YouSaid · the spoken record
Jess Phillips
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On the record 2015–2026
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“Tackling violence against women and girls is a top priority for this Government. We will deliver a cross-Government, transformative approach underpinned by the new strategy, which we aim to publish as soon as possible. This strategy is overseen by the violence against women and girls ministerial board, the safer streets mission board and regular stocktakes by the Prime Minister. This structure holds the Government Departments to account.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. However, there have been recent successful campaigns by British Transport police and the Rail Delivery Group, which is the rail industry-funded group representing the views of the rail industry, to encourage reporting of offences against women and girls, and we believe that some of the rise in recorded offences is because of that success and the willingness of victims to come forward and bystanders to intervene or report on a victim’s behalf. However, we are not complacent. The Department for Transport recently announced £17 million of investment to better connect CCTV at train stations. The project will enable greater real-time access for the BTP to accelerate investigations and identify offenders as quickly as possible to bring them to justice.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Sadly, what my hon. Friend describes is something that I think everybody in the House would recognise. We are strengthening the justice system to better support victims, and we have committed to ensuring that there are specialist rape and sexual offences teams in every police force and that police officers receive stronger training on violence against women and girls, including on coercive and controlling behaviour. We will also ban anyone with a history of violence against women and girls from joining the police force and we will increase the powers of the Victims’ Commissioner through the Victims and Courts Bill, so that they can hold criminal justice systems accountable and independently scrutinise the victims code of compliance.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank my hon. Friend for his passionate plea, and I absolutely will take up his suggestions in the meetings to which I have already referred. Tier 1 local authorities in England have a legal requirement to assess and address the need for support within safe accommodation for all domestic abuse victims. The Government have increased the funding to local authorities to £160 million this year—an uplift of £30 million from previous years—to provide further support in safe accommodation for domestic abuse survivors. The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government has published statutory guidance, which is clear that local authorities should ensure that sufficient suitable support in safe accommodation is available to meet the needs of victims locally.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I absolutely do support the “Loose Women” in this regard. I was about to say that I would like to think of myself as one, but I am not sure that that would come across very well. I agree that signage in GPs’ surgeries, dentists’ waiting rooms and pubs and clubs are valuable tools to warn the public about the signs of domestic abuse, and can help to point those who are worried about a friend or family member to places where they can be helped. We as a Government must ensure that when people need to see that signage it will be there, and that is what we are doing”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yes, I can absolutely give the hon. Gentleman that assurance, and I would be more than happy to meet him to discuss these matters and see where we can go forward together. The delay is being caused by the fact that the work will be completely cross-governmental; we must ensure that the allocations processes, and all the things that go on in Government Departments, are as good as they possibly can be, because the National Audit Office reports about previous VAWG strategies have left a lot to be desired, and I do not want that to happen again.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank my hon. Friend and Birmingham constituency neighbour and share his real concern about a spate of what appear to be instances of racially motivated sexual violence. All I can say is that some of these cases are sub judice and charges have been laid, but I absolutely assure him that I have spoken to organisations that work on the ground with black and minoritised women to ensure that we do everything we can, along with the police and other agencies, to make sure that women where he and I live feel safe.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I greatly appreciate the hon. Lady’s question, and I was very proud when it was announced yesterday that this Government would make strangulation in pornography illegal in our country, because of the rising tide of its becoming acceptable. Much of that work comes from the institute that she mentioned. She must be in absolutely no doubt that there is not a Cabinet Minister in the country who is not aware of the strength of my feelings about what should be spent on violence against women and girls.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have seen those cases. Domestic homicide reviews point to failures in the Child Maintenance Service that have led to the most tragic circumstances. We are working with the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that the system that operates in our country is completely safe, but we are also working with the DWP more widely on exactly what we are doing in that Department on violence against women and girls.