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.
Following the release of Baroness Casey’s report, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper revealed that more than 800 rape gang cases were uncovered in the “damning” review.
Cooper added: “At its heart, she identifies a deep-rooted failure to treat children as children. A continued failure to protect children and teenage girls from rape, from exploitation, and serious violence.”
Ben Leo grilled Tory MP Kieran Mullan on the grooming gangs scandal, accusing the party of only calling for an inquiry ‘when it is fashionable’
GB News
Asked by host Ellie Costello if the Conservatives have a poor record on the issue, Mullan told GB News: “I 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.
“I’ll use one example, the grooming gangs task force, which was a police Home Office-funded initiative that has led to hundreds of perpetrators of these kinds of offences being arrested, and thousands of victims uncovered.
“Of course, one of the main driving forces for us to look into this more deeply was the inquiry into child sexual abuse. That’s an inquiry that we set up, that we funded and we supported.”
Highlighting his “disappointment” in Labour’s delay in ordering a national inquiry, Mullan claimed the Conservatives were “open to the idea that we may need to go further”.
He stated: “There is a whole range of other work that we’ve done in relation to child sexual exploitation, violence against women and girls, that I think we can be proud of in Government.
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“One of the reasons why we’ve been calling for an inquiry and that we were disappointed it took so many times for Labour to get on board with the need for this was because we were open to the idea that we may need to go further.
“But that doesn’t diminish the positive things that we did do in Government, even if there is more still that needs to be done.”
Hitting out at Mullan’s remarks, GB News host Ben Leo fumed: “You’ve only been calling for an inquiry when critics would argue it seems fashionable to do so. Your party were in power for 14 years.
“The fact of the matter is, despite what you just said, you did, like the grooming gangs task force, not once did you call for a national inquiry during your time in power when it mattered.”
Defending the Tories further, Mullan responded: “We set up the Jay inquiry, which uncovered further details and concerns around these allegations of grooming gangs.
Mullan told GB News that he is ‘glad the Tories persisted in demanding an inquiry’
GB News
Defending the Tories further, Mullan stated: “We set up the Jay inquiry, which uncovered further details and concerns around these allegations of grooming gangs.
“And actually, it’s not about jumping on the bandwagon, it was about listening to, quite rightly, the calls from MPs who have said that we needed a national inquiry and we got behind those calls for an inquiry in opposition.”
He added: “I think that’s the perfectly reasonable thing to do. And the question is, why did Labour fight so hard against that?
“It’s set completely the wrong tone when it comes to us looking at this seriously, and I’m glad that we persisted, regardless, in demanding that we had such an inquiry.”