Badenoch welcomes expanded grooming gangs inquiry

Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch has said she welcomes the inclusion of Birmingham in a national inquiry into child sexual exploitation, and hoped it moved quickly to get justice for victims.

The Statutory Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs announced on Wednesday that it was expanding its focus to Birmingham and Wales and would look at the prevalence of child sexual exploitation (CSE) as well as victim and survivor experience.

"We're keeping a very close eye on what's going on because we need to get justice for the victims," she said.

Badenoch was speaking ahead of her party's conference in the city, which starts at the weekend.

Figures from Birmingham Children's Trust released on Wednesday showed that police were currently investigating 98 CSE cases in Birmingham, while former safeguarding minister and local MP Jess Phillips suggested the true number of crimes could be much higher.

Between January and June this year, 99 CSE crimes were recorded with more than 140 children known to be at risk of, or experiencing CSE, the trust said.

Badenoch said she was in contact with survivors who were pleased the inquiry was progressing, but added "we all want things to move quickly".

She said Labour had "u-turned" to enable the inquiry and said previous Tory governments had overseen the Jay inquiry an independent report into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham.

The grooming gangs task force had also found "400 extra criminals", but she said she accepted there was "still more to do".

"I'm pleased that we did do some things," she said.

"We brought this up to attention, but we're not in government any more. The people in government now have to pick up the baton and carry on."

Defending the decision to launch the national inquiry in June 2025, after months of pressure, the government said at the time it had "never dismissed the concerns of victims" of grooming gangs.

It emerged at a city council meeting on Wednesday that West Midlands Police had only started routinely recording the ethnicity of CSE offenders within the past 12 months.

Badenoch said it was "very important that we capture this information".

"This is something that is important, because we believe it has been a factor where people from closed communities are able to keep crimes that they are committing hidden, so I don't know why it's taken West Midlands Police this long."

Follow BBC Birmingham on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.