Between 1997 and 2013, towns and cities – including Oldham and Rotherham – were blighted by gangs of men, predominantly of Pakistani descent, who raped and trafficked children as young as 11.
An independent report, published by Prof Alexis Jay in 2014, estimated 1,400 girls had been abused in Rotherham.
Prof Jay would go on to lead the national Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse which lasted seven years and published its findings in 2022.
In a statement in the House of Commons, Cooper said that despite that report and other inquiries, “shamefully little progress had been made”.
“That has got to change,” she said and added that by Easter, the government would set out a “clear timetable” for implementing the Jay Report’s recommendations.
Cooper also argued that “effective local inquiries can delve into far more local detail and deliver more locally relevant answers, and change, than a lengthy nationwide inquiry can provide”.
The Conservatives said the plan was “wholly inadequate”.
Keighley and Ilkley’s Conservative MP Robbie Moore, who has long called for an inquiry into child sexual abuse in the wider Bradford district, said he welcomed the implementation of the IICSA recommendations, but frustrations remained.
“We have had no guarantees from government that there will be any national inquiry that focuses on the Bradford district, that focuses on the wider 50 towns where those issues have been raised.”
