Jess Phillips says ‘action needed’ to combat grooming gangs
The minister argued there was a lack of ‘fundamental change on the ground’ when the Tories were in power.
Jess Phillips has said MPs can jump on the bandwagon of combating grooming gangs and child sexual exploitation – but “it is action that is needed”.
In an off-the-cuff speech, the safeguarding minister argued there was a lack of “actual fundamental change on the ground” when the Conservatives were in power and said accepting recommendations does not change people’s lives.
Ms Phillips also told the Commons she has not lost her “gumption” despite US billionaire Elon Musk describing her as a “rape genocide apologist” after she declined a request from Oldham Council for a Whitehall-led inquiry into child sexual abuse in the town.
In a reference to Mr Musk’s tweet, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said Ms Phillips and others received threats as a result of the “poison of the far right”.
Many MPs spoke out in support of Ms Phillips during a debate on violence against women and girls, including Conservative former minister Dame Karen Bradley, who said she had “immense sympathy for what she is going through”.
Ms Phillips joked that listening to the debate was “a little bit like being at my own memorial”, adding: “To the member who was very pleased to see – from Richmond – that my gumption hasn’t gone away, I’m very much not dead.”
Opening her speech on Thursday, Ms Phillips said: “As a minister what I find is that I get given this speech that I’m told to read, but the member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) reminded me who I was today, and so I’m going to give an impassioned speech.”
Reading a letter from a victim who gave evidence to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, she said: “I am angry at the lack of response, this has been turned into a political football.”
She went on to say that during the Conservatives’ time in power “loads of brilliant words were written on goat’s skin, rolled up in the building under here”.
“What didn’t happen was actual fundamental change on the ground,” she added.
She continued: “Do you know what has actually happened is that it’s harder for a grooming victim to get a house in this country than it has ever been before, so she can move to a place of safety in order to get away from her grooming.”
Ms Phillips also said: “This is a bandwagon that people can jump on to, and they come and say words in this building and I welcome every single word that has been said, but it is action that is needed.
“‘We accepted 18 of the recommendations’, cracking. I’ve accepted that I’m a size 10, it’s not the facts. Accepting something doesn’t make it so. It doesn’t change things for people’s actual lives.”
The minister also suggested that Conservative MP Rebecca Smith had conducted “essentially” an inquiry into concerns in her area, which led to recommendations, adding: “That is what works.”
Speaking directly to the South West Devon MP, she said: “What she did, what she led in that area was a locally responsive, essentially (an) inquiry, that led to recommendations that have changed things on the ground.
“And what I would like to say to her is well done for doing that because I know that is what works.”
