Sir Keir Starmer has opened the door to a u-turn on his refusal to hold an inquiry into grooming gangs, Downing Street has confirmed.
After safeguarding minister Jess Phillips said a new national probe into the scandal was still on the table, the prime minister’s official spokesman said the government would grant one if victims’ groups called for it.
“Jess Phillips has been engaging extensively with victims, and what we have heard loud and clear from victims is that they do not want to see more inquiries,” he said.
But, after repeated questioning, Sir Keir’s spokesman said that if victims’ groups indicated in the future they wanted a new national probe into grooming gangs, one would be granted.
The admission came after a tense PMQs in which Sir Keir and Kemi Badenoch traded blows over the issue of child grooming gangs, with the PM sticking to the line that victims want action as opposed to another inquiry over fears about a delay.
Ms Badenoch described child grooming as “one of the worst scandals in British history”, accusing the PM of denying an inquiry to protect Labour politicians “who may be complicit”.
In a damning admission, Ms Badenoch’s spokesman later confirmed she has not yet met any victims of the grooming gangs scandal and that she currently has no plans to do so. Her spokesman said her calls for a national inquiry into grooming gangs are based on what she has read in the media and other reports.
The row comes ahead of a crunch vote on a Tory so-called “wrecking amendment” to Labour’s children’s welfare bill. The bill 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.
While the Conservatives have tabled an amendment to the bill calling for a new inquiry into grooming gangs, because of parliamentary procedure it would also stop the bill in its tracks and prevent it progressing through the Commons stages.
Speaking to Sky News on Tuesday night, Ms Phillips said “nothing is off the table” in dealing with the grooming gangs scandal.
“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,” Ms Phillips said.
It is a change in tone for the government, which in October rejected requests for the Home Office to lead a public inquiry into child sexual exploitation and grooming in Oldham.
Fuelled by interventions from Elon Musk, Ms Badenoch and Reform UK have since piled pressure on the government to order a new national probe.
Sir Keir and his top team have so far insisted that the government is instead focused on implementing the recommendations of a previous review into child sex abuse by Professor Alexis Jay.
She has backed Sir Keir and denounced Mr Musk’s calls for a new inquiry, urging ministers to “get on with it” and implement the 20 recommendations from her report.
Professor Jay, who led the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, has said “the time has passed” for another lengthy examination of grooming gangs.
At PMQs, Sir Keir accused Ms Badenoch of jumping on a bandwagon in her calls for a new inquiry into grooming gangs. He said: “One of the central recommendations was mandatory reporting, and it still hasn’t been enacted. I called for this 11 years ago, they’ve been tweeting and talking, we’ve been acting.
“The Leader of the Opposition has been an MP, I think for eight years, her party have been in government for seven and a half of those eight years. She was the children’s minister. She was the women’s equalities minister. I can’t remember her, I can’t recall her once raising this issue in the House, once calling for a national inquiry.
“It’s only in recent days she’s jumped on the bandwagon. In fairness, if I’m wrong about that and she has raised it, then I invite her to say that now, and I will happily withdraw the remark that she hasn’t raised it in this House in the eight years that she’s been here until today.” Sir Keir’s official spokesman said he would “reject” the characterisation of the change in tone as the government suggesting it is open to a u-turn, instead highlighting that it is pursuing a “victims-first approach”.
