Oral Answers to Questions
Kemi Badenoch Excerpts(3 weeks ago)
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Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)
In 30 minutes, we will hear the Chancellor’s emergency Budget—even the Home Secretary’s husband calls it an emergency Budget—as she scrambles to fix the mess she made last October. But first, let us turn to another Government Minister who is making a mess of her brief: the Education Secretary—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] Why did Labour MPs vote against banning phones in schools last week?
The Prime Minister
Because it is completely unnecessary. I have teenage children. Almost every school bans phones in school; they do it already. We need to concentrate on what is really important here, which is getting to the content that children should not be accessing. I would genuinely like to work across the House on that, because there is a huge amount of work to do. But the battle is not with schools already banning phones; the battle—an important, emerging battle—is to work together to ensure that the content that children are accessing, wherever they are, is suitable for their age.
Mrs Badenoch
We can look at the content, but if the ban is unnecessary, why have the Government started a review? Just last week, the Education Secretary described a ban as “a gimmick”, yet teachers and headteachers say that the evidence already shows that schools that ban phones get better results. The Prime Minister is wrong: not all schools do this. Only one in 10 schools is smartphone free. Will he U-turn on this?
The Prime Minister
We need to ensure that all schools do this, but the vast majority do. It is really important that we focus on the battle we need to have with mobile phones, which is the content that children are able to access. We need to ensure that that content is controlled wherever they are. It is a question of having the right battle on the right issue, not wasting time on this when almost all schools are already banning mobile phones.
Mrs Badenoch
I am surprised that the Prime Minister would say that. His own Government’s evidence says that phones disrupt nearly half of GCSE classes every single day. Discipline is the No. 1 issue in many schools. Under the Conservatives, schools became twice as likely to be good or outstanding after going through our behaviour programme, so why did the Education Secretary abolish that programme?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Lady talks about the record of the last Government. Under their watch, a third of children started school without appropriate-level development, such as not being able to use a knife and fork. A quarter left primary school without the required standard of reading, writing and maths, and one in five children was regularly absent. That is why we are pushing up standards, with more information from Ofsted, transparency for parents and more interventions where schools need it.
Mrs Badenoch
The Prime Minister is not answering the question about discipline in schools, because he does not care about discipline in schools. Everything he does is ideological, and his decisions are costing schools so much. The national insurance hike means that every state school in the country has to pay more for teachers. The Education Secretary promised to compensate schools in full for the jobs tax. Why has it not happened?
The Prime Minister
It was Labour that introduced academies and pushed up standards. This is not ideological. I am a parent of two teenage children, both of whom go to a state school, so I am invested in this, and it matters hugely to me. There is nothing ideological about it. That is why we are driving up standards, as we always have done.
Mrs Badenoch
The Prime Minister did not answer the question about compensating schools for the jobs tax, which is costing schools a lot of money. The CEO of the United Learning group says that the grant that they were given is 20% short. Some schools will face shortfalls of up to 35%. Can he guarantee that no teacher will lose their job as a result of his jobs tax?
The Prime Minister
It was this Government who put a record amount into our schools at the Budget, just as we put a record amount into our NHS and public services, which were utterly failed under the last Government. Yet again, the right hon. Lady wants all the benefits—the NHS—but she cannot say how she is going to pay for it. That is what got us into the mess in the first place.
Mrs Badenoch
The whole House will have heard that the Prime Minister could not guarantee that teachers’ jobs are safe. Not only is he taxing schools, but he is lowering standards. He talks about our record, so I will tell him what our record was: under the Conservatives, English schools shot up the international league tables while standards fell at schools in Labour-run Wales. Academy freedoms led to the biggest improvement of standards in a generation, but the Education Secretary is attacking them with her reforms. Can the Prime Minister point to any evidence at all that these discredited academy reforms will improve school standards?
The Prime Minister
Yes. Take the example of schools going into academies. The vast majority of schools are already academies. Therefore, we need to think again about what we do about failing schools that are already academies. We need to go on to the next chapter. The Conservatives never take the big decisions. That is why we ended up with their record: open borders, which the right hon. Lady was a cheerleader for, a crashed economy, mortgages through the roof, the NHS on its knees, and hollowed-out armed forces. What have we got already under this Government? Two million extra NHS appointments, 750 breakfast clubs—including one in her constituency—record numbers of people who should not be here being returned, and a fully funded increase in defence spending. That is the difference a Labour Government makes.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kemi Badenoch Excerpts(3 months, 1 week ago)
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Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)
The whole House has heard that the Prime Minister lost his brother during the Christmas period, so can I offer him, on behalf of my party, our sincerest condolences?
The new year has started with a focus on the decades-long rape gang scandal. Across the country, thousands of girls were tortured and sexually abused at the hands of men who treated them as things to be used and disposed of, destroying many lives forever. The Prime Minister mentioned previous inquiries. He is right: there has been an inquiry into child sexual abuse, but it was not about the rape gang scandal. In its 468 pages, it mentioned Rotherham just once. Is the Prime Minister confident that we know the full extent of rape gang activity?
