Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.
Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in
Tories told to ‘put up or shut up’ as they seek grooming gangs amendment to Labour’s child safety bill
Independent Premium
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
A furious row has erupted over the Conservatives’ bid to use Labour’s children’s safety bill to force a vote for a national grooming gangs inquiry, pushed for by billionaire Elon Musk.
After facing Sir Keir Starmer at PMQs, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch will seek an amendment to the Labour’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which is expected to call for ministers to establish a “national statutory inquiry into historical child sexual exploitation, focused on grooming gangs”.
Claiming the Bill is “single biggest piece of child protection legislation in a generation”, education secretary Bridget Phillipson warned that, if successful, the Tory move would “block it and kill it stone dead”, calling the move “absolutely sickening”.
Speaking to the Mirror , Sir Keir said: “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.”
A thinktank has suggested that voters may be willing to “make trade offs” over paying fees for access to NHS care after a new survey revealed that “free at the point of care” has reduced as a priority.
New Redfield & Wilton Strategies polling for Policy Exchange showed that improved NHS performance for core services, including “improved access to GPs” and “shorter waiting times”, are more important.
The survey appears to reflect growing frustration in the UK with the difficulty in seeing a GP and the so-called dentistry deserts across the country.
Our political editor David Maddox reports:
For the first time ‘free at the point of delivery’ has dropped as a priority among voters for what they want from the NHS
The education secretary said the Conservatives’ push for a vote that would halt progress of a Bill aimed at bolstering child safety is “absolutely sickening”.
Bridget Phillipson told Times Radio: “We are looking right across the recommendations that Alexis Jay set out and there are crucial recommendations from the review that she carried out.
“That’s why today we are setting out legislation that addresses many of the wider challenges that we see right across our system. It’s why the Home Secretary announced in the House of Commons the action that we are taking.
“So we are wasting no time in legislating to keep children safe. The question for the Conservatives today is why they are intent on blocking this landmark piece of child protection legislation that would keep the very children safe that they claim they are concerned about.”
She added: “They come along today as we set out legislation to protect the very children they claim to care about and they intend to block it and kill it stone dead. It is absolutely sickening.”
Our political correspondent Archie Mitchell has more details on the row here:
The education secretary warned that supporting symbolic Tory calls for a grooming gangs inquiry will kill a children’s safety bill ‘stone dead’
The Liberal Democrats have accused the Tories of using survivors of the grooming gangs scandal “as a political football”.
Lib Dem education spokesperson Munira Wilson MP 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.”
Tory shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith has claimed that Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter “may have saved humanity”.
In a post on X, where Mr Musk often reposts such statements to his 210 million followers, the Tory frontbencher wrote: “The [Elon Musk] purchase of X may have saved humanity. With X becoming a true freedom of speech platform, the common ground of public opinion is no longer determined by a left-leaning elite.
“Recent political earthquakes in the US, the UK and now Canada are a release of pent up democratic will as citizens regain their ability to speak freely.
“Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press created the preconditions for democracies to replace bad kings or clerics. X is now doing the same for unaccountable and failing bureaucratic states.”
After weeks of dire economic warnings for the prime minister, he has now come under fire from one of Britain’s biggest entrepreneurs.
Brewdog founder James Watt has taken aim at Sir Keir Stamer’s recent letter to regulators urging them to come up with ideas to boost investment and kickstart economic growth.
The Punk IPA tycoon said Sir Keir asking regulators how to boost business growth “is like asking chickens for tips on how to sell more McNuggets”.
Writing on LinkedIn, he added: “Maybe if you want to drive growth, you should ask the people who actually create it… like entrepreneurs, founders and business owners. Just a thought Keir Starmer.”
Elon Musk has continued his conspiratorial attacks on the Labour government, ahead of the Tories’ attempt to table an amendment to Labour’s children’s safety bill to include a symbolic vote on grooming gangs.
With Labour MPs set to back the government’s bill, Mr Musk wrote on X: “Now why would Keir Starmtrooper order his own party to block such an inquiry? Because he is hiding terrible things. That is why.”
Sir Keir was praised in a 2013 parliamentary report for his efforts to bring grooming gangs to justice while director of public prosecutions.
“Mr Starmer has striven to improve the treatment of victims of sexual assault within the criminal justice system throughout his term,” the report said, adding that his “response should provide a model to the other agencies involved in tackling localised grooming”.
Bridget Phillipson has denied the government is committing “educational vandalism” with its Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.
Tory shadow education secretary Laura Trott has accused Labour of being set on “tearing up everything that has driven up school standards”, amid fears that academies will lose freedoms that can help to recruit teachers and improve pupil outcomes in challenging areas.
Academies – which are independent of local authorities – currently have the freedom to set their own pay and conditions for staff, and some academies exceed the national pay scales for teachers.
But under the new legislation, all teachers will be part of the same core pay and conditions framework whether they work in a local authority-run school or an academy.
Responding to Conservative criticism, the education secretary told LBC: “I think the only vandals here are the people that today intend to vote down the single biggest piece of child protection legislation. They are the vandals.”
Calls for a national inquiry into grooming gangs should be debated “without calling each other names”, the Tory shadow education secretary has said.
Laura Trott told Sky News that the Conservatives’ calls for a national inquiry followed further details about the issue becoming known after the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse had been established.
She said: “There is much more information that has come to light, this is an evolving picture. There is more that we need to understand and, as a result, it makes sense to do a national inquiry alongside taking forward further steps to help support and protect victims.”
Pointing to a report from the grooming gangs taskforce just before the election that showed 550 people had been arrested in the past year, she added: “This is about new information which is coming forward about the extent of what’s happening and us needing more information to take this forward.
“I would like this to be done on a cross-party basis, where we talk about these things, we are able to have policy debates, without people calling each other names.”
Sir Keir Starmer has warned Conservative MPs not to back a Commons push for a new nationwide child grooming investigation, as 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 “completely shortsighted”.
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.
The non-binding amendment also calls for the Commons to halt the progress of the Bill, which includes measures aimed at bolstering safeguarding for children, such as removing the automatic right for parents 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.
Here is a brief timeline of events in the House of Commons today:
At midday, Sir Keir Starmer will face his first PMQs of the year amid the row sparked by social media boss Elon Musk over the grooming gangs scandal.
Later in the day, MPs will debate Labour’s children’s wellbeing and schools bill – with the Tories expected to seek an amendment to the bill calling for ministers to establish a “national statutory inquiry into historical child sexual exploitation, focused on grooming gangs”. A vote is expected at around 4pm.
In what is expected to be the final business of the Wednesday’s sitting, Tory MP David Davis will lead a debate on the case of convicted child serial killer Lucy Letby. He believes a retrial would “come to a different conclusion”.
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in
