Sir Keir Starmer will face Kemi Badenoch at the first PMQs of the year from 12pm. The Tories are tabling a bid to force a national inquiry into the grooming gang scandal – but Labour says voting for it could kill another “landmark” child protection bill.
Wednesday 8 January 2025 11:39, UK
Sir Keir Starmer will face Kemi Badenoch in the first PMQs of the year from 12pm.
It’s the first time they’ve faced each other since the prime minister accused the Tory leader of “jumping on a bandwagon” and “amplifying what the far-right is saying” by calling for a grooming gangs inquiry, having failed to do so while in power.
Speaking on Monday, he also criticised senior Conservatives for not calling out abuse of safeguarding minister Jess Phillips, led by Elon Musk.
The leader of the opposition will have her usual six questions today, the Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey will have two, and then MPs of all parties will have the opportunity to put their concerns to the PM.
Here is the list of MPs guaranteed to ask a question of the PM today…
By Alix Culbertson, political reporter
Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips has said “nothing is off the table” when dealing with the grooming gangs scandal – including a new national inquiry if victims want one.
The safeguarding minister told political editor Beth Rigby on Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast she would listen to victims on a new panel announced by the government on Tuesday.
“Nothing is off the table,” she said.
“And if the victims come forward to me in this victims panel and they say, ‘actually, we think there needs to be a national inquiry into this’, I’ll listen to them.”
Her comments come days after it emerged she had rejected calls from Oldham Council to hold a government inquiry into grooming gangs in the town, and said the council should commission one instead.
That has led to tech billionaire Elon Musk attacking her and Sir Keir Starmer for not holding a national inquiry and accusing the PM of being “complicit” in the abuse.
Professor Alexis Jay finished an eight-year national inquiry into child sexual abuse in 2022 and set out recommendations for the government.
The Conservatives have tabled an amendment to the Children’s Safeguarding and Schools Bill to require a statutory inquiry into grooming gangs.
However, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson told Sky News the Tories “don’t care about children” as the amendment could prevent the entire bill from going forwards.
Rachel Reeves is on course to tighten Whitehall public service budgets further than expected in the spending review because of the worsening economic outlook, Sky News can reveal.
This will pit the chancellor against some ministers who already claim she is sacrificing the manifesto promises they are expected to deliver – which will no longer be possible on tight budgets – so that she can fulfil her promises.
The chancellor committed in the budget to pay for day to day government spending through taxation rather than borrowing, something that has not been achieved for decades.
In the October budget she left herself just £9.9bn of leeway, out of a total bill for public spending that tops £1trn. Worsening economic conditions – including borrowing costs reaching their highest levels since 1998 – mean that the buffer could now be as little as £1bn and could now be eroded altogether.
Sky News understands the Treasury is braced for the possibility that on the Spring Statement on 26 March, the Office for Budget Responsibility judges she is in breach of her fiscal rule, and would take immediate action to avert this.
We understand she will stick to her borrowing promises – the fiscal rules announced in the October budget. The Treasury has also committed that there will be no tax changes in the Spring Statement on 26 March.
In this event, Ms Reeves would be left with no choice other than to shrink public spending budgets further, as well as look for additional, potentially politically unpopular cuts to the welfare budget.
Could Reeves shrink public spending budgets?
In the budget, Ms Reeves allocated a more generous 4.3% spending uplift in 2024/5 and more modest 2.6% in 2025/6.
But after that she has allocated just 1.3% from 2026 to 2029, which is lower than any point during the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown governments, or any point under Boris Johnson.
Worsening economic conditions would mean Ms Reeves had to squeeze budgets further, offering even less than 1.3% a year after 2026, which will likely put herself on a collision course with departments like the Home Office, justice, housing, transport and the environment.
The 1.3% uplift must already account for increases in defence spending to put the UK on course to reach 2.5% of GDP for defence, meaning less for the rest of Whitehall, and any further shrinkage of the budget is likely to be greeted with horror by some cabinet teams.