The Prime Minister
First, I thank the right hon. Lady for her condolences, and I thank her for reaching out over the Christmas period when I lost my brother. I really did appreciate that, and I appreciate it today.
On the question of a further inquiry, there have been a number of inquiries, some of them localised, including the Mayor of Manchester’s recent inquiry. The national inquiry Professor Jay carried out took seven years. It had 20 recommendations, none of which were actually implemented by the Conservative party when it was in government. This is a really serious issue and we must focus, obviously, on the victims and survivors. There is no fixed view on the victims and survivors about a further national inquiry. There are mixed views. But there is a view, and I share this view, that what is needed now is action on what we already know. We already know—myself from personal knowledge when I was chief prosecutor—that warped ideas, myths and stereotypes about victims are at the heart of this. We have known that for a decade. The Jay report called for mandatory reporting; I called for it 11 years ago. What we need now is action.
What cannot be tolerated is the idea that this afternoon Opposition Members will vote down a Bill that protects children—[Interruption.] Let me just say this. One of the provisions in that Bill is to protect vulnerable children today, who are out of school, to prevent abusers from ever taking those children out of school. I implore Opposition Members to defy the misleading leadership of the Leader of the Opposition and vote for a really important Bill.
Mrs Badenoch
I am shocked that the Prime Minister would say that actions were not taken. He knows full well that we accepted 18 of the 20 recommendations from the Jay inquiry, and went further, launching a gangs taskforce which found 550 more perpetrators. That shows that there is still work to be done. In Rotherham alone, there have been more than 1,400 victims. Across Oldham, Bradford, Bristol, Rochdale and dozens more towns, there have been thousands more victims, but no one has joined the dots. No one has the total picture, and it is almost certainly still going on.
One victim from Telford—I know the Prime Minister says that victims have different views; we have different views across this House—says that she wants a national inquiry because
“it will hold people accountable in a way that previous inquiries haven’t”
It is very possible to have actions, take on more, and still have a national inquiry. Why will the Prime Minister not listen to victims and launch a national inquiry which would have the power to summon witnesses and make them give evidence under oath?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Lady says that the last Government accepted the recommendations, but they did not act on them. One of the central recommendations was for mandatory reporting, and it still has not been enacted. I called for it 11 years ago. Opposition Members have been tweeting and talking; we have been acting.
The Leader of the Opposition has been a Member of Parliament for, I think, eight years, and her party were in government for seven and a half of those eight years. She was the Children’s Minister. She was the Women and Equalities Minister. I cannot recall her once raising this issue in the House, or once calling for a national inquiry. It is only in recent days that she has jumped on the bandwagon. In fairness, if I am wrong about that and she has raised it, I invite her to say so now, and I will happily withdraw the remark that she has not raised it in the House in the eight years she has been here, until today.
Mrs Badenoch
The Prime Minister is being very specific. I have raised this issue: I have raised it in speeches, and I have raised it publicly. The Prime Minister knows that as a Minister I would not have been speaking on this specific issue, because I was not a Home Office Minister, but let me remind him about other victims who came to me whom I did help. The victims of the Tavistock scandal came to me, as a Minister, and I did not send them away, like his Safeguarding Minister. I made sure, as his Labour party was calling me transphobic, that we launched the Cass review, which even his Health Secretary has accepted. We do right by victims.
The reason why a national inquiry is important is that this issue is systemic. It involves local and national officials, the police, prosecutors and politicians. The Prime Minister talks about some of the local inquiries, but these interlinked issues cannot be covered by local inquiries alone. In fact, the leaders of the Manchester inquiry resigned because they could not get evidence, they could not summon witnesses, and not a single person in a position of authority has been held to account. The Prime Minister called for nine inquiries during the last Parliament. Does he not see that resisting this one means that people will start to worry about a cover-up?
The Prime Minister
This is an important issue, and we have to focus on the victims and survivors. The lies, misinformation and slinging of mud do not help them one bit. The right hon. Lady raised a victim’s question, and quite rightly too. I accept that victims and survivors are in different places on this. Those I have spoken to are worried about the delay of a further inquiry. The last inquiry took seven years, which would take us to 2031.
Among the issues that have been raised with me—the right hon. Lady has been speaking to victims, and they will have raised this with her—is that it is very hard for victims and survivors to come forward to explain what has happened to them. They do not want to be rushed through this process, which is why the last one took seven years. It is not sensible to suggest that it can be done in a hurry, on the cheap and comprehensively. That would take us to, let us say, 2030 or 2031. The victims I have spoken to want action today. I agree with them on that, but what I genuinely do not understand is why anybody would vote against the children’s wellbeing Bill, which will protect children who are vulnerable today. It will kill the Bill. It will stop the provisions for children at risk today. I implore the Opposition to vote for the Bill. Do not wreck it in this misguided way.
