Rachel Reeves has insisted ministers “never dismissed the concerns of victims” of grooming gangs, as she defended the decision to launch a national inquiry after months of pressure.
The chancellor said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was focused on victims “and not grandstanding”.
Sir Keir has faced criticism for resisting calls for such an inquiry, with the Conservatives claiming they forced him into a U-turn.
Former detective Maggie Oliver, who resigned from Greater Manchester Police over the way grooming cases were handled in Rochdale, said the Conservatives and Labour had both been “dragged kicking and screaming to this point”.
The prime minister said on Saturday he had read an independent report into child sexual exploitation by Baroness Louise Casey and would accept her recommendation for an inquiry, covering England and Wales.
The report is expected to be published on Monday and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is set to address the findings of the review in Parliament.
At the start of the year, the government dismissed calls for a national inquiry.
Sir Keir and other ministers argued the issue had already been examined in a seven-year inquiry led by Professor Alexis Jay.
Appearing on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Reeves was asked whether the prime minister had been wrong to initially resist the idea.
She replied: “We’ve never dismissed the concerns of victims. These are the most important people in those discussions.”
Reeves said the government had been focused on implementing the recommendations of Professor Jay’s review.
“But the prime minister wanted to assure himself he was doing everything that was necessary, which is why he asked Baroness Casey to do this rapid review,” she added.
When asked if Sir Keir had changed his mind on the need for a national inquiry, Reeves replied: “Our prime minister has always been really focused on the victims, and not grandstanding but actually doing the practical things to ensure something like this never happens again.”
Ms Oliver said the inquiry was “an important step on the journey to change” and that Baroness Casey’s report would “lift the lid on what has been going on”.
But she said Labour and the Conservatives had “equally failed” to confront the issue of grooming gangs, so “won’t get a single bit of thanks” from her.
“For me, I can only look at them with contempt, because I see on the ground the suffering that their neglect has caused,” she added.
Appearing on the same programme, shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride said the decision to launch the inquiry should have happened “far, far earlier”.
He said the Conservatives had been “calling for this for many, many months” and accused Sir Keir of dismissing their concerns as “some kind of far-right bandwagon”.
“That was the wrong response,” Stride said. “This is just another example of the prime minister being pressurised by us into U-turning.”
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) said it was pleased the prime minister accepted the recommendations of Baroness Casey’s report.
But the charity’s chief executive Chris Sherwood said “a national inquiry into abuse by organised networks must not delay urgent action on child sexual abuse that is long overdue”.
He said survivors had already waited more than two years for the recommendations from Professor Jay’s report to be implemented.
Professor Jay’s inquiry found institutional failings, with tens of thousands of victims across England and Wales.
The seven-year investigation concluded child sexual abuse was “epidemic” across the two nations and made 20 recommendations in the final report published in 2022.
The grooming gangs issue was thrust into the spotlight at the start of this year, fuelled partly by tech billionaire Elon Musk, who criticised Sir Keir for not calling a national inquiry.
A row between the two centred on high-profile cases where groups of men, mainly of Pakistani descent, were convicted of sexually abusing and raping predominantly young white girls in towns such as Rotherham and Rochdale.
In January, the government stopped short of launching a statutory national inquiry into grooming gangs, despite the idea receiving support from some Labour MPs.
The statutory inquiry now backed by the prime minister will be able to compel witnesses to provide evidence.
The government has already announced plans for five local inquiries, to be held in Oldham and four other areas yet to be named.
A senior government source said the national inquiry would “co-ordinate a series of targeted local investigations”.
