Plans for a national inquiry into grooming gangs are underway, but will the inquiry actually happen? The Labour-led probe has not yet started and has almost been derailed by survivors on the victim liaison panel dropping out, complaints about transparency and concerns about the scope of the inquiry. Today, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch set out her party’s preferred terms of reference for the inquiry – a move she insisted was not party political, but one that she hopes Labour will act on.
Labour needs to show it has listened – even if that means taking recommendations from its political opponents
The Tories want a judge-led inquiry which has a hard two-year limit, that investigates the ‘deliberate cover-up’ of child sexual exploitation by councils, police – and even the government, if necessary. Badenoch wants to see religious institutions like mosques participate if required, and has demanded a focus on the ethnicity and cultural backgrounds of the perpetrators. An inquiry must, she added, have the powers to compel witnesses to attend.
The Tory leader insisted her announcement was not about politics, but she was not keen to talk about whether the Tories had left stones unturned when in government – and the fact her party had failed on crucial data gathering.
‘It is about giving a voice to those people who have been dismissed, those people who need to be heard,’ Badenoch said this morning. ‘We want to work cross-party with anyone who wants to see an inquiry done. We want to help the governments to deliver this. But the inquiry and its terms of reference should not be written behind closed doors. They should be written by survivors who know what happened and know what to do with that.’
What stood out most, however, were today’s contributions from survivor Fiona Goddard and parents of children who had been groomed. The sense of disappointment with the Labour government’s progress was overwhelming: Fiona talked about a feeling of ‘box ticking’ in the current probe, with those in charge accused of not listening to the voices of the survivors.
There is a lack of support in place for those victims of grooming gangs taking part, she added – which was backed up by Marlon West, the father of a victim known as Scarlett, who was abused by a gang in the Greater Manchester area. Marlon spoke of the impact the abuse has had on his daughter, struggling at points to continue as emotion took hold. He also talked about how parents of survivors have been treated ‘appallingly’ by the inquiry thus far, and is keen for them to have more involvement. ‘We’re the ones dealing with the social services, the NHS and the police,’ he pointed out. Concerns were raised about survivors being spoken to in a group – as opposed to individually, where they might be more open – and the ethics of paying them for their time.
As with a number of issues that have plagued the Labour government over its time in office, the grooming gang probe is one that demonstrates much talk without all that much progress. On such a horrifying and emotive scandal, Labour needs to show it has listened – even if that means taking recommendations from its political opponents.
Comments