Neil O'Brien MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 6 Jan 2025 · Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  Many victims of the grooming gangs still do not feel that justice has been done. It is very concerning that the two men leading the Greater Manchester inquiry resigned because they felt that they were being blocked from accessing the information they needed. The IICSA was an important start, but it was not—and was never meant to be—a detailed report into the grooming gangs. It looked at six places where the grooming gangs operated, but they operated in more than 40 places. The right hon. Lady says that the answer is locally led inquiries, but we have had years for that to happen and it has not happened, or it has not happened properly. Indeed, in many cases the local authorities were part of the problem and we were asking them to mark their own homework. I totally agree with her about the importance of the Jay recommendations, but will she please rethink so that we can actually listen to the voices of those who, to this day, have never been listened to?