PM accuses Tory leader of ‘bandwagon jumping’ and condemns plan to oppose children’s wellbeing bill
Starmer attacks Badenoch over call for new inquir
Keir Starmer has accused Kemi Badenoch of “bandwagon jumping” in calling for a new inquiry into sexual abuse gangs, as he condemned the Conservative leader for her plan to try to vote down a bill on children’s wellbeing.
In sometimes bitter exchanges at prime minister’s questions, as the topic of grooming gangs continued to dominate the political agenda, Starmer accused Badenoch of only taking an interest in the subject after Elon Musk repeatedly tweeted about it.
“She met her recently acquired view that it’s a scandal, having spent a lot of time on social media over Christmas,” the prime minister told the Conservative leader. “Not once in eight years did she stand here and say what she just said.”
Starmer accused Badenoch, who had said resisting a new inquiry would spark speculation about a “cover-up” in government, of being more interested in “tweeting and talking” than taking action on behalf of victims.
Noting that Badenoch had been children’s minister among other roles in the last government, Starmer said he was not aware of the Tory leader having previously raised in the Commons the subject of sexual abuse gangs.
“It’s only in recent days she’s jumped on the bandwagon,” he said. “If I’m wrong about that, and she has raised it, then I invite her to say that now, and I will happily withdraw the remark.”
Badenoch responded by saying she had “raised it in speeches”, and that as she was not a Home Office minister, she would not have addressed it in the Commons.
Badenoch’s call for a new inquiry at PMQs comes before a vote in the Commons in which the Conservatives will try to force an inquiry using an amendment to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill, which will be given its second reading on Wednesday.
Badenoch rejected Starmer’s argument that another national inquiry, after the report by Prof Alexis Jay, published in 2022, would merely delay the implementation of Jay’s recommendations.
“It is very possible to have actions, take on more, and still have a national inquiry,” she said. “So why won’t he listen to victims and launch a national inquiry which would have the power to summon witnesses and make them give evidence under oath?”
Starmer replied by saying that he had met some survivors of grooming gangs earlier on Wednesday, and that they had told him they would rather have swift action rather than another inquiry.
While saying he accepted that other survivors of the abuse took different views, Starmer angrily condemned the planned amendment, which would stop the progress of the entire children’s wellbeing and schools bill.
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While some of the bill is concerned with areas such as academy chains and school uniforms, it also seeks to tighten up some areas of child welfare, such as no longer automatically allowing parents to home-school a child if the child is subject to a child protection plan.
Starmer said this provision could help prevent cases like that of 10-year-old Sara Sharif, who had been taken out of formal schooling before she was murdered by her father and stepmother.
Starmer said he could not understand why Tory MPs would try to vote down a bill that would “protect children who are vulnerable”, adding: “I implore them, vote for the bill.”
Badenoch hit back, saying Starmer was ordering Labour MPs in towns and cities affected by grooming gangs to vote against an inquiry into “one of the worst scandals in British history”.
She added: “How are they going to explain to their constituents that obeying his whip is more important than doing the right thing?”
