Labour 'ignored Conservative calls' for grooming gang inquiry, Mullan claims

GB News

GB News presenter Ben Leo tore into Shadow Justice Minister Kieran Mullan over his criticism of Labour's grooming gangs U-turn, claiming that the Conservatives didn't call for a national inquiry "once" during their 14-year tenure.Defending the Tories, Mullan claimed that the party were "persistent" in demanding an inquiry, defending their efforts in addressing rape gangs.FULL STORY HERE.

Transcript

00:00And let's start with that Casey report that was presented to Parliament yesterday, shall we?

00:06And lots of our viewers questioning the Tory record on this.

00:09We've known about this scandal, rumblings and rumours and whispers of this scandal since the early noughties.

00:15And many people saying the Tories didn't do enough.

00:19And looking at Kemi Badenonk yesterday at the PMQs and her outrage towards Sakhir Starmer,

00:25pointing at the fact that she was MP for eight years.

00:28In fact, she was Children's Minister and Women's Equality Minister.

00:31And not once did she call for a national inquiry until 2025.

00:38I don't think that's an accurate reflection of all the things that we did do to try and get to grips with the issue.

00:44I'll use one example, the Grooming Gangs Task Force, which was a police home office funded initiative

00:49that has led to hundreds of the perpetrators of these kinds of offences being arrested,

00:54thousands of victims uncovered.

00:56Of course, one of the main driving forces for us to look into this more deeply was the J inquiry into child sexual abuse.

01:03That's an inquiry that we set up, that we funded and we supported.

01:07There is a whole range of other work that we've done in relation to child sexual exploitation,

01:11violence against women and girls that I think we can be proud of in government.

01:15And actually, one of the reasons why we've been calling for an inquiry and that we were disappointed

01:19it took so many times for Labour to get on board with the need for this was because we're open to the idea that we may need to go further.

01:26But that doesn't diminish the positive things that we did do in government, even if there is more still needs to be done.

01:31Yeah, but Mr Mullen, you've only been calling for an inquiry when critics would argue it seems fashionable to do so.

01:37Your party were in power for 14 years, some of those with the Lib Dems, of course, but you didn't.

01:43The fact of the matter is, despite what you just said, you did the Grooming Gangs Task Force and whatever else,

01:48the fact of the matter is, not once did you call for a national inquiry during your time in power when it mattered.

01:54Well, I don't think it's a matter of whatever else.

01:59I think things like arresting and investigating the perpetrators of these crimes,

02:03setting up the inquiry that led to, in a large way, the further demands for a national inquiry,

02:08specifically into Grooming Gangs, were very important and significant steps that were taken in the right direction.

02:14Interrupt, Minister. Apologies.

02:14And it's actually...

02:16Sorry to interrupt.

02:17Those things were things that we did in government.

02:18And when it comes...

02:20Victims during that time were calling for a national inquiry?

02:24Sure. As I've said on a number of occasions, we set up the J Inquiry,

02:30which was a broader look into child sexual abuse that uncovered further details and concerns

02:35around these allegations of Grooming Gangs.

02:37And that then naturally led to us thinking how we could go further.

02:41And we did do that in many respects.

02:43And actually, it's not about jumping on a bandwagon.

02:45It was about listening to, quite rightly, the calls from MPs, Conservative MPs included,

02:50like Robbie Moore in Bradford, for victims of these sorts of crimes,

02:54who have said that we needed a national inquiry.

02:56And we got behind those calls for an inquiry in opposition.

02:59I think that's the perfectly reasonable thing to do.

03:01And the question is, why did Labour fight so hard against that?

Category

Transcript

Recommended