We can't be complacent on grooming - Labour minister

The Deputy First Minister has said that "none of us can be complacent" about the issue of grooming gangs in Wales.

Labour's Huw Irranca-Davies said that "Wales has a very important role to play" but he refused to be drawn on calls for a specific Welsh inquiry.

A grooming gang victim has called for an inquiry to examine the scale of the problem in Wales.

The Welsh government have previously said there were "no current widespread issues with grooming gangs" in Wales.

But Irranca-Davies stressed that "we can never be complacent. You can never say this will not be happening somewhere".

"You have to then treat it with that seriousness because that is the way to avoid having victims in the future".

Meanwhile sources have told BBC Wales that First Minister Eluned Morgan met Wales' four police and crime commissioners on Monday evening to discuss the matter.

The Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has called a review of grooming gang evidence, as well as five local inquires - in Oldham and four other areas yet to be announced.

Irranca-Davies said that the Welsh government will "play a full part in contributing towards that inquiry" but insisted that it was also important to "put in place the actions" from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, in 2022.

The Children's Commissioner for Wales, Rocio Cifuentes, has been critical of the Welsh government response, accusing them of being "too slow" in implementing the recommendations made in that report.

She said the report by Prof Alexis Jay into child sexual exploitation heard from 6,000 victims in England and Wales and the "priority" should be implementing the recommendations of that "extensive piece of work", rather than another inquiry.

The Welsh Conservative leader in the Senedd, Darren Millar, has called for a Wales-wide inquiry, arguing that the original Jay report only looked at cases in Swansea.

He has accused the government of not having "a grip of the situation, despite there being clear evidence that child sexual exploitation by gangs has happened here in Wales".

Plaid Cymru said there should be an "immediate all Wales police investigation", which could look again at cases of abuse for patterns of grooming behaviours.

The party added: "If such an investigation uncovers any suggestion of a failure to look into patterns of abuse, we would of course back an immediate public inquiry".

The Welsh Liberal Democrats said it supports "anything that will deliver justice for the victims and help prevent these terrible acts from ever happening again".