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have handled cases myself that were not dissimilar, where a third party could not be given that information, so I absolutely understand the hon. Lady’s frustration. That area, which sits within the Home Office, is one that I scrutinise very closely, and I will gladly take away her recommendations, because, frankly, I think they are quite good ones.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Lady makes a very important point about how women’s health can be used in coercion, especially their fertility—on both sides of the coin: about having an abortion or not having one. She will know that, unlike her, I am positively pro-choice. However, she is absolutely right that, when we look at any changes to abortion legislation in our country, those conversations will absolutely be going on, and all safeguards will be put in place.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will have to go away and check exactly what the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) has said regarding the people who the hon. Lady says will be released, because there are, of course, exceptions—and more exceptions than there were under her Government’s prison release scheme, because people like me and my hon. Friend had oversight of this process and cared about the women involved. It is absolutely shocking that someone from a Government who oversaw the total collapse of our prison system, where we would not have been able to arrest rapists because there were no places for them in prison, can dare to stand there and suggest that that is something that we should—it is unbelievable that she cannot recognise her own role in this.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Ministry of Justice, which oversees victims funding, absolutely ringfenced those two sexual violence funds last year to ensure that they were protected. As for future funding, it would be difficult for me to stand here and guarantee anything while the comprehensive spending review is being allocated, but as someone who used to work in one of those services, I find it vanishingly unlikely that they will not be funded in the future.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister for Women and Equalities is already wearing a pink jacket. I absolutely pay tribute to the group in my hon. Friend’s constituency. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), who is the Minister with responsibility for tackling violence against women and girls, will be visiting Stroud very soon and has offered to don the pink jacket on our behalf.”
House of Commons5 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have said that 1 million times from the Dispatch Box, yet the same thing gets peddled again and again.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This process, contrary to the reporting, was managed not by the Home Office but by the independent child exploitation charity NWG Network. We are gathering views to ensure that the perspective of victims and survivors remains central. We must avoid delays, as were seen in the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, and we are progressing as swiftly as thoroughness allows. Misinformation undermines this process. Allegations of intentional delay, lack of interest and a widening or dilution of the inquiry’s scope are false. The inquiry will remain laser-focused on grooming gangs, as Baroness Casey recommended.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The inquiry will examine safeguarding systems, accountability and intersections with ethnicity, race and culture, identifying failures and good practice. The inquiry will work alongside Operation Beaconport, a national police operation. The appointment of the chair is at a critical stage, and we hope to confirm its conclusion soon. Victims and survivors have been at the heart of the process, with trauma-informed opportunities to share their views. We have engaged with them on the chair appointment and the terms of reference, which will be shaped by the chair in public consultation with stakeholders. As has been widely reported in the media, victims and survivors are meeting prospective chairs this week—today, in fact.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As stated in my previous statement to the House on 2 September and in my letter to the Home Affairs Committee yesterday, the Government remain resolute in delivering Baroness Casey’s recommendations following her national audit of group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse. These crimes committed by grooming gangs are among the most horrific imaginable. Baroness Casey’s report exposed more than a decade of institutional inaction, and we are determined to ensure that such failures are never repeated. Central to our response is a statutory national inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005. It will oversee local investigations and will have full powers to compel evidence. It will also be time-limited to three years to ensure that victims and survivors receive answers swiftly.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Gentleman requiring a judge, Baroness Casey said to the House in the Home Affairs Committee that she did not want a traditional judicial-led inquiry. She was explicit about that. Can anyone in the House find me an institution that did not fail these girls over the years? That includes our courts, which took children away from the grooming gang victims and which criminalised some of them. There is no institution in our country that has not failed. Today, I will meet many of the victims and get their feedback, and I will continue to progress with that in mind. I will engage with all the victims, regardless of their opinions, and I will listen to those who have been put in the media and are put in panels. I will always listen, and I will speak to all of them.