Mandatory collection and publication of certain child sexual offender data
260,974 people signed this petition to the UK Parliament after it opened on 16 July 2025; it closed on 16 January 2026. The Government responded on 5 December 2025. MPs debated it in Westminster Hall on 1 June 2026.
The petition
The petition's creator is not named in the Petitions site's published record. Quoted in full from the UK Parliament petitions site.
Mandatory collection and publication of certain child sexual offender data
Place a statutory requirement on councils, the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and all other related institutions to collect, record and publish the nationality, ethnicity, immigration status and religion of child sexual offenders, including gang based crime.
To protect children and inform public policy, we believe it is essential to collect, record and publish the nationality, ethnicity, immigration status and religion of all child sexual offenders, including gang based crime. This data will allow for better understanding of offender demographics, ensure transparency, and support targeted safeguarding strategies. Without this information, critical patterns may be missed, weakening efforts to prevent abuse and protect vulnerable children.
The Government's response
The Government published its response on 5 December 2025; the petitions site lists the Home Office as responsible. Its summary:
The Government is already taking action to increase the collection and transparency of data on the demographic characteristics of individuals responsible for group-based child sexual exploitation.
The opening 352 words of the 488-word response:
The Government is determined to protect children from the horrors of grooming gangs and other forms of sexual abuse and exploitation. In February 2025, the Prime Minister and then Home Secretary commissioned Baroness Louise Casey of Blackstock to evaluate the understanding of the scale, nature and drivers of group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA), including assessing data on the ethnicity of perpetrators. Her National Audit was published on Monday 16 June, and can be found here – https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-audit-on-group-based-child-sexual-exploitation-and-abuse.
The Government immediately accepted the twelve recommendations from Baroness Casey’s Audit, which included making it a requirement for the police to collect the ethnicity and nationality data of individuals suspected of being members of grooming gangs or perpetrators of other group-based child sexual exploitation (recommendation four).
In July this year, the former Home Secretary wrote to all Chief Constables to set out the clear expectation that ethnicity data on child sexual exploitation and grooming gang suspects should be collected in every case, and to urge them to make sure they are fulfilling their obligation to collect suspect ethnicity data as part of the Government's commitment to transparency and accountability. The Home Office is closely monitoring data collection and provision from forces and continues to engage with individual forces on where improvements are required. If we do not see improvements, we will not hesitate to take further action.
In respect of nationality data, the Ministry of Justice already includes data on the nationality of persons within the prison system in its quarterly offender management statistics, here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/offender-management-statistics-quarterly. In addition, the Home Office has committed to review the data that it collects and publishes regarding the nationalities and offences committed by foreign national offenders who are subject to deportation proceedings. Further details of that review process can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/statistics-on-foreign-national-offenders-and-the-immigration-system.
Recommendation four of Baroness Casey’s Audit did not include the collection of data on religion and immigration status. There is no current mechanism to collect such data on religion, other than through any declaration made by the perpetrator themselves, which would weaken both the accuracy and comprehensiveness of any analysis based on that data.
Read the full response on the petitions site.
Where the signatures came from
Signatures came from 650 constituencies. Measured against each constituency's electorate at the 2024 general election, the most came from Great Yarmouth, with 17.7 signatures per 1,000 electors (1,299 in all).
257,593 of the signatures were from the UK and 3,381 from elsewhere, by the location signers gave.
| Constituency | Signatures | Electorate, July 2024 | Per 1,000 electors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Great Yarmouth | 1,299 | 73,317 | 17.7 |
| Redcar | 771 | 70,241 | 11.0 |
| Rochdale | 773 | 72,507 | 10.7 |
| Houghton and Sunderland South | 814 | 78,448 | 10.4 |
| Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland | 733 | 70,331 | 10.4 |
| Washington and Gateshead South | 736 | 70,972 | 10.4 |
| Whitehaven and Workington | 737 | 73,198 | 10.1 |
| Heywood and Middleton North | 736 | 73,328 | 10.0 |
| Rossendale and Darwen | 745 | 74,440 | 10.0 |
| Barrow and Furness | 745 | 74,980 | 9.9 |
| Region | Signatures |
|---|---|
| North West | 35,158 |
| South East | 34,959 |
| East of England | 28,079 |
| Yorkshire and The Humber | 25,459 |
| South West | 23,261 |
| West Midlands | 22,257 |
| East Midlands | 20,013 |
| Scotland | 17,810 |
| North East | 16,338 |
| London | 14,185 |
| Wales | 13,482 |
| Northern Ireland | 4,871 |
Debate in Parliament
MPs debated the petition in Westminster Hall on 1 June 2026. Read the debate in Hansard. House of Commons Library debate pack.
Source and receipt
- https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/730605.jsonUK Parliament Petitions API · read 2026-10-15 · SHA-256
2a54c1f91c93d914… - The petition on petition.parliament.uk
The petition's words are its creator's and the response is the Government's; this site quotes both and gives no view on either. Signature counts can still change while a petition is open. To report an error, send a correction request.