Parliament’s Science, Innovation and Technology Committee has again invited X owner Elon Musk to give evidence about “how algorithms used by social media platforms can spread false and harmful content”.
The invitation has been extended as part of the committee’s investigation that was launched following the riots in the summer in the wake of the Southport murders.
Mr Musk has been in the headlines over the last week following his vicious attacks on Sir Keir Starmer and safeguarding minister Jess Phillips after they refused a request from Oldham council for a national inquiry into grooming gangs.
They say inquiries have already taken place, and they are committed to implementing all the 20 recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) that reported in 2022 – but the X owner and opposition politicians say it is not enough.
In a statement, committee chair Chi Onwurah MP said: “The headlines over the last couple of days illustrate how potent misinformation on social media can be.”
She continued: “Last summer, false and harmful content spread across social media caused violence on our streets.”
Such “viral misinformation – or the real-world harm it causes” should not be accepted as “an inevitable part of social media”, she argued.
After the riots, the committee “launched an inquiry to examine how algorithms used by social media platforms can spread false and harmful content”.
“A crucial part of this is hearing from leading social media platforms, including X, and we have invited Mr Musk to appear before the committee,” Ms Onwurah said.
“This isn’t about picking a fight with Mr Musk. We want to understand the technology he has shaped and his views on X’s approach to misinformation and free speech.”
“Rather than speak to UK politicians through his X account, I hope that he will take up our invitation and take the opportunity to engage with the democratic process and give us his thoughts directly.”
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, South African-born American resident and owner of X (formerly Twitter), is already within the fold of US politics and president-elect Trump’s upcoming government.
Recently, more of his attention has turned to Europe, with Mr Musk sharing support for the far-right German party AfD, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and far-right activist Tommy Robinson.
Niall Paterson looks to unpick what Mr Musk’s aims for European politics might be. Our deputy political editor Sam Coates joins Niall to discuss the billionaire’s posts on X and the political reaction to them.
Plus, culture, technology and society writer Sarah Manavis joins Niall to explore why Mr Musk is so interested in international politics, and for what potential gain.
Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, has addressed a row with the world’s richest man over grooming gangs for the first time since it emerged.
Elon Musk had called Ms Phillips a “rape genocide apologist”, adding that she should be jailed – and criticising Sir Keir Starmer for failing to prosecute gangs in the past.
It came after the minister rejected a request for the government to lead a public inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham.
The government say an inquiry of this nature – led by Professor Alexis Jay – has already taken place, and the recommendations have yet to be implemented.
Speaking to our political editor Beth Rigby, Ms Phillips condemned Mr Musk’s statements as “ridiculous” claims.
She said: “My strongest feeling is that there is a huge furore about something a man, thousands of miles away, said about me.”
The minister added she cares “deeply” about the issues around grooming gangs, and has “dedicated most of my working life” to supporting victims.
“It’s painful to watch it become a political football rather than an actual attempt to really do something,” she told Sky News.
“You get very, very tired when you do this kind of work and I’ve sat in courtrooms with young girls because they’ll only speak if I’m sat there holding their hand.
‘Never waste a crisis’
“I’ve literally had a young woman, groomed and raped and she was pregnant, miscarry to the point where it marked my shoes because I was in the room with her and taking her to hospital while that was happening.”
Ms Phillips says it is “really, really painful” to see “sudden demands” and “ridiculous statements” by the Conservative Party and a “man thousands of miles away” when “you’ve seen what I’ve seen”.
But the minister said she has learnt to “never waste a crisis”.
“And I won’t waste this one – I will make it so that we get change in our country.”
We’ve just been speaking to the Conservatives’ shadow education secretary, Laura Trott, ahead of a potential debate on their bid to force a vote on a call for a national inquiry into the grooming scandal.
Sky’s Wilfred Frost asked if a national inquiry that could take years is really the most of effective way of protecting children and ensuring grooming never happens again, particularly as the recommendations from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) have not yet been implemented.
Ms Trott replied that that report showed that child grooming “was still taking place across the country”.
