Judges must give longer sentences to Asian Muslim grooming gangs who abuse white teenage girls when there is evidence of racism, the Government's senior legal advisor has said.

Robert Buckland, the Solicitor General, told The Telegraph that racism "cuts all ways" and should be "front and centre" when it is part of sexual abuse cases.

He said that "the law does not discriminate" between different forms of racism and that the courts should apply a "sentencing uplift" where there is evidence of "racial hostility of motivation".

Tory MPs are calling on the Attorney General and Mr Buckland to review the sentences of an 18-strong gang in Newcastle convicted of grooming and raping hundreds of underage white girls.