UK ministers open possibility of national inquiry into grooming gangs

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Ministers have acknowledged the possibility of a new national inquiry into grooming gangs after days of resisting the idea despite pressure from figures including technology billionaire Elon Musk.

Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips told Sky News that “nothing is off the table” when dealing with the scandal that involved child sexual abuse by gangs in several English cities and towns.

Phillips said she would first listen to victims on a new panel that is being set up by the government. “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,” she added.

Her comments come ahead of a vote on an inquiry, after the issue was forced into Parliament’s agenda by the Conservative party.

The opposition party tabled the amendment to legislation on schools that is being debated on Wednesday afternoon. It was selected by the Commons Speaker for inclusion in the vote.

The prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, described it as a “wrecking amendment”, as it would block the passage of the bill if it passed, and urged the Tories to withdraw it. Labour MPs will be whipped to vote against the amendment.

While the government’s significant Commons majority means there is little prospect of it passing, the vote will nonetheless pave the way for opposition parties to issue new advertisements on social media drawing attention to the individual parliamentarians who voted against holding a new nationwide probe into the scandal.

A clip of Tory leader Kemi Badenoch calling for the inquiry during Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday was reposted on X by Musk, with the words “well said”.

During the session, Starmer conceded in the House of Commons that there was a legitimate range of views on the need for a new inquiry.

“This is a really serious issue and we must focus, obviously, on the victims and survivors,” he told MPs. “There’s no fixed view from the victims and survivors about a further national inquiry, there are mixed views.”

Starmer warned that setting up a new inquiry could lead to further delays to tackling the abuse. “The last inquiry took seven years,” he said. “That will take us to 2031.”

But Downing Street later did not rule out the possibility of the government endorsing a national inquiry. “As the prime minister said in the House, reasonable people can agree or disagree on the merits of a national inquiry . . . the clear message that we’ve had from victims and survivors . .. is they want to see action and that is what the government is focused on delivering.”

Starmer is “open minded” about the inquiry, it added.

Phillips has hit back after Musk criticised her for rejecting calls from Oldham Council to hold a government inquiry into grooming gangs in the town. She said it would be more appropriate for the local authority to carry one out.

Ministers have repeatedly pointed to a seven-year national inquiry by Professor Alexis Jay that put forward 20 recommendations, none of which were implemented by the previous Tory government. This week Labour announced it was taking forward several of the recommendations, including making grooming an aggravating factor in child sexual abuse sentencing.

Badenoch on Wednesday said a national inquiry on grooming gangs was needed because “no one has joined the dots, no one has the final picture” and the scandal “is almost certainly still going on”.

She challenged Starmer about whether the “full extent on rape gang activity” is known and argued that his resistance to a fresh probe would spark “worry about a cover-up” among voters.

Starmer hit back, accusing her of jumping on a bandwagon and said that “misinformation and slinging of mud” did not help victims.