Paul Waugh
Main Page: Paul Waugh (Labour (Co-op) - Rochdale)Department Debates - View all Paul Waugh's debates with the Home Office
(1 day, 21 hours ago)
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Jess Phillips
Can I be completely clear? I am suggesting that I will listen completely and utterly to the feedback from the victims who were on the panel and those who still are. They are not spreading misinformation at all, but the hon. Member’s interpretation is a brilliant case in point.
I will be completely honest. The conversation with Oldham is: do we not think it might be better for Oldham just to take part in a statutory inquiry? It has absolutely nothing to do with the idea that Oldham is telling me what to do. The more people on the Conservative Benches—[Interruption.] Oh, the hon. Member can hold up his letter and have a smug face all he likes, but the fact of the matter is that there is no council in this country that will tell the inquiry where it can and cannot go. I have said that 1 million times from the Dispatch Box, yet the same thing gets peddled again and again.
Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)
I know that the Minister will not want to comment on individual candidates to chair the national grooming inquiry. However, may I put on record that Jim Gamble is a highly regarded police officer with a long experience of dealing with this matter? His leadership of the child exploitation and online protection centre proved what a fearless and fiercely independent figure he was, with a real track record of tracking down sick paedophiles online and off. Does the Minister agree that the chair of the inquiry must be someone who can earn the trust of those who have been let down by those in positions of authority for far too long? Will she confirm—I hope that she will—that the inquiry will not shy away from issues of race or class and will follow the evidence wherever it leads?
Jess Phillips
First and foremost, I absolutely confirm that that will not happen. Not only that, but I confirm that the Home Office has asked police forces across the country to collect data on ethnicity. That was not done before. I will not be drawn into his point about the chair; it is not up to me. However, I will say that the gentleman my hon. Friend mentions resigned from a previous role in this field because he thought that the then Government were not invested enough in tackling child sexual exploitation.