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The right hon. Gentleman cannot have listened to my remarks at all if he is suggesting that the Government have silenced anybody. The Government have not handled the process; it has been handled by a grooming gang charity. He cited and named a victim of crime. If the right hon. Gentleman had done anywhere near the level of work that I have done, he would know that not all victims and survivors are of the same opinion. They are not one homogeneous group of people who all think the same thing, who all want the same exposure and who all want their identities known. I have spoken to Fiona Goddard many times, and I will continue that relationship with her, should that be what she wishes. Every single survivor who has been engaged with—there have been many—will have different feelings on the subject. With regard to the right hon.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will not be chairing the inquiry, so I can only say to my hon. Friend that the terms of reference—I am not sure this is usual—will be consulted on in public. That is because of the issue of bad faith and the concern about transparency. The remit of the inquiry will be decided by the chair, living within those terms of reference. Having been part of various different inquiries or watched them from a distance, I know that no stone will be left unturned. Whoever chairs the inquiry will feel empowered to do what they think is best.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have already done some of the work on the terms of reference with victims’ groups, but we cannot publish those—we will do that publicly, as I said—until a chair is appointed. I will not rush that, because I will take note of all the feedback I receive.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for both his tone and his approach. As per the Inquiries Act 2005, the terms of reference have to be set and consulted on with the chair. The chair is being decided on. I have to say, it is not taking any longer than the covid inquiry or the infected blood inquiry, which I think each took seven months from their announcement to the appointment of the chair. I do not remember huge amounts of criticism or bellyaching about that, because we wanted to get those things right. Actually, getting this right means dealing with lots of different stakeholders and victims with different views. The process has to be followed that the terms of reference go through the chair.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank my hon. Friend. I think she mischaracterises me as the fiercest of advocates because she, as a grooming victim, with a child born of rape, is the fiercest and bravest. I could cry, I feel so proud that the Government sought to get her elected. I have been campaigning for the thing she has fought for with grooming gang victims for nearly a decade. I met with Ministers of the then Government and nothing was done. [ Interruption. ] The exact thing that she has campaigned for was asked for repeatedly and nothing was done. I am incredibly proud of her, as it is because of her and this Government that today I can say that that will change.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There are many different victims and they have many different views. There are ones that we hear publicly. But I want to make it clear that there are many different victims and we have to ensure that all their voices are heard equally, whether they are part of the process or not.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I absolutely regret that they have resigned from the process. Funnily enough, in the particular instance of one of the people, I have had no involvement in that process. I do not know who are on the panels of victims; it is entirely independently managed by a grooming gang charity. One of my only interventions was to ensure that the names of some of the voices that I thought deserved to be heard were included. I have done that on a number of occasions. I will, of course, listen to them. Actually, I am meant to be with those panels of victims, hearing their response, right now. As I have said, I will take the feedback of anyone, both publicly and should they want to speak to me, as I have approached them. I am always sad when victims feel that they cannot take part in a process—of course I am.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“While the inquiry is ongoing, that will be a matter for the chair. However, I know from the inquiries that I have been involved in that were successful and victim-centric that there always has to be a system for supporting the victims, both with taking part in the inquiry and with the trauma that might be brought up. Usually, those two things are separate, but I will say this once again: I will not be the chair of this committee. Undoubtedly, it is about ensuring that victims are protected throughout the process. Should they want to go out and speak publicly both negatively and positively about that process, I would absolutely welcome that. People should never be prevented from speaking. We have to ensure that support is available, regardless of how they wish to gain it.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“All I can say is that there is a reason that I cannot stand in front of the victims, who I am meant to be getting feedback from right now, and definitely say when the chair will come. I could have just put my finger in the air and picked out some random judge—we could have done that—but I am listening to victims’ feedback. Again, I have to stress that that process is not easy. There are difficult dynamics within groups of people and the people who we have asked to engage are dealing with difficult things, so undoubtedly, that is not uncomplex. As anyone who has worked with groups of people who have been wronged, shamed and treated badly will know, it would be a lie to stand here and tell them that there is a straight line and a simple answer—and I am not willing to do that.