Sir Keir Starmer has been focused on the “victims” of grooming gangs and not “grandstanding”, Rachel Reeves has suggested, after the Prime Minister committed to a national inquiry.
The Chancellor said that Sir Keir has been looking at “actually doing the practical things to ensure that something like this never happens again”.
After initially resisting pressure to implement a full probe, the Prime Minister said he had read “every single word” of an independent report into child sexual exploitation by Baroness Louise Casey and would accept her recommendation for the investigation.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is set to address Parliament on Monday about the findings of the review.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage described the move as a “welcome U-turn”, while Kemi Badenoch called on him to apologise for “six wasted months”.
Asked whether the Prime Minister had changed his mind about the idea of a national inquiry, the Chancellor told the Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “I think Keir Starmer, our Prime Minister, has always been really focused, as he was when he was director of public prosecutions, on the victims and not grandstanding.
“But actually doing the practical things to ensure that something like this never happens again, but also to ensure that the victims of this horrific abuse over many, many years is got to grips with and that people have answers to their questions.”
Earlier this year, the Government dismissed calls for a public inquiry, saying its focus was on putting in place the outstanding recommendations already made in a seven-year national inquiry by Professor Alexis Jay.
Shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride criticised the Government’s “very late” decision to launch the inquiry, and claimed it had only come after pressure from the Tories.
Sir Mel told BBC One’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: “It’s a very late decision – it should have happened far, far earlier.
“We’ve been calling for this for many, many months.”
He accused Sir Keir of previously dismissing concerns from senior Tory figures.
“Kemi Badenoch, Chris Philp and others have been derided by the Prime Minister for hopping on some kind of far-right bandwagon, dog-whistle politics and the rest of it,” Sir Mel said.
“That was the wrong response. This is just another example of the Prime Minister being pressurised by us into U-turning.”
The inquiry will be able to compel witnesses to give evidence, and it is understood that it will be national in scope, co-ordinating a series of targeted local investigations.
Speaking to reporters travelling with him on his visit to Canada on Saturday, the Prime Minister said: “I have never said we should not look again at any issue.
“I have wanted to be assured that on the question of any inquiry.
“That’s why I asked Louise Casey who I hugely respect to do an audit.
“Her position when she started the audit was that there was not a real need for a national inquiry over and above what was going on.
“She has looked at the material she has looked at and she has come to the view that there should be a national inquiry on the basis of what she has seen.
“I have read every single word of her report and I am going to accept her recommendation.
“That is the right thing to do on the basis of what she has put in her audit.”