Mrs Badenoch
It is very possible to have shorter inquiries, especially if they cover areas that have not been looked at yet. We do not need to repeat the work that has already been done; let us look at new areas. Former Labour MP Ann Cryer said that there were councillors and MPs all over the country who knew what was going on but were terrified of being labelled racist.
A national inquiry would ask if there was a racial or cultural motivation behind some of these crimes, where white girls were seen, as Jack Straw said, as “easy meat”. The hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) was sacked from Labour’s Front Bench for speaking out about rape gangs. Does the Prime Minister now recognise that sacking people for telling the truth creates a chilling effect that means victims are not listened to?
The Prime Minister
I am very happy to call out anybody who has not acted properly in these cases. I have done it many, many times before, and it does not matter to me which political party they are in. I will call them out, and I will condemn them.
When I was chief prosecutor, I took measures to confront this issue head-on. The first of the mass prosecutions for an Asian gang was in Rochdale. My team came to see me, and they put a number of Asian men in the dock. They wanted the green light for the first of these cases to take place. I gave that green light, but on one condition, because it came to my attention that one of the men who was going into the dock had previously been arrested but not charged. I said, “You can bring the first of these mass prosecutions, but only if you look back at the file”—where we did not charge—“and tell me what went wrong in a report so that I can start to put it right.” That is what started the reforms I brought about.
That is the approach I took in practice, while others were tweeting and talking. It is the approach I would take now in any case where there is wrongdoing here, but what we have got to do now—Professor Jay has said this. We have had a number of strong findings. There are 20 on the table from Professor Jay. We have got to get on with action; do not block it this afternoon.
Mrs Badenoch
We need to focus on what this is really about. This is not about the Prime Minister’s work in the CPS, and I would say very respectfully to the Prime Minister that it is not about you; it is about the victims. Be a leader, not a lawyer. We know that people were scared to tell the truth because they thought they would be called racist. If we want to stop this from ever happening again, we cannot be afraid.
The Labour party has adopted the APPG definition of “Islamophobia”. The same APPG report said that talking about sex groomers was an example of Islamophobia. This is exactly why people are scared to tell the truth, and the lack of clarity means that innocent British Muslims are smeared by association. That is not fair, and only a national inquiry can solve this. Will the Prime Minister look again at the Labour party’s adoption of the definition of “Islamophobia” and its chilling effect, and rule out introducing it in government?
The Prime Minister
I will call out any aspect that has prevented anybody from coming forward, or any case from going forward, when it comes to violence against women and girls, child abuse or child sexual exploitation, as I have been doing for the best part of 15 years.
Yes, some people will say there should be a further inquiry—I accept that—but that means all the victims and survivors who give evidence need to be in a position to do so, and not all of them are. I have been speaking to them. Some think they are, but it will take time. All of the institutions will have to give evidence; that will take time. This will delay things until 2031.
We already know what the major flaws are. My argument is that we should get on with that action. That is why we are bringing forward the Bill this afternoon.
Mrs Badenoch
The Prime Minister has effectively told us that he is not able to do two things at the same time—[Interruption.] This issue of a delay is a weak excuse. I would say to him that, by refusing this inquiry, he is enabling those people who wish to smear all British Muslims based on the actions of a small minority. He is talking about distraction tactics. Let us have the truth.
The Prime Minister cannot tell the House the full scale of the scandal. He does not want questions asked of Labour politicians who may be complicit. He will not listen—[Interruption.] He will not listen to the victims who are calling for a national inquiry. He is making this all about this afternoon’s Bill. Later today, he will tell Labour MPs, including those representing Telford, Rochdale, Bristol, Derby, Aylesbury, Oldham, Bradford, Peterborough, Coventry, Middlesbrough, Newcastle and Ramsgate, to vote against a national inquiry into the gangs that have systematically gang-raped children in their constituencies. This is one of the worst scandals in British history—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. This is a very, very important issue that matters to the country. It matters to all of our constituents, and I want to make sure they can hear what is being said by the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister.
Mrs Badenoch
This is one of the worst scandals in recent British history. How will Labour Members explain to their constituents that obeying the Prime Minister’s Whip is more important than doing the right thing?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Lady is right to say it is one of the worst scandals; it is terrible. That is why I acted on it. Her recently acquired view is that it is a scandal, having spent a lot of time on social media over Christmas. Not once in eight years did she stand here and say what she has just said—not once in eight years. The previous Government did not act on the recommendations. They want a national inquiry. We had a national inquiry: the Jay inquiry. The report made 20 recommendations—not a single one implemented. She talked about doing two things at once. The Conservatives cannot kill the Bill this afternoon—wreck the Bill—and protect children.
Everyone will remember the dreadful case of Sara Sharif. This is the girl who was taken out of school and abused by an abuser. This afternoon’s Bill fixes that gap. I am looking across the House, and I know there are hon. Members on the Opposition Benches who know very well that what is in this Bill is necessary, that it is the right thing to do, and would want to vote for the Bill. I urge them to think twice about following the short-sighted, misguided, bandwagon-jumping, non-leadership approach of the Leader of the Opposition.