'What are you waiting for?': MP clashes with grooming gang inquiry panellists
Robbie Moore was quizzing Anne Longfield, the chair of the £65m three-year statutory inquiry, and panellists Zoe Billingham and Eleanor Kelly in their Home Affairs Committee appearance.
An MP has clashed with the organisers of the national grooming gangs inquiry, asking “why are you not able to announce that the Bradford district is going to be included?”
Keighley and Ilkley MP Robbie Moore has long been pressing for his constituency and the wider council area to be included in any national inquiry into child sexual exploitation.
Solicitors Switalskis previously told The Yorkshire Post that victims from different parts of the country “report being trafficked” to the city.
Since 2016, police investigations in the region have resulted in over 200 offenders sentenced to more than 2,200 years.
Mr Moore was quizzing Anne Longfield, the chair of the £65m three-year statutory inquiry, and panellists Zoe Billingham and Eleanor Kelly in their Home Affairs Committee appearance yesterday.
The Tory MP said: “We’re now 18 months after the original announcement was made on local inquiries.
“Why are you not able to right now, on day one, announce that the Bradford district is going to be included and looked at.
“The reason I ask is because the Bradford district gets referenced a lot.
“If you look at all the other inquiries that have taken place, those young girls and some young lads have been trafficked through the Bradford district.”
Mr Moore said he fears cases in Bradford could dwarf other areas, such as Rotherham, adding: “What are you waiting for to announce Bradford and Keighley being included as part of your local inquiries?”
Ms Kelly, who was the joint lead on the Grenfell Tower task force, said that there was a risk of local authorities making legal challenges against the inquiry, if the criteria had not been set.
She said: “We have to establish the criteria, which is based on four or five different sets of information, data, lived experience. This will give us a much longer list of places we are able to look at.”
Mr Moore hit back: “I personally do not think that’s good enough.
“Would it not show some leadership to single out an area that has been referenced by many a person, not just politicians, where there needs to be a spotlight shone across it, to reinstall that trust quite quickly that this is a truly independent inquiry?”
Ms Longfield said: “I’m a constituent of Mr Moore’s living in the Bradford and Keighley area so this is not only close to my heart but close to my life at home as well.
“We’ve been a statutory body for about five weeks. In the next six weeks, you will know what the criteria is - it is only right and proper that we set the criteria.”
Speaking about grooming gang cases in Bradford, Ms Longfield added: “We have obviously read, seen and been very aware of that. In six weeks time we will be able to continue that discussion.
“The Bradford case is obviously strongly made by victims and survivors over time, in the Casey Audit, in IICSA (the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse), in [West Yorkshire Police’s child sexual exploitation] Operation Dalesway.
“We’re well aware of the case that’s been made and it’s a strong case.”