Pushing for a new national inquiry into grooming gangs by halting the progress of a bill aimed at bolstering child safety is “utterly sickening”, the education secretary has said.
Bridget Phillipson told the BBC the Tory Party’s plan to bring forward an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill “would kill it stone dead”.
The Conservatives have joined calls by Elon Musk for a new UK-wide inquiry into child sexual abuse, despite a seven-year independent review having concluded its work in 2022.
The wide-ranging bill being debated on Wednesday includes measures to protect vulnerable children, such as tougher rules around home-schooling and support for those in care, inspections of schools, changes to academies, and regulation of private education institutions.
The Conservatives will bring forward an amendment to the bill to call for ministers to establish a national statutory inquiry into historical child sexual exploitation, focused on grooming gangs.
Ministers have said they want to roll out the recommendations of the previous inquiry led by Prof Alexis Jay, rather than open a new national one. Prof Jay told the BBC on Tuesday that victims want action and do not need a new national inquiry.
While the proposed amendment would stop the children’s bill in its tracks if it were passed, this unlikely because of the Labour government’s large majority.
Phillipson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the bill was “the single biggest piece of children safeguarding legislation in a generation”, which the Conservatives intended to block “on the altar of political opportunism”.
She said the government backed local inquiries into grooming gangs and said the row over calls for a new national probe had “lost sight” of victims.
Asked how many local inquiries into grooming gangs could be funded by the government, Phillipson said it had to be led by the evidence and ministers would look at any request.
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick has called for a new national inquiry into grooming gangs and said “what we’ve learnt more recently is the sheer scale of what is happening”.
He told the BBC on Tuesday that the Jay Review looked at six towns but claimed at least 50 towns were suspected to have had grooming gangs.
However Phillipson criticised Jenrick, saying he should “hang his head in shame” for his “failure to bring justice for victims” as a Home Office minister in the previous Conservative government.
She said if Tory MPs plan to vote against the children’s bill on Wednesday, they need to explain why they are seeking to block measures that will keep youngsters safe.
“They are a bunch of bandwagon jumpers who have absolutely no shame,” she said.
Sir Keir Starmer has also warned Conservative MPs not to back the Commons push for an amendment to the bill, telling the Daily Mirror it was a “shocking tactic”.
The Liberal Democrats said the party would be putting forward its own amendment to the bill, calling for the recommendations of the Jay Review to be implemented in full.