Jess Phillips MP: speeches

Speeches

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  I appreciate that that is where the whole story began for the hon. Gentleman, but it is not where the whole story began. Oldham council had written, I believe, twice before to the previous Government—

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  Group-based grooming, which includes some terrible examples of British children being groomed from abroad and vice versa, is something that we are acutely aware of. Whether it forms part of what Baroness Casey finds, I will leave to her to say. I will say, however, that it absolutely forms part of the strategy of work that the Government have laid out for preventing child sexual abuse.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Lady, and I agree with her that inquiries are only worth anything if we crack on. That is why, when I came to this House before the recess, I said it would go alongside the publishing of an action plan on the recommendations of the Jay report and Jay’s work into grooming gangs. That has all been published as part of a Government plan, but it is only the beginning. Actually, this is going to take years and years. On the duty of candour, it seems appalling that we have to ask people to tell the truth, yet here we are. Of course, that is what we must be striving for, as the hon. Lady says, on behalf of the victims and survivors.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s desire to always be respectful. I shall pay it back in kind and say that there is absolutely no way that the Government wish for the past to be forgotten or for a line to be drawn. That is absolutely the opposite of what I want. I want every single perpetrator rounded up and locked up; I want every single victim to feel supported; and I want everybody who covered these actions up to be held accountable for that— [ Interruption. ] I can hear chuntering from the shadow Home Secretary, who does not always show respect. There is this idea that people are held accountable by public inquiries, but that is not the case; nobody has gone to prison following the Hillsborough inquiry. Has anyone gone to prison as a result of the infected blood inquiry? No. Hon. Members should be careful about what they are promising can be achieved.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning boys and giving me the opportunity to say the following. I made a promise to one of the Oldham victims when I met her that I would always say that grooming gangs could happen to boys and girls, because it was her son who had lost his life, so I thank my hon. Friend for allowing me to do that. There will be a delay in the preparation and rolling out of mandatory reporting exactly because we must make sure the guidance and the regulation that sits behind it and the training that will have to be put in place are right. We need that not so much for social workers and others who already have that sort of training, but there will also be sports coaches and volunteers, because huge numbers of institutions work with children, and getting this right is more important than rushing ahead with it.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  I will check the record and make sure, but what I am absolutely certain of is the number of times that Telford council wrote and asked. I am aware that Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford, Oxford, or any of the places that have had an inquiry, were never given a single bean by the previous Government to do that work, and yet here we are and we will do it.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree that action is what is needed, which is exactly why the Home Secretary has written to all police forces in England and Wales seeking to ensure that more arrests are made in these cases. The grooming gangs taskforce has in the past nine months made 597 arrests, surpassing the entire previous year, because we are so heavily focused on ensuring that these people end up behind bars. I think Professor Jay was ignored by the previous Government, and had we had mandatory reporting 10 years ago, when the current Home Secretary asked for it, perhaps more people would have been held accountable.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  The shadow Home Secretary was away when I updated the House on the Government’s response to the independent national inquiry into child sexual abuse, and on the action that we are taking to investigate and tackle child grooming gangs across the country. As I have said many times, people up and down this country are understandably horrified by the appalling crimes committed by despicable grooming gangs. Children were subjected to the most unthinkable sexual violence. Frontline services, local authorities and elected politicians turned away or even blamed the children, rather than their rapists. I know this because I speak to victims week in, week out, and I have done so for decades. This Government are determined to get to the truth of both historical and current grooming gangs, to ensure that perpetrators are punished and to deliver justice and accountability for victims and survivors. That is why we are pressing ahead with the key recommendations of the independent inquiry, including the mandatory duty to report. Baroness Casey, who conducted a no-holds-barred review into grooming gangs’ offending in Rotherham, is currently overseeing a national audit of group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse. The audit will identify what further work is needed. It is looking at the scale, nature and profile of group-based abuse, including the characteristics of offenders. It will conclude in the coming weeks, and I have already committed to publishing the findings. The Home Secretary and I have always been clear that the first priority in tackling this heinous offending is getting perpetrators behind bars, and getting justice for the victims and survivors. That is why all police forces in England and Wales have been asked to review historical grooming gangs investigations that were closed with no further action, and to pursue new lines of inquiry and reopen investigations where appropriate. We are also going further than ever before to support local areas to hold independent local inquiries, which can drive action and accountability at a local level. That is what inquiries in Telford, Manchester and Rotherham have delivered effectively, and that is the approach we would like to see rolled out elsewhere. In January, we said that we would support five local inquiries. We are moving ahead with that commitment, and we have confirmed that funding will be made available to Oldham council as part of this work. We are currently working with a range of experts to develop a best practice local inquiries framework, so that local areas that conduct inquiries do so in a way that actually delivers justice, accountability and truth, commanding the support of victims and survivors. Our focus is on delivering meaningful, tangible change for victims and survivors. That means delivering on the key recommendations of Professor Jay’s national inquiry, getting perpetrators behind bars and, most importantly of all, protecting children today.