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Victims deserve credit for grooming gangs national inquiry - not Elon Musk, says Labour minister
16 June 2025, 19:20 | Updated: 16 June 2025, 19:25
Labour minister Jess Philips has rejected the idea that Elon Musk deserves any credit for bringing about a national inquiry into grooming gangs, saying it is the victims and campaigners who are responsible.
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The Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls told LBC's Andrew Marr it is "arrogance" for anyone else to try to take credit.
She said a lot of people have asked her whether this would be happening without Mr Musk, who began posting about the issue on X at the beginning of the year.
Ms Phillips said: "I don't think they'd be interested without Elon Musk. However, there are many of us who have been ploughing this furrow and seeking to change this - myself, the Home Secretary, the Prime Minister."
She denied Mr Musk is responsible for the action, saying it is the work of the victims and campaigners who pushed for a national inquiry.
Read more: Starmer calls in 'Britain's FBI' to investigate grooming gangs after U-turn on national inquiry
Andrew Marr speaks to Jess Phillips | Watch Again
She said: "I think that the victims are the people should be given the credit for the campaigning that they have done, both in local inquiries, in all of those reports that have been written.
"I met a victim from Bradford just a week ago and was speaking to her again today. And honestly, this woman, and many others I've met before, changed the course of my thinking on a daily basis.
"And it is them who deserve this credit and anybody else trying to claim that, well, you know, it's arrogance."
Asked what we should learn from this scandal, Ms Phillips said: "Believe women when they tell you what is happening to them".
She vowed: "This government will take more action than anyone has ever done before".
Baroness Louise Casey’s review into child sex abuse by grooming gangs found suspects were often “disproportionately likely” to be Asian men, the Home Secretary has said.
Yvette Cooper unveiled the findings from the rapid national audit to MPs, after the Prime Minister committed to launching a national inquiry into the abuse.
Ms Cooper said the overrepresentation was found when Baroness Casey examined local level data into three police force areas, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire, and in serious case reviews.
The government “unequivocally” apologised for failings which led to grooming and child sexual abuse.
Closing her statement to the Commons on the Casey Report, Ms Cooper said she had apologised while shadow home secretary in 2022 when Dame Alexis Jay’s report was published.
Ms Cooper told MPs: “On behalf of this, and past governments, and the many public authorities who let you down, I want to reiterate an unequivocal apology for the unimaginable pain and suffering that you have suffered, and the failure of our country’s institutions through decades, to prevent that harm and keep you safe."
