Sir Keir Starmer will launch a statutory inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal after resisting calls for months to implement a full national 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.
The Government has for months held off launching a statutory probe, saying its focus was on implementing the outstanding recommendations already made in a seven-year national inquiry by Professor Alexis Jay, which found institutional failings and tens of thousands of victims across England and Wales.
But speaking to reporters travelling with him on his visit to Canada, the Prime Minister said: “From the start I have always said that we should implement the recommendations we have got because we have got many other recommendations… I think there are 200 when you take all of the reviews that have gone on at every level and we have got to get on with implementing them.”