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will chair an interministerial cross-Government group next week to push through the other recommendations. Baroness Casey made 12 recommendations, but people rarely speak about any of the others. This was not her most pressing one; instead, she gave primacy to the policing-related recommendation around Operation Beaconport. As I said in my previous statement on 2 September, the work on the 216 cases that moved forward is ongoing and runs alongside this. That is where justice will be served: in our courts—if only they had not been horrendously degraded so that rape victims wait for years and years.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That opportunity has already been presented to them and I would be more than happy. I know one of them but not the other. That opportunity is always available, and one of them has my phone number. On the idea that I do not listen and have not been making myself available, I have tried to keep the process fiercely independent of Government intervention so that it can happen and victims can feel safe in that, but of course I feel sad that this is how it has ended. Actually, I hope that this is not how it has ended and I will commit to making sure that this is not the end. My door is always open to them.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I say again and again that it will not shy away from findings where they are present. Anybody who has done the work in this space will know that that is going to be found, as the case in my hon. Friend’s constituency highlights. There is absolutely no sense that ethnicity will be buried away. Every single time that there is an apparently needless delay—even though it took seven months to put in place chairs for both the covid inquiry and the blood inquiry, and nobody moaned about that—it gets used to say that we want to cover something up. That is the misinformation I am talking about. It will not cover things up. We are taking time to ensure that that can never happen.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is not an institution that did not fail those girls. That is the whole point. There is no clean skin, but there are brilliant people who whistleblew and who tried, in every one of those institutions. That is essentially where we are left with this, but I promise rigour in the same way that, when I saw things happening in here, I was rigorous.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is in a unique category of always asking a question that leads me to further questions that are pertinent. An inquiry does not usually report to the House while it is ongoing, but I will take that away to see if there is an appetite for that. All I can say is that there is no institution in the country, including this one here, that does not have skeletons. Do I think all politicians would not be robust in this? No, I do not. I think some would. I can guarantee that I can point at people, the hon. Gentleman included, who would show absolute rigour even against his own. The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, IICSA, had a judge leading it and it lost the confidence of the victims. Three people lost the confidence of the victims. It took two years.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As the inquiry is set up—as with previous inquiries with very vulnerable groups of people, such as IICSA—things will have to be put in place to ensure that people can freely give their evidence, and that will have to be done in a trauma-informed way. The twelfth of Baroness Casey’s recommendations was that all the recommendations should be fully funded by the Government, and this Government have absolutely committed to that. I very much expect that, when the chair is in place, those conversations about exactly how that will look will begin. The only thing I do control, I suppose, in any of this, is that this Government will pay for it.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is quite impressive that the hon. Member says that after a grooming victim has stood up and spoken from these Benches, but I have learned to expect it. He talks about a cover-up—maybe he is doing it for clicks; I do not know—and I understand that he thinks he is doing God’s work in fighting this issue, but the idea that it is easy to find a chair or to find people who want to step forward and take part in this process, given the level of bad faith and when the issue is mired in political point scoring of the type he has just done! He should really question his own morality.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I can imagine all those things. I am trying to get across the idea of how complex these situations are, but I am more than happy to listen to Ellie and see what has gone wrong in the process for her and seek to make it better. I am absolutely happy to do that.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As I have said, I would very much hope to hear those concerns directly from Ellie herself and to see what can be done. I only know the victims who I have worked with—when they have been on the panel, they have spoken to me, because I have personal relations with them—and what I can say is that there are differing views about the levels of confidentiality. The confidentiality is not to silence people or prevent them from speaking about their own experiences. It is necessary because there are people in those rooms who have never shown their faces who are also victims. Having run an agency myself, I know about trying to manage that. I can see why somebody might say that we should not seek out people outside the meeting, because others might have said they do not want that, but they are not going to say that in public.