By Henry Bermingham

The government must salvage the CSE inquiry before it loses the very survivors it was meant to serve.

Statutory inquiries can have a credibility problem. IICSA took seven years. The Covid inquiry has already cost over £192 million and counting, overtaking Bloody Sunday as the most expensive public inquiry in British history.

Yet despite their shortfalls, statutory inquiries remain the only mechanism with real power to compel witnesses and deliver accountability.

The question isn't cost – it's delivery. When inquiries uncover truth and drive reform, they're worth every penny. That's why I, like many others, had long called for a national inquiry into child sexual exploitation (CSE).

Only a statutory inquiry could connect the fragmented local reviews scattered across the country and expose the true scale of this problem.

This summer, the government answered that call. Survivors finally have a statutory inquiry. But instead of careful preparation away from the political spotlight, what we've seen so far is chaotic and looks to be failing those survivors.

An inquiry’s foundations should be laid sensitively and carefully – away from the glaring eyes of the media. Instead, we’ve watched this become a bruising episode for........

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