Oldham will be the first area examined by the new national inquiry into grooming gangs, after letters published on GOV.UK on 10 December confirmed the priority and set out how the process will run. The Home Office had announced the chair, panellists and draft terms of reference the previous day.

Baroness Anne Longfield CBE will lead the statutory inquiry with Zoë Billingham CBE and Eleanor Kelly CBE on the panel. In her reply, Longfield said “victims and survivors are central to this inquiry” and pledged a trauma‑informed approach.

In a formal letter to the panel, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood set a budget “of up to £65 million” and an expectation that the inquiry will conclude within three years. The draft terms will be consulted on in January, with the final version due by March 2026 when the inquiry is formally established.

The North is at the centre of the first phase. In a 9 December letter, Mahmood told Oldham Council leader Arooj Shah the national inquiry will prioritise Oldham for an early local investigation. Shah welcomed the move as “an important step forward for our borough” and said residents had “waited far too long”.

Speaking in Parliament, Mahmood said “no location will be able to resist a local investigation”. The terms make clear the inquiry will examine offenders’ backgrounds - including ethnicity and religion - and whether agencies pulled their punches “to protect community cohesion”.

Alongside the inquiry, the Home Office confirmed extra action: support for the National Crime Agency’s Operation Beaconport and funding for local police to review closed cases; a rapid assessment of support for child victims; and an automatic disregard for historic “child prostitution” convictions. Evidence emerging from the inquiry will be passed to police.

GOV.UK biographies set out why this panel matters to Northern communities. Billingham spent over a decade holding policing to account at HMICFRS and helped make violence against women and girls a strategic policing requirement. Kelly, a seasoned local government chief, has led recovery work after Grenfell and the London Bridge attack.

Baroness Louise Casey, whose National Audit in June recommended a time‑limited inquiry with local probes, wrote to the Prime Minister and Home Secretary endorsing Longfield as chair with Billingham and Kelly, arguing the inquiry needs experts who “will not have the wool pulled over their eyes”. She will advise the panel.

For councils, police and safeguarding teams across the North, the message is direct: this is a statutory process with the power to compel documents and testimony. Mahmood says it will act “without fear or favour” and work hand‑in‑glove with the national police operation. Stonewalling won’t wash.

Next steps are practical and immediate. Longfield will appoint a secretary, counsel and solicitor, and build the secretariat while consulting on the terms in January. The inquiry will launch its own website and publish contact details in the new year, before finalising the remit by March 2026.

Longfield has also resigned the Labour whip and taken a leave of absence from the House of Lords for the duration, emphasising independence as she begins meetings with survivors - starting in Oldham.