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I refer the hon. Member to my previous answer. As I have said a number of times, I am going to speak to those involved and look into the process. It is not a process that I have personally been part of, and I can only speak to the victims who I happen to have known before, if they tell me that they are part of it—not the other way around. I cannot ask who is involved. That is confidential by its very nature. Of course I am going to listen to that feedback and, like I have said, I will speak to those victims involved.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend, who I know has some experience of inquiries from her previous life, is exactly right. People do not remember it now, but there were victims going out in the press complaining about what was going on with IICSA. It went through numerous chairs. There is already much worse faith in this instance, both rightly and wrongly. For me to allow the same to happen during this inquiry would just make people shout “Cover-up!”, so we are trying to do everything possible to ensure that the mistakes made by the previous Government are not made again.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“To go back to the previous answer, the chair of the inquiry will set the tone for the inquiry. That is why we have to put in place the right chair and a system for victims who want to take part in the inquiry that will care for and look after them, and that is what we are working to achieve.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Absolutely. I absolutely pay tribute to the community response in my hon. Friend’s local area to recent incidences of very hideous sexual violence, and I put on record my love to the families and victims involved. I absolutely agree: this is a grooming gangs inquiry, and it will follow what Baroness Casey stated. As I said in my statement, it will be three years long, it will not shy away and it will be a grooming gangs inquiry.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do not disagree with the right hon. Gentleman. Most of what I see reported on anything in this space is largely inaccurate and often comes with an agenda, more so than in the case of the infected blood scheme, although I absolutely take my hat off to the job that he had to do. There is a balance between wanting to give a complete and utter running commentary on a very complicated thing and making sure that people feel like something is going on, because nature abhors a vacuum and so does misinformation.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I absolutely will, and my hon. Friend gives me the opportunity to say that, no matter who is picked, there will be people unhappy with it. Like most politics that we deal with, let us just call a spade a spade and stop pretending that there is a perfect situation. There is only the best situation we can have. Funnily enough, in the conversations that I have had with some of the prospective chairs, the main thing I have wanted them to take away is the feeling that, if they have to slag me off all day long, then that is exactly what they should do, and I would say the same to the victims.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Absolutely—100%. Far be it from me to speculate about where I would like the inquiry to go, but if I had my way and I was the chair, I would have grave concerns about the area where I live—Members will not be surprised to hear—because that is where I worked. The fact that it has a Labour council would not stop me from wanting to look there. In fact, if the House will excuse my unparliamentary language, I could not give a toss about—”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I really hope so, but I am not going to do what other people seem to want to do in this circumstance and pretend that there is a guarantee and that I have some sort of magic weapon. That is the process that I am undertaking: I am trying to get the very best chair, who is supported alongside the victims who have been taking part in the process.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will not stand here and say that I would eliminate any victim or survivor working on this based on their political views, and I will continue to say that as it is. Many of them do not like me very much. Imagine if I just did not let the people who did not like me very much have their voices heard. Well, frankly, I would be guilty of a cover-up.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In answer to the first question, I have every power to intervene in the panel’s process, but the decision I made was that it should be independent of me and my offices, and would be better handled by experts in the field. When I speak to those involved, of course I can raise things and make decisions about how this goes forward. I very much hope that we will be drawing to a conclusion and that soon I will have much less involvement. To the right hon. Gentleman’s other question, victims and survivors of this crime all have different political opinions. They all have different views on the substantive. They have different views about whether it should be called “grooming” or whether it should be called “grouped”. They have different views on all these things.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“First, while the inquiry is in England and Wales, one of the victims who we have been hearing about today—Ellie—lives very much in the borderland of our two great countries of England and Scotland. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that some of the things that may get found in the inquiry will have findings across the border. Unfortunately, the trafficking of young girls does not follow lines on a map as easily as we might think it does when we administer inquiries. My hon. Friend should continue to work with survivor groups up in Scotland to push for what exactly it is that they want to see in Scotland.”
House of Commons21 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