Badenoch and PM clash at PMQs over grooming gangs
The debate on grooming gangs has dominated the political agenda after tech-billionaire Elon Musk amplified calls for a national inquiry, ITV News Political Correspondent Harry Horton reports
Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch clashed at Prime Minister's Questions over the grooming gangs scandal.
"No-one has joined the dots - no-one has the total picture," Badenoch said, urging Starmer to "be a leader, not a lawyer".
The debate around grooming gangs has dominated the political agenda after tech-billionaire Elon Musk amplified calls for a national inquiry, launching an online attack on Starmer and his government as he labelled the PM "complicit" in child sexual abuse.
The prime minister revealed he had met with victims and survivors of child sexual abuse on Wednesday morning, calling on the Conservatives to "defy the misleading leadership" of Badenoch and abandon their "wrecking amendment".
The Conservatives tabled an amendment to a government Bill on the safety of children - but Labour have accused the Tories of "shameless opportunism in pursuit of a good headline", by seeking to block the "landmark" Bill.
The amendment was rejected by the Commons on Wednesday evening.
The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill will see parents no longer have an automatic right to take their children out of school for home education if the young person is subject to a child protection investigation or suspected of being at risk of significant harm.
Starmer said that when he met with victims, there were "mixed views" about a further national inquiry. A seven-year independent probe into child sexual exploitation concluded in 2022, and there have been a number of other council-led inquiries.
The PM hit out at the Conservatives for not acting on the recommendations of the 2022 inquiry, insisting "they've been tweeting and talking, we've been acting."
On Monday the Home Secretary announced there would be criminal sanctions for professionals who work with children if they fail to report claims of child sexual abuse. The Conservatives had promised to introduce a similar law, but it was criticised by campaigners for being watered down.
Musk's online attacks began after a letter from Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips was shared online, in which she rejected a request for a government-led inquiry into sexual exploitation in Oldham.
On Tuesday Phillips told ITV News abuse by Elon Musk has "turned my world upside down" and the tech billionaire "knows absolutely nothing" about child sexual exploitation.
Phillips told ITV News' Deputy Political Editor Anushka Asthana that when Musk called her a "rape genocide apologist" and an "evil witch", her immediate thought was "what a joke", but "then you wake up with the realisation it's millions of people he's said that to," she said.
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"The thing that annoys me the most about it is it takes up so much bandwidth of my time, from a man who knows absolutely nothing about the subject he's talking about", she said.
"The only thing I ever want to be doing is being able to use all of my brain power to focus on the hundreds of girls I have supported over the years, who have been victims of grooming gangs".
The Birmingham Yardley MP defended her decision not to have a government inquiry, saying she saw how effective a council-led inquiry was in Telford, where "things changed, way quicker."
"When I was asked to make that decision my instinct was to try and get for Oldham what I’d seen in Telford", she said.
Phillips however admitted she hadn't spoken to the Oldham victims, but she's "very much hoping to do that and arranging that". It was the victims in Oldham who pushed the council to request a government inquiry, in an effort to better scrutinise authorities.
The minister also told Sky News she was prepared to have a national inquiry into grooming gangs "if the victims come forward" and say they want one. The government announced on Monday that there would be a panel with victims of child sexual exploitation, and Phillips said "nothing is off the table" in terms of her approach to the scandal.
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