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  Of course I agree. I want the perpetrators to be held accountable. What I can say without any doubt is that, as local inquiries have told us, people have covered things up, whether asked to or not, for seemingly multicultural reasons. That cannot stand. That said, we will always follow the facts to ensure that we completely and utterly deal with it.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  That does not deserve a response—and I actually quite like the hon. Gentleman. I have spent my entire career helping— [ Interruption. ] I wonder how many victims of grooming gangs he has sat and held hands with in court, and for how many he has gone round to their house in the morning to get them out of bed to get them into a courtroom. There is no way that I would be part of any cover-up. I will do everything I can, under a Home Secretary who will do everything she can, to ensure that those who are responsible are held accountable.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend raises an important point. We often talk about historic cover-ups and failings, but we must also keep our eye on exactly where grooming is going on now and will take place in the future. She points out, completely rightly, that there is an ongoing grooming issue. Through the taskforce and work with various security departments, I have seen great examples of quite how focused police enforcement is on that. Do I think that social media companies could be doing more? The answer will always be yes.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  Absolutely, and I say with the voice of the victims I have worked with over the years and have spoken to even today that the fundamental that they want is that children who come forward today—to their teacher, their social worker or whoever it is—do not suffer as they did. Keeping our eye on making sure that people are held accountable for the past will deliver justice only if we also look at the now.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  What we have proposed is better because it is about acting now in areas where it is needed. We have already had a national inquiry, which took seven years and wrote a 200-page dossier on group-based sexual abuse— [Interruption.] There was a 200-page dossier specifically on that, and it took two years just to do that, and it made really good recommendations. I genuinely believe that the best thing for me to do is crack on with them.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  I will not answer the second point, which I think strays slightly from this urgent question, but what I will say is that I wonder if the hon. and learned Gentleman has read the 200-page document of the national inquiry into group-based child sexual abuse that already exists and has statutory powers. If he or anyone in the House has not read it, I encourage them to do that.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  Thank you.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  I absolutely do not expect it to do that. Baroness Casey is seeking to do an audit of the problem profiles around the country, looking at exactly where the data does or does not exist and where there are failings. It was intended to be a rapid audit. The framework for good local inquiries is being worked on by a series of experts, including Tom Crowther and Alexis Jay. Details of the fund that local authorities can apply to will also be published by the end of May.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  The grooming gangs taskforce will work with local police force areas. The whole point is that it works operationally with local police forces to ensure best practice. That has led to 1,100 more arrests for group-based child sexual abuse since the taskforce was set up. There is a huge amount of resource in that centre. I encourage local areas and local police forces always to be working with the taskforce.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  Yes. As was outlined in Professor Alexis Jay’s report, the need for an overreaching authority to ensure accountability across the child protection system was made very clear. As we roll out the new authority, we are consulting many experts on what exactly it needs to look like and ensuring that we get the very best possible. I am sick of hearing lessons learned in a serious case review about a child rape, a child rape gang or a child death. There needs to be genuine accountability and things need to change.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  I delight in the hon. Gentleman’s interest, and what I would say to every single Member of this House is that I will work with absolutely anybody to make this better. I am more than happy to meet him and talk about any level of co-operation, because if people are genuinely here to try to stop the grooming gangs in this country, I am genuinely here to help.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree. I remember working in a Rape Crisis centre when the Jimmy Savile scandal was revealed and it was like being hit by a tsunami—the phone lines lit up. As I said before Easter in response to the Jay inquiry, making sure that we have robust mental health support for children who are victims is really important. I also announced that the Home Office would double the amount of money it provides for adult historic rape victims, in recognition that we may bring more people forward and therefore need to improve access to support.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  As my hon. Friend points out, I have spoken to and worked with victims of crime for many years. What they want, fundamentally, is for the things that happened to them not to happen to children today. That is the change they wish to see more than anything—more than they want any sort of justice. Ensuring that the new authority does that, and that it is not just words on paper, will therefore be absolutely vital and will deliver that fundamental victims’ need. When we consult experts on the child protection authority, we will ensure that organisations such as the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which has panels of specialist victims groups to assist its work, will be part of that.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  We have committed to five, but I expect to go further.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman. I wish to see people who covered this up held accountable within the law and the frameworks that exist. If people have concerns about things and would like to bring specific cases to me, the police have the power to investigate those things. Had mandatory reporting laws existed sooner, we might have been in a better situation, but I completely agree that it is appalling that no one has been held to account.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  I will wait for the review being undertaken by Baroness Casey and look at what it tells me, and then I will act on that.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  I want to be clear that local inquiries must be independent. The chair of Telford inquiry was independent, and Professor Alexis Jay chaired the Rotherham inquiry. They are independent inquiries and they are not run by local authorities.