The Labour Government is under increasing pressure to launch a national inquiry into the sexual abuse of women and children in the UK.

Conservative MP Robbie Moore has launched a scathing attack on Labour's approach to grooming gang investigations, urging Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to "change course urgently" on the issue. The Keighley & Ilkley MP dismissed Home Secretary Yvette Cooper's recently announced measures as just "smoke and mirrors".

EXCLUSIVE - Liz Truss has suggested Keir Starmer is refusing a fully funded independent inquiry into grooming gangs because of Labour politicians' own roles.

It’s understood that the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper will announce a plan to implement local inquiries into grooming gangs in a statement to the Commons later.

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The home secretary has announced the professionals who work with children will face criminal sanctions if they do not report child sexual abuse. Yvette Cooper told MPs that a “significant package of measures” will be announced by the government in the next few weeks aimed at tackling online child sexual exploitation.

His comments were a response to remarks made by Sir Keir Starmer on Monday morning, when he criticised politicians “calling for inquiries because they want to jump on a bandwagon of the far-right”.

UK Interior minister Yvette Cooper also said several new local inquiries into cases of abuse would be launched, bowing to political pressure for further action but stopping short of demands for a new nationwide inquiry.

The announcement follows weeks of mounting pressure on Sir Keir Starmer to address the issue of child sexual exploitation.

The home secretary says the government will make it an offense "with professional and criminal sanctions" to fail to report or cover up child sexual abuse. Yvette Cooper's statement in the House of Commons comes after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer hit back at tech billionaire Elon Musk's attack on the Labour government over the grooming gangs scandal.

The announcement marks a partial retreat by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who had pushed back against demands by Musk and others for a fresh national inquiry into the child rape gangs

Starmer has shown a degree of ruthlessness in silencing internal dissent, something which may have been positive for him in the short term and reassured voters that he is not a Corbynista, but it’s inevitably stored up long-term trouble and left parts of the party feeling burned.