punish sex investigate and punish sex offenders, but yvette cooper ignores calls for a full blown national inquiry, despite the lawyer of many victims telling gb news the abuse gangs operate everywhere. >> it's in every town and every city. kids on the street are being exploited for sex. >> meanwhile, london mayor sadiq khan dodges questions about whether grooming gangs operate in the capital city. >> just how many grooming gangs have we got in london.7 >> the worrying misunderstanding. can she define what she means by that? >> and as that series of local reviews is announced, just five towns expected to be selected as survivors tell gb news they hope they're picked in a lottery of reviews. >> and farmers take their protests against the government's inheritance tax raid to a supermarket near you. this morning. we'll have the

latest . latest. >> and conservative leader kemi badenoch said she would consider means testing the pensions triple lock. do you support that idea? >> elon musk's starship prototype unexpectedly breaks up in space, disrupting air traffic. we'll bring you the amazing footage. >> and is it time for gen z to toughen up? as it's revealed 1 in 3 workers aged between 18 and 24 missed work last year due to their mental health. we'll have a debate. >> honestly, seriously, i this mental health thing. now i understand some people will suffer with mental health and so forth and that is not in question. but there are so many people, in particular young people, in particular young people just saying it, and i slightly blame some of the stuff that happened because of the whole meghan markle thing, when

piers morgan didn't believe a word she said and all that kind of thing. and i think a lot of people jumped onto this bandwagon and covid everything and sort of a culture of it, a culture of acceptance that the words mental health means that nobody will investigate what it is that you are doing. >> are you giving meghan markle a bit too much credit, though? i think young people listen. >> yeah, you know, she'll get some of it. but you know, i think covid as well is probably absolutely. >> yeah. and we'll debate that later on in the show of course. >> anyway, what do you think? we'll get your thoughts, your comments, post them on gbnews.com/yoursay. but first let's get your latest news with will hollis. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> good morning. your top stories at 9:32, a defence and security deal will bring with poland will bring closer collaboration between the uk and its eastern ally. the prime minister continues his visit to europe, promising to take britain's partnership with poland to the next level. meeting with prime minister

donald tusk, the pair are expected to discuss how how the countries can combat people smuggling gangs and russian aggression. yesterday, sir keir starmer signed a 100 year deal with ukraine while visiting the war torn country. retail sales fell by 0.3% in december. despite the christmas season. the latest retail figures, which are used to help showcase how high streets are performing, were released by the office for national statistics this morning. previous figures for november were seen as shaky when sales rose by just o.1%. sales still remain 2.5% below pre—pandemic levels. sir ed davey has welcomed the government's announcement for a series of local inquiries into the grooming scandal. the home secretary announced government backed local reviews in five areas yesterday, stopping short

of committing to a full scale national inquiry. the liberal democrat leader said action is needed more quickly. >> if we're going to be tough, yeah, let's have the inquiry, just as you say. you're quite right about that. but i don't think we should let the government get away with not taking the action. now. we need to take the action now. and i think that's what liberal democrats would urge the government and all opposition parties, and i'm sure you would agree we do need action now. >> a rapper accused of glorifying murder in his lyrics could be in breach of parole. his killer's mother says jake farage killed schoolboy jimmy mizen and in 2008 was sentenced to 14 years in jail. part of the rapper's parole agreement includes being barred from entering the greenwich borough of london. but in music videos found by the sun newspaper and watched by his victim's family, fahey, who goes by the alias

ten, was filmed in front of canary wharf inside of the borough, promoted by the bbc. a ministry of justice investigation has been launched into the rapper. israeli pm benjamin netanyahu has confirmed a deal to return hamas held hostages. that's despite last minute efforts by some cabinet ministers to stop the ceasefire. later today, israel's security minister will convene to approve the deal. conservative leader kemi badenoch has said her party would consider means testing the pensions triple lock. during an interview on lbc, shadow chancellor mel stride previously described the system, which was brought in by his party in 2011, as unsustainable. the leader of the opposition is being called on to urgently clarify her comments. those are your latest headunes comments. those are your latest headlines will be back in half an hour for the very latest gb

news direct to your smartphone, sign up to news alerts by scanning the qr code or go to gbnews.com/alerts. >> hello. good morning. it's just coming up to 37 minutes after 9:00. this is britain's newsroom. we're live across the united kingdom on gb news with adam cherry and me. nana akua. >> good morning. now the home secretary, yvette cooper, has announced plans for five new local inquiries into the grooming rape gangs scandal. >> now, police forces will also be encouraged to reopen cold cases and victims are urged to report historical cases. >> here is what the home secretary said in the house of commons yesterday. >> effective local inquiries can delve into far more local detail and deliver more locally relevant answers and change than a lengthy nationwide inquiry can

provide. so tom crowther kc, chair of the telford inquiry, has agreed to work with the government to develop a new framework for victim centred, locally led inquiries where they are needed and as a first step, to work with oldham council and up to four other pilot areas. >> but her announcement was met with criticism from the shadow home secretary. >> home secretary just announced government support for only five local inquiries. let me say this is wholly inadequate when we know up to 50 towns are affected. so i have some serious questions for the home secretary. firstly, how are the other 40 plus towns supposed to get answers to the questions that they have? >> well, do you know what they are? do you know what this is? and i think it's embarrassing, actually. now, what it is, is they don't want to say that they need to have a national inquiry. so instead of doing that, they are like doing little steps, little steps to make it look

like we haven't capitulated. i mean, it's very, very childish. and there are people now, we know that this is a thing that's happening nationally all across the country. our reporter, charlie peters, has already done lots of investigations on this. he'll be here with us very shortly to discuss. so it's quite clear that they need to join the dots on a national level with all the powers of a national inquiry. why do you think that they are just attempting to be so ridiculous? to me, this is just childish. and they're just trying to save face. >> yeah, it seems like a bit of a fudge, doesn't it? it's a slow u—turn we've gone from. what was it they said a couple of weeks ago? keir starmer said sort of indulging in this kind of thing was was pandering to the right, to the far right. so now, now the mood music is changing. and you've had several labour mps, particularly those in that area paul wall, sarah champion and a couple of others saying, actually, no, we need to we need to look at this more closely. >> even andy burnham limited inquiry now, his words were limited because he didn't want to say national, but they're all there again. they're politicking. they're being absolutely ridiculous when it's quite clear to even those people abroad, elon musk and people drawing attention to this, that

we need a national overall inquiry with a time limit to it, whilst also arresting people at the same time. i don't see why they can't do it all at once. >> five local inquiries. when there's at least 50 towns across there's at least 50 towns across the country that are affected by this. and also it's not a statutory inquiry. so you can't compel witnesses again. >> so same same mistake as the last one. yeah. but anyway let's get the get the information that we need from this one on. national reporter charlie peterson joins us. so they are having inquiries, but they're having inquiries, but they're having what sounds like what they 1522 00:09:2