recommend that we have the full national inquiry, to get to the truth of what’s really going on across the country.”

The Shadow Justice Secretary called the grooming gangs scandal “one of the biggest and worst scandals in modern British history,” noting that no public official has yet been held accountable.

When pressed by host Martin Daubney on whether the Conservatives should have “done more” and “called for a national inquiry themselves”, Jenrick stated that all public figures “question whether they could have done more” to tackle the grooming gangs.

Jenrick told GB News: “I think the Tories probably should have implemented a national inquiry, but I think everyone in public life has to ask themselves, why didn’t they do more?

“We did do things, we created the two Jay reports, we sent Louise Casey into Rotherham to try and find out what was going on and to change it, and we created the Grooming Gangs Task Force under Suella Braverman, which led to 550 people being arrested.

“But could we have done more? Yes. We do know more now, thanks to people like Charlie Peters here on GB News, we know that this is happening almost everywhere in the country, at least 50 towns.

“And so the sheer scale and breadth of this was not known previously, it is known today, and we’ve got to take action.”