Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has insisted local inquiries into grooming gangs in five towns are still going ahead despite claims the plans have been watered down.
In January, Cooper announced a three-month rapid review into the issue, as well as five local inquiries – but has only named the location for one, in Oldham.
Sir Trevor Phillips, former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has claimed the government is not naming locations for "obviously political" reasons, because of the "demographic of people involved".
Cooper denied this on BBC Breakfast but added that the best way to get justice for victims was through more police investigations rather than inquiries.
"Actually the best way of all of doing that is a police investigation – it's not an inquiry, it's a police investigation – so the most important thing we're doing is increasing police investigations," she said.
The Home Secretary denied Sir Trevor's claims, made on Times Radio, that she was failing to push ahead with local reviews "because of the demographic of people involved… largely Pakistani Muslim background, and also in Labour-held seats and councils who would be offended by it".
When pressed on the claims on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Cooper said: "There's a lot of misinformation around this and sadly a lot of party political misinformation around this…
"We've already said we'll support Oldham to have a local inquiry and we're currently drawing up the framework for further local inquiries."
