Labour told to be 'transparent' over grooming gangs U-turn after 'dark' cover up: 'People worried about being racist!'

Following the announcement of Baroness Casey's report into the nationwide grooming gangs scandal, the Conservative MP welcomed the investigation: "I welcome, and victims and survivors very much welcome, the news that Yvette Cooper had to bring us.

"But it was amazing to hear her say it just a few weeks and months after the Government had been saying the opposite."

She highlighted that some MPs who previously opposed an inquiry now claim they had always supported it, citing Shaun Davies, MP for Telford.

Lam fumed: "There are specific members of parliament, like Shaun Davies, who previously wrote a letter to previous Conservative Government ministers, saying to them ‘there's nothing to see here, please don't hold an inquiry in Telford’, and today saying that effectively he'd been calling for this all along."

She insisted the Government must provide transparency about their change of position and specific details about the proposed inquiry.

The Shadow Minister told GB News: "Now we welcome the Government's change of heart, but it's so important that the Government is honest about what they have been saying, and I think that the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary should explain why they've changed their minds.

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"These victims and survivors have for years, and in some cases decades, had people rubbish what they had to say, make it seem like they were liars, that some of these victims were child prostitutes, that they were doing things that they wanted to do."

Lam continued: "And after all of this time of being disbelieved, if people have changed their minds, that is wonderful, but to do so credibly, they need to explain why and they need to give us the details of this inquiry."

Questioning the effectiveness of a nationwide inquiry, Lam highlighted that the Casey report suggests it may only be a "coordination of local inquiries".

She said: "Who's going to lead it? Where exactly will it cover? They say it's going to be national, but the report itself looks like it might actually be a coordination of local inquiries. We need to see this information for what the Government is saying to be credible.

"Unfortunately, and sadly, I think it says something quite dark about where we've ended up in Britain on a few different issues, that so many people were more comfortable aiding and abetting, facilitating and covering up mass child rape than they were of being accused of being racist."

Lam cited specific examples of authorities suppressing information about grooming gangs: "West Midlands Police back in 2010 suppressed a report saying that there were Asian Pakistani men who were grooming girls outside care homes, outside the gates of playgrounds and schools.

"And we know from what people said at the time that that report was suppressed because people were worried about inflaming community tensions, and they were more worried about that than they were about our children."

Highlighting the work of previous Conservative ministers, Lam concluded: "It's human nature not to look straight at things that you find difficult or uncomfortable, but there were definitely brave people in the last Government.

"Suella Braverman, the former Home Secretary, started the grooming gang task force. She spoke out about this issue quite a lot and was, at the time, rubbished and ridiculed. So it's amazing to see how far we've come."