Yvette Cooper announced a new national probe into grooming gangs.

British grooming gangs are back in the spotlight this week after Keir Starmer announced it was launching a new national inquiry into the scandal.

The prime minister’s U-turn stunned parliament as Labour spent the first half of this year refusing to listen to any calls for such a probe.

The government said it was focused on still implementing the recommendations from a previous national inquiry into child sex abuse by Professor Alexis Jay, which was published in 2022.

So what’s changed? Here’s everything you need to know.

Why has the government changed its mind on grooming gangs?

Labour announced at the weekend it would be holding a second, national probe into the scandal.

It claimed to be acting on the recommendations of Baroness Louise Casey, who has just published an independent review into child sexual exploitation.

Home secretary Yvette Cooper said the audit was “damning”, and proved not enough action has been taken to protect victims in the 15 years since the scandal was uncovered.

Casey also said agencies looking into the scandal had tried to avoid mentioning the ethnicity of the suspects, even though there was “clear evidence of over-representation” of Asian and Pakistani men.

As well as launching a new inquiry, Cooper promised to initiate the “biggest programme of work ever” to look into the gangs and start recording ethnicity data so the country can “face up to the facts on exploitation and abuse”.

Why are some people still frustrated?

Labour’s U-turn came after months of anger towards the government over its decision not to hold a fresh national inquiry.

Former Tory prime minister Liz Truss, Donald Trump’s then-closest adviser Elon Musk and then the Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch all attacked ministers over the

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