A summary of today's developments
The home secretary announced that professionals who work with children will face criminal sanctions if they fail to report claims of child sexual abuse under a law to be introduced this year. Yvette Cooper promised to implement a key demand from Prof Alexis Jay’s child sexual abuse inquiry after Keir Starmer turned down demands from Elon Musk and Kemi Badenoch for a new investigation into paedophile gangs. The introduction of mandatory reporting in England would be included in the crime and policing bill expected to be introduced to parliament in the spring, Cooper told parliament.
Cooper also disclosed that the government plans to introduce a victims and survivors panel to oversee reforms, make grooming an aggravating factor in child sexual offences and establish a core dataset for child abuse and protection.
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said the Tories will try to hold a Commons vote on holding a new inquiry into the child sexual abuse scandal. He said the party would do that by tabling an amendment to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill, which will get its second reading in the Commons on Wednesday.
Keir Starmer said the online debate about child sexual exploitation is based on lies with politicians “jumping on the bandwagon simply to get attention” as he hit back at Elon Musk. The prime minister said a line had been crossed when the safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, and others received serious threats as a result of the “poison of the far right”. Dtarmer also rejected calls for another review into the Oldham rape gang cases because he said the “utterly sickening” issue did not need any more consultations, it just needed action.
Private hospitals will provide NHS patients in England with as many as a million extra appointments, scans and operations a year as part of the government’s drive to end the care backlog. Keir Starmer unveiled the NHS’s growing use of private healthcare in a major speech on Monday in which he set out his new elective reform plan to address a waiting list for planned care on which 6.4 million people are waiting for 7.5m treatments.
Tulip Siddiq, the City and anti-corruption minister, has referred herself to the ministerial standards watchdog after days of allegations that she has lived in multiple properties tied to the ousted Bangladeshi government. Siddiq has asked Laurie Magnus, the prime minister’s independent adviser on ministerial standards, to investigate whether she might have broken the ministerial code. Her request came after it was revealed that Siddiq had lived in multiple properties linked to her aunt Sheikh Hasina, who recently resigned as Bangladesh’s prime minister after a popular uprising. Siddiq wrote to Magnus: “In recent weeks I have been the subject of media reporting, much of it inaccurate, about my financial affairs and my family’s links to the former government of Bangladesh. I am clear that I have done nothing wrong. However, for the avoidance of doubt, I would like you to independently establish the facts about these matters.”
The Muslim Council of Britain accused Robert Jenrick of weaponising “the horrors suffered by young girls to push a hateful agenda” after the Tory politician described Britons of Pakistani origin as “people from alien cultures”. After it emerged that the government had refused Oldham council’s request to hold another national inquiry into failings over the offences of grooming gangs, Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, claimed in a lengthy tweet that their crimes had been “legalised and actively covered up to prevent disorder” because authorities were concerned about harming community relations. The MCB said Jenrick was “surpassing” Nigel Farage - who last year claimed a growing number of Muslims “do not subscribe to British values” - in his “targeting” of British Muslims.
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, confirmed the decision to get Louise Casey to lead an independent commission on social care that was announced last week. He describes Casey as Whitehall’s best expert on getting things done.
Updated
An independent MP has called Elon Musk an “overseas bad faith actor” and said demonising a community risks giving potential victims “a false sense of security with people who don’t fit that stereotype”.
Shockat Adam, MP for Leicester South, said: “Perpetrators of sexual crimes must face the full force of the law regardless of their race, their religion or their nationality. But an overseas bad faith actor is using truly horrific cases of group-based child rape to demonise a community and slander a minister of the crown, someone who has genuine experiences in helping victims of abuse.
“This narrative is false and this narrative is dangerous. Many reports from 2015 to 2024 have concluded that the common denominator for sexual violence is not immigration, race or culture.
“Isn’t this the real point here? If the victims have been falsely told perpetrators look a certain way, or are part of a certain community, they will have a false sense of security when with people who don’t fit that stereotype.”
In response, the home secretary said: “One of the points that the independent inquiry made was the broad nature of this abuse, and the way in which it can be found anywhere.”
