The Government is more interested in “protecting their own” than getting justice for the victims of grooming gangs, the Conservatives have suggested.
In a heated exchange in the Commons, shadow equalities minister Mims Davies repeated calls for a national public inquiry into the sexual exploitation of children.
Home Office minister Jess Phillips hit back, saying: “I will absolutely protect my own in this, and my own in this are the women.”
The issue hit the headlines in January after billionaire X owner Elon Musk criticised the Prime Minister and Ms Phillips over the UK’s handling of child grooming scandals.
The Government has knocked back calls for a national approach in favour of locally-led inquiries, saying it is focused on implementing recommendations from Professor Alexis Jay’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).
A rapid national audit, led by Baroness Casey, looking at the scale of grooming gangs across the country, is also being conducted.
During women and equalities questions, Ms Davies said: “Despite plenty of good women on the frontbench, I have to ask, is this Government simply more interested in protecting their own, rather than staying true to their manifesto pledge, which says we will use every tool to target perpetrators?
“Yet Labour are turning their back, you can hear it, once again with the Leader of this House (Lucy Powell) calling it dog whistle politics on national radio.
“So why won’t this minister and her frontbench commit to deliver a proper national statutory public inquiry and finally, put victims first?”
Ms Phillips, who has responsibility for safeguarding, replied: “I will absolutely protect my own in this, and my own in this are the women in our country who for the last 14 years have had no effort made.
“And people say terrible things, and the Leader of the House was right to apologise.
“I wonder how many of those on the opposite bench asked the former prime minister (Boris Johnson) to apologise for saying that the exact girls that he was talking about, that their lives and looking into them, in an inquiry that already happened, that was statutory, was spaffing money up the walls.
“Where was the outrage?”
Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme, the Health Secretary Wes Streeting said his colleague Lucy Powell was “mortified” after she made comments that appeared to describe grooming gangs as a “dog whistle”.
The Leader of the House of Commons was on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions programme on Friday when a recent Channel 4 documentary about five women’s stories of being groomed and abused by gangs was raised.
Responding to Reform UK member Tim Montgomerie, Ms Powell replied: “Oh, we want to blow that little trumpet now, do we? Let’s get that dog whistle out, shall we?”
In the Commons, Conservative MP Bob Blackman also called for a national inquiry, saying “council staff, councillors, social workers and possibly the police have been complicit, or at least turned a blind eye to it”.
He added: “Given these circumstances, local inquiries are not going to be good enough. So will she now call for a nationwide, national inquiry, judge-led with witnesses being required to give evidence under oath, so those people that turned a blind eye could actually be brought to justice?”
Ms Phillips, in her reply, said: “National statutory inquiries don’t actually send anyone to prison, just to be clear on that.”