She said the previous Tory government created the Grooming Gangs Task Force, which led to hundreds of arrests and 4,000 children protected.
But “this is an evolving picture”, and we do not know “the exact number of victims, the exact number of perpetrators”, or all the places where grooming is taking place.
“So we are calling for a time limited inquiry to look at all of those questions,” she explained.
“This will not stop work being done in the meantime to protect victims, but it is very important that we have this information.”
Asked why the Tories did not call for this sooner, and why the 20 recommendations from the IICSA were not implemented, Ms Trott replied: “I will always sit here and say that there is more that could have been done to help support and stop victims of child sexual abuse. No government has done this perfectly, but what I would say is that we did a huge amount when we were in government.”
She said it is “absolutely a legitimate policy argument to be having as to whether the national inquiry is the right thing to do”, and added: “It is unacceptable to smear calls for this as far right.”
Asked if the Tories failed the victims for not having done more sooner, she insisted the previous government did vast amounts to protect children, and a national inquiry is the right next step.
The text of the Conservative Party’s reasoned amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill has been published on parliament’s website.
The Speaker still has to select it for it to be debated, which we will have confirmed in the coming hours.
The Tories have framed it as a bid to force the government to hold a national inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal – but it would not only not mandate the government to hold an inquiry, it would kill the wider bill (read why here), which the party also wants to do.
The amendment sets out the reasons for the Tories’ opposition to the bill.
It says the legislation:
Finally, the amendment “calls upon the government to develop new legislative proposals for children’s wellbeing including establishing a national statutory inquiry into historical child sexual exploitation, focused on grooming gangs”.
Shadow education secretary Laura Trott told Sky’s Wilfred Frost on the Breakfast programme that there is “a lot of merit” in the wellbeing and safeguarding parts of the legislation.
“We will have lots of detailed amendments at committee [stage] about exactly how it’s being implemented,” she said.
“But a lot of this is things that we have brought forward previously. So we do support some of it in principle, yes.”
Sky News’ deputy political editor Sam Coates and Politico’s Jack Blanchard are back for 2025 with their guide to the day ahead in politics in under 20 minutes.
The economy is back in focus today in Westminster, if borrowing continues to rise, will more department spending cuts have to follow?
The Conservatives are putting forward their amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill as grooming gangs, and the man really driving the agenda, Elon Musk, continue to be hotly debated.
And will accounts of SAS executions in Afghanistan get a mention in PMQs?
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We’ve just been speaking with the education secretary, Bridget Phillpson, ahead of the flagship Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill having its second reading in parliament today.
She describes the bill as the “single biggest piece of child protection legislation in a generation” which would ensure coordination across agencies” to ensure that we know where children are in order to “make sure that our children are protected”.
But the Tories are tabling a reasoned amendment to force a national inquiry into the grooming gang scandal that, if it passes at this stage of the process, would essentially kill the whole bill, and Ms Phillipson was visibly furious when speaking about it.
She told Sky’s Wilfred Frost: “The Conservatives can back this or, as they’re proposing, can kill stone dead this key landmark legislation.
“They’ve spent the last week or so touring studios like this telling your viewers that they care about keeping children safe.
“Well, they should put up or shut up. Vote for this legislation, and do precisely that. Or is it all about grabbing a cheap headline and political opportunism?”
The education secretary also said that the announcement on Monday that the government will accept all the recommendations from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, that reported in 2022, is as a result of work that was “well under way ahead of Christmas”.
She continued: “And the bandwagon jumpers that have come along in recent days – they don’t care about children, they don’t care about making sure that we stop this, and we take action.
“They [the Tories] had years to do it, and they didn’t do it. And victims and children and survivors have been failed. So let’s just get on and do what is necessary to keep children safe in our country.”
She went on to say: “Do they own a mirror? I mean, they are the very people that are responsible for the failure to act. And they are the same very people today, the Conservatives, who intend to block our legislation to keep children safe.
“I thought there wasn’t a limit to how far they would sink, and I was wrong.”
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