Labour's New Grooming Gang Inquiry: Why I am Concerned

---

Matt Goodwin’s newsletter goes to 90,800 subscribers from 183 countries. Like our stuff? Then become a paying supporter and help us while gaining access to exclusive weekly posts, the archive, events, comments and know you’re supporting independent writers making a difference. You can join us on YouTube, Insta, TikTok, X and Facebook

---

This newsletter has consistently called for a full national inquiry into Britain’s grooming gang scandal—the most horrific scandal in modern British history.

Thanks to your generous support —and alongside many other campaigners—for the last two years we have used our platform and social media to relentlessly campaign on this issue, helping to keep up the pressure on a truly dismal Labour government.

And earlier this year Labour was finally forced to commit to hold an inquiry.

I don’t know about you but I still find the fact that the Labour Party had to be dragged by the rest of the country —kicking and screaming—to agree to an inquiry into the mass rape and abuse of hundreds of thousands of children utterly appalling.

But there we are.

And now, yesterday, we have scored another small victory of sorts.

Yesterday, finally, Keir Starmer’s Labour government was also pushed into appointing a Chair for the inquiry and outlining its terms of reference.

On paper, this represents a long overdue attempt to confront one of the gravest safeguarding failures in modern Britain.

Make no mistake: it is a step forward, a step closer to the truth.

But I have to say, after reading the fine print and listening carefully to what Labour ministers are saying, I also have some very serious concerns about the direction of the grooming gang inquiry, some of which I set out last night on GB News:

---

---

As I explain below, it is clear that Labour’s grooming gang inquiry now risks repeating the very patterns of avoidance, bureaucratic evasion and political self-protection that allowed these hideous gangs to operate in the first place.

Here’s what I think is important:

---

1. A Chair who inspires little confidence

The Chair of the inquiry, Baroness Anne Longfield, is a respected figure in children’s services. But she is also a long-standing Labour Party insider.

She is a Labour peer.

She is not a neutral person —far from it.

Even more importantly, she is not a judge. She has limited experience handling complex evidential processes and adversarial institutional scrutiny.

In a country where public confidence in authorities is already badly damaged, what signal does this send —especially to the victims and their families?

An inquiry of this scale and sensitivity requires not just competence, but independence that is beyond question. That is not what we have been given.

Personally, having watched Labour councils and Labour areas duck this scandal for the last thirty years I am amazed that we have been given an inquiry headed by … a Labour peer.

2. The Inquiry may sidestep key questions

The terms of reference instruct the grooming gang inquiry only to “consider the background of perpetrators and victims.” That is astonishingly timid.

As far as I can see, it is not being forced to specifically examine whether certain backgrounds played any role in motivating the offences. Nor is it instructed to assess whether backgrounds, networks or community dynamics —including those not mentioned in the document, such as extended family structures— were significant factors either among offenders or between offenders and those in state institutions.

If you are trying to understand why authorities failed, this omission is not a footnote. It is a central flaw. We need to shake off political correctness and get to the truth.

3. The Inquiry cannot unearth new cases

The inquiry has no mandate to identify fresh instances of group-based child sexual exploitation. It will only examine known cases where institutional failure is already evidenced. This is not an inquiry that will uncover what has previously been hidden, in other words. There will be no major revelation, for instance, about dozens of new gangs or London potentially being riddled with grooming gang abuse. It is an inquiry that will only rake over ground that is already familiar. That is not good enough. When victims have spent decades being ignored, the least an inquiry can do is look for what has not yet been seen.

4. Central government departments are excluded

The local investigations in the inquiry will examine councils, local police forces, health services, social workers, youth services and voluntary groups. But the role of central government departments, including the Home Office and the Department for Education, looks like it will not be examined under these local investigations.

This is a stunning loophole. The separate National Review is also barred from examining central government conduct. It may only make recommendations based on what local inquiries find, even if those findings logically point upward to national policies, guidance or political directives. The result is that central government is insulated from scrutiny at precisely the moment we need to understand whether national decisions contributed to the scandal.

Widespread rumours, for instance, about the Home Office presenting misleading evidence to cover-up the ethnicity and backgrounds of perpetrators, or the Department for Education allegedly downplaying the scandal, will not be seriously examined. This too is deeply problematic.

5. No clarity on investigative powers

There is no explanation of how local investigations will be carried out, who will lead them, or what powers they will have to compel witnesses or documents. Inquiries live or die on their investigative teeth. At the moment, we do not know whether this one has any —which is pretty shocking given the gravity of the scandal.

6. The Chair chooses which areas to investigate after appointment

The terms of reference do not set out criteria for selecting local areas. Instead, the Chair must agree them with the government within three months. This invites political interference. Will Labour push the inquiry to focus on areas that are less problematic for the Labour Party? As I asked on GB News last night, will we get major inquiries into areas like Bradford and London, which have so far escaped scrutiny? The public should know the criteria now, not after ministers have negotiated behind closed doors. I also made this point last night:

---

---

7. A three-year hard deadline hands control to the police

The inquiry must finish within three years, even if certain lines of inquiry are obstructed by ongoing police investigations. That gives policing bodies enormous power. If they choose to delay action on a particular case, the inquiry may simply run out of time and be unable to examine it. In effect, departments under scrutiny could time out the very evidence that matters most.

8. A constrained budget signals the government’s priorities

Money does not guarantee quality, but symbolism matters. The grooming gang inquiry received £65 million which, interestingly, is barely a third of the Grenfell Inquiry’s £170 million. The message is unmistakable: this is to be contained, not expansive. It is not an exhaustive inquiry; it is a limited one —and one that clearly many people in Westminster still do not consider to be as important as other issues.

---

I am raising these concerns not to be difficult but because all those girls, their families and the communities affected deserve the best inquiry the British state can provide. They deserve transparency, courage and truth, not hedged commitments, constrained mandates and political risk-management.

And I am being blunt because the Labour government had to be dragged into delivering this inquiry at all. That is not a foundation for trust. It is a warning.

For this Inquiry to succeed, its flaws must be fixed now, not exposed later when it is too late to act. Victims deserve more than symbolism. They deserve a real reckoning.

The question is simple: will Labour deliver one? Or will this Inquiry become yet another exercise in institutional self-protection?

Only time will tell. But we should not sit back and hope. We should demand better, loudly, persistently and without apology.

As always, with your support, we will continue to push all these points in the public domain and explain them to the British people.

---

---

---