Rape Gangs: National Statutory Inquiry

Debate between Jess Phillips and Graham Stuart

Tuesday 21st October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips]

I really hope so, but I am not going to do what other people seem to want to do in this circumstance and pretend that there is a guarantee and that I have some sort of magic weapon. That is the process that I am undertaking: I am trying to get the very best chair, who is supported alongside the victims who have been taking part in the process.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Getting this right is both important and extremely difficult. I have two questions for the Minister. If, when she meets Fiona and Ellie-Ann, she finds that they are right and that there is something wrong, what powers does she have to intervene? Secondly, will she provide assurances that the inquiry will not be staffed—she may be able to comment on her powers and the power to influence—by individuals who previously dismissed the concerns of survivors and campaigners as racist slurs?

[Jess Phillips]

In answer to the first question, I have every power to intervene in the panel’s process, but the decision I made was that it should be independent of me and my offices, and would be better handled by experts in the field. When I speak to those involved, of course I can raise things and make decisions about how this goes forward. I very much hope that we will be drawing to a conclusion and that soon I will have much less involvement.

To the right hon. Gentleman’s other question, victims and survivors of this crime all have different political opinions. They all have different views on the substantive. They have different views about whether it should be called “grooming” or whether it should be called “grouped”. They have different views on all these things. I will not stand here and say that I would eliminate any victim or survivor working on this based on their political views, and I will continue to say that as it is. Many of them do not like me very much. Imagine if I just did not let the people who did not like me very much have their voices heard. Well, frankly, I would be guilty of a cover-up.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jess Phillips and Graham Stuart

Monday 2nd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

12. If she will establish a national statutory inquiry into rape gangs.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)]

Child sexual exploitation and abuse are the most horrific crimes, and the Government are taking decisive action to ensure that victims and survivors of grooming gangs get the justice that they deserve. We are delivering on the key recommendations of the seven-year independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, including the recommendation on mandatory reporting; we have asked all police forces in England and Wales to review historical cases in which no further action was taken, and to reopen investigations; and we have commissioned Baroness Louise Casey to conduct a national audit of the nature and scale of grooming gangs and this offending in this country. We will leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of truth and justice.

[Graham Stuart]

Senior figures in the Catholic Church and the Church of England were found to have conspired to cover up child abuse by priests. Senior figures in the Labour party are now opposing local inquiries in places such as Bradford, London and Wales, and Ministers here oppose a national rape inquiry. We have also heard from a former Labour Member of Parliament, Simon Danczuk, that he was told not to raise the issue of the ethnicity of some of the perpetrators. When will Labour put aside its electoral interests and stand on the side of the abused?

[Jess Phillips]

The idea that I or the Prime Minister have ever put anything other than the interests of the victims of grooming gangs at the heart of everything that we have ever worked for is, frankly, for the birds. We have increased the number of arrests of the perpetrators that the right hon. Gentleman talks about. We will continue to pursue these violent, abusive, vicious abusers through the courts—through justice—and I will continue to take my counsel not from him but from the victims in this country.