The Home Secretary announced the appointment of Baroness Anne Longfield to chair a national inquiry into grooming gangs and outlined the inquiry’s terms of reference in Parliament, signaling a restart after months of delays.

Mahmood stressed collaboration with police, the goal of prosecuting more offenders, and the inquiry’s role in identifying individual, institutional, and systemic failures across the board.

She praised Longfield for her dedication to children’s rights during the Commons announcement.

Casey pledged to remain involved in the inquiry and highlighted a nationwide audit on grooming gangs that prompted calls for a full inquiry.

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Louise Casey, who helped push for a national inquiry, expressed hope that the new chair will have the qualities survivors seek and suggested meeting the chair and panel soon.

The inquiry will focus on child sex abuse by grooming gangs and will examine offenders’ backgrounds, including ethnicity and religion, following Casey’s rapid audit findings.

The inquiry follows Casey’s rapid audit in June, which highlighted data gaps on offender ethnicity and nationality as a major failing.

It will examine offenders’ backgrounds and will be informed by Casey’s audit findings on ethnicity and nationality.

Baroness Longfield will sit on a three-person panel with Zoe Billingham and Eleanor Kelly, selected after Casey’s recommendations; she will step down from the Labour Party for the inquiry’s duration.

The panel also includes Zoe Billingham and Eleanor Kelly, with survivor engagement, reflecting Longfield’s background as former children’s commissioner and founder of the Centre for Young Lives.

Longfield has stepped away from party duties for the inquiry, having previously served as children’s commissioner and later as a Labour peer.

The appointment signals a restart of the inquiry, with further details to follow as the story develops.

Draft terms of reference will be consulted on and formally adopted by March, and the inquiry will have full statutory powers to oversee local investigations, including in Oldham, with evidence passed to law enforcement to aid prosecutions.

The inquiry will oversee local investigations and will pass evidence to law enforcement for prosecutions, aiming to prosecute more perpetrators.

Its guiding aim is to follow the evidence, address past failings, and protect children and young people, even when the truth is uncomfortable.

The appointment comes after months of delays, with final candidates withdrawing and several survivor-liaison panel members resigning over scope concerns.

Baroness Anne Longfield, a former children’s commissioner, will chair the inquiry for three years with a £65 million budget.

Opposition figures criticized the six-month chair search and parliamentary obstruction to progress.

There has been political and public reaction, including criticism and the resignation of the Home Secretary from the Labour Party during this process.

Mahmood noted the inquiry will have full statutory powers and will coordinate with police on new cases and potential prosecutions.