Top minister tells Tories ‘put up or shut up’ ahead of grooming gang vote
The education secretary warned that supporting symbolic Tory calls for a grooming gangs inquiry will kill a children’s safety bill ‘stone dead’
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Your support makes all the difference.The education secretary has told Conservatives to “put up or shut up” and back Labour’s child safety bill, ahead of a Commons push for a new national inquiry into grooming gangs.
Bridget Phillipson warned a Conservative bid to amend the government’s children’s wellbeing and schools bill would “kill it stone dead”, jeopardising urgent measures to protect vulnerable youngsters.
Kemi Badenoch is seeking to force an amendment to the bill calling for ministers to establish a “national statutory inquiry into historical child sexual exploitation, focused on grooming gangs”.
The amendment has almost zero chance of passing, but due to parliamentary process, if voted for it would stop the overall bill in its tracks and prevent it being brought back before the Commons in the current parliamentary session.
It includes measures that 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.
Speaking to Sky News, Ms Phillipson said: “This is the single biggest piece of child protection legislation in a generation.
“The choice today is that the Conservatives can back this, or, as they are proposing, can kill stone dead this key landmark legislation.
“They have spent the last week or so touring [TV] studios telling viewers they care about keeping children safe. Well they should put up or shut up and vote for this legislation and do precisely that.
“Or is it all about grabbing a cheap headline and political opportunism.” And she told Times Radio the move by the Conservatives is “absolutely sickening”.
Sir Keir Starmer has also warned Conservative MPs not to back the Tory push for a new child grooming probe, saying it prioritises “the desire for retweets over any real interest in the safeguarding of children”.
The prime minister said that Kemi Badenoch’s attempt to garner parliamentary support for a new inquiry, in the form of an amendment to a Bill aimed at bolstering the safety of children, was a “shocking tactic”.
And the Liberal Democrats said the Conservatives were being “goaded along by Elon Musk” and using victims of child sexual abuse as a “political football”.
Sir Keir’s government has faced a slew of attacks from X and Tesla owner Mr Musk in recent days after Home Office minister Jess Phillips declined a request for a nationally led inquiry in Oldham.
Ms Phillips said she faced an increased risk to her safety since Mr Musk called her a “rape genocide apologist”, and the Prime Minister has signalled the businessman crossed a line with his criticism and was spreading misinformation.
The Tories have joined calls by Mr Musk for a new UK-wide inquiry into child sexual abuse, despite a wide-ranging independent probe having concluded its work in 2022.
On Wednesday, Ms Badenoch’s party will bring forward the amendment on grooming gangs to the government’s children’s safety bill.
Sir Keir told the Daily Mirror: “It’s a shocking tactic, completely short-sighted.”
He added: “I would implore any right-thinking Tory MP to vote for the Bill because this would kill the Bill, this would kill the legislation.
“No MP should be voting down children’s safeguarding measures. It’s shocking they are even thinking about this as a tactic. It’s the elevation of the desire for retweets over any real interest in the safeguarding of children.”
The amendment is unlikely to be supported by a majority in the Commons, as the government wants to roll out the recommendations of the investigation led by Professor Alexis Jay rather than open a new inquiry.
Professor Jay, who led the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, has said “the time has passed” for another lengthy examination of grooming gangs. She rebuked Mr Musk and others calling for a fresh inquiry into the scandal, instead urging ministers to “get on with it” and implement the recommendations from her report.
The bill is aimed at preventing cases similar to that of Sara Sharif, 10, who was pulled out of school just months before she was murdered by her father and stepmother.
Homeschooling allowed her abuse to carry on “beyond the gaze of the authorities”, the judge sentencing her killers warned in December.
Ms Phillipson attacked “bandwagon-jumpers” in the Conservative Party who have hijacked the issue of grooming gangs since Mr Musk sparked calls for a fresh inquiry, saying “they don’t care about children... they had years to do it, and they didn’t”.
She added: “Some of the key measures are around making sure we know where children are, having all the information about what is going on in a child’s life… and multi-agency child protection teams sharing that, keeping children safe.
“We’ve heard a lot in recent days about the lessons that we have to learn. I’ve had enough of learning lessons. Now is the time to take action to protect children. One of the key areas where we know there has been failure time and again is where children aren’t listened to, where action isn’t taken and where those who are meant to be working to protect children don’t do that.”
Lib Dem education spokesman Munira Wilson said: "The Conservatives are using the victims of this scandal as a political football.
"The Conservatives alongside Reform, goaded along by Elon Musk will be voting for a motion which will not secure a national inquiry for victims of child sexual abuse, but instead it would kill these crucial child protection measures completely.
"The Liberal Democrats will be putting forward our own amendment to take real action to tackle the child sex abuse scandal, by implementing the recommendations from the national independent inquiry in full.”
Shadow education minister Neil O’Brien claimed the Tories were giving MPs the “first chance to vote to give victims answers and justice”.
On Monday, Ms Cooper said the Government would begin to implement Professor Jay’s call for mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse.
Andrew Norfolk, the Times newspaper reporter who exposed the Rotherham grooming gang scandal which led to Prof Jay’s report, told his former employer he did not think another investigation would help.
The retired journalist also sought to “put the record straight” on Sir Keir’s work as England and Wales’ chief prosecutor, insisting the PM “changed the rules to make more prosecutions possible”.