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MPs rejected calls for a new national inquiry into grooming gangs on Wednesday evening, after the issue was forced on to parliament’s agenda by the Conservatives amid pressure from technology billionaire Elon Musk.
In the House of Commons, the government used its majority to reject a Tory amendment to education legislation that proposed a national inquiry. A total of 364 MPs voted against the amendment, while 111 were in favour.
The vote by MPs came after ministers earlier indicated they were open to holding a new national inquiry into historic grooming cases involving sexual exploitation of girls by gangs of mainly British-Pakistani men.
Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips told Sky News that “nothing is off the table” when dealing with the grooming scandal 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.
Ministers were however adamant that the Tory amendment was not the right means to secure an inquiry.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer described the Conservative amendment to the government’s schools legislation as a “wrecking amendment” because it would block the passage of the bill through parliament if approved. Labour MPs were told to vote against the amendment.
Musk has demanded a national inquiry into grooming gangs in the UK as he launched strong attacks on Starmer and his safeguarding minister Jess Phillips.
A clip of Tory leader Kemi Badenoch calling for an inquiry during prime minister’s questions in the Commons on Wednesday was reposted on X by Musk, with the words “well said”.
Badenoch 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”.
Starmer said Badenoch never mentioned grooming gangs in the Commons in eight years as an MP, despite having been children’s minister and minister for women and equalities.
Though the Tories lost the vote, it will pave the way for opposition parties to issue advertisements on social media drawing attention to MPs who rejected their amendment seeking a new national inquiry.
All five MPs of the rightwing Reform UK party voted for the amendment. Liberal Democrat MPs abstained.
Starmer conceded there was a legitimate range of views on the need for a new national inquiry into grooming gangs.
“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.”
But 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.”
Ministers have repeatedly pointed to an inquiry into child sexual abuse in England and Wales by Professor Alexis Jay in 2022 that put forward 20 recommendations, none of which were implemented by the previous Tory government.
This week Labour ministers announced they were taking forward several of the inquiry’s key recommendations.
Downing Street did not rule out the possibility of the government endorsing a new 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 was “open minded” about an inquiry, it added.
