The Tories’ attempts to force a grooming gang inquiry won’t result in a probe – here’s why
The Conservatives’ attempts to force MPs to vote for a statutory inquiry into child sex gangs would not lead to an inquiry, even if it’s supported in the Commons.
As part of the ongoing debate on the topic, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has said her party plans to table an amendment on Wednesday to the Children’s Wellbeing Bill to require a statutory inquiry into grooming gangs.
Writing on X, Ms Badenoch said she hoped “MPs from all parties” would support the inquiry.
Passing the amendment, however, would not force the government to launch such an inquiry necessarily – and would instead kill the legislation.
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Here’s why…
What is the point of the amendment?
First off, it’s important to note that the primary purpose of moves like this is the politics, rather than the procedure.
By forcing a vote on an amendment – with Labour opposing it – the Conservatives will be able to point to Labour and say they voted against an inquiry.
Labour’s massive majority means the Tories have an almost zero chance of winning – and this kind of move is made by all oppositions.
Conservative strategists will also hope it foments unrest on the Labour benches if there are MPs unhappy with Downing Street’s or Sir Keir Starmer’s response to the issue.
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Why would supporting the amendment not cause an inquiry?
It is at this point we get into the weeds of parliamentary procedure.
When a bill is proposed in the Commons, it passes through several stages. First it is introduced to the House – and there is no debate at this point.
Then there is a “second reading”, where MPs debate the bill for the first time and vote on whether it should proceed.
It is after this point that MPs take the bill away into a committee and go through line by line and propose and consider amendments. Further votes follow, as well as stages in the Lords before it becomes law.
The Children’s Wellbeing Bill is set to have its second reading on Wednesday.
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‘Lies’ over grooming gangs
As was mentioned above – amendments do not normally take place until after this stage.
By proposing an amendment at the second reading, the Conservatives have to use what is known as a “reasoned amendment”.
If this passes, instead of changing the proposed bill for future votes, it kills it off and no further stages take place.
Furthermore, this would stop the government reintroducing the Children’s Wellbeing Bill again until after the next King’s Speech.
The purpose of Children’s Wellbeing Bill is to reform things like the children’s care system and protecting children in schools.
Will a vote take place?
Whether a vote takes place is up to the Speaker of the House of Commons.
It is impossible to know if he will choose the amendment – however, amendments in the name of the leader of the Opposition and supported by the shadow cabinet do tend to get selected so they can be debated.
However, a “reasoned amendment” has to be formulated in a specific way – notably, it needs to give a specific reason for the opposition to the bill.
Erksine May – the rulebook for the House of Commons – says the usual way is to use a form of words like “this House declines to give a second reading to a bill which …”, or “to the … Bill because …”.
This is instead of just voting against the bill in general, something achieved through the normal vote.
The last time such a bill was successful in killing legislation was in 1986.
Margaret Thatcher’s government was defeated on a second reading in 1986. Pic: PA
Margaret Thatcher’s attempts to reform Sunday trading legislation were halted at that time by a Labour Party led by Neil Kinnock.
However, proceedings were a bit confused. The Speaker initially refused to allow MPs to vote on Mr Kinnock’s amendment – and then changed his mind halfway through the debate.
With a significant number of Tory rebels, Mrs Thatcher was defeated following a late night vote.
What are the parties saying?
Since Ms Badenoch’s announcement on Monday, the Conservatives have doubled down on their position.
A spokesperson for the party said: “Labour are looking for any excuse to get out of holding a much-needed national inquiry into child rape grooming gangs.
“Labour’s attempts to hide behind parliamentary procedure and take the debate away from victims will not save them from their moral cowardice, and their failure to give victims the answers they deserve.
“Labour MPs now have the chance to do the right thing, and vote for justice.”
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Labour, meanwhile, says previous inquiries have carried out the work necessary to look into grooming gangs.
It says it plans to implement all the recommendations from the Jay review, and will announce more details in the Crime and Policing Bill at a point later this year.
London and the UK’s leading status in the global financial system is “fragile”, the boss of Goldman Sachs has warned, as the government grapples with a tough economy.
Speaking ahead of a meeting with the prime minister, David Solomon – chairman and chief executive of the huge US investment bank – told Sky News presenter Wilfred Frost’s The Master Investor Podcast of several concerns related to tax and regulation.
He urged the government not to push people and business away through poor policy that would damage its primary aim of securing improved economic growth, arguing that European rivals were currently proving more attractive.
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He said: “The financial industry is still driven by talent and capital formation. And those things are much more mobile than they were 25 years ago.
“London continues to be an important financial centre. But because of Brexit, because of the way the world’s evolving, the talent that was more centred here is more mobile.
“We as a firm have many more people on the continent. Policy matters, incentives matter.
“I’m encouraged by some of what the current government is talking about in terms of supporting business and trying to support a more growth oriented agenda.
“But if you don’t set a policy that keeps talent here, that encourages capital formation here, I think over time you risk that.”
He had a stark warning about the recent reversal of the “Non Dom” tax policy, which occurred across both the prior Conservative government and the current Labour government, which has played a part in some senior Goldman partners relocating away from London.
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Richard Gnodde, one of the bank’s vice-chairs, left for Milan earlier this year.
“Incentives matter if you create tax policy or incentives that push people away, you harm your economy,” Mr Solomon continued.
“If you go back, you know, ten years ago, I think we probably had 80 people in Paris. You know, we have 400 people in Paris now… And so in Goldman Sachs today, if you’re in Europe, you can live in London, you can live in Paris, you can live in Germany, in Frankfurt or Munich, you can live in Italy, you can live in Switzerland.
“And we’ve got, you know, real offices. You just have to recognise talent is more mobile.”
Goldman is understood to have about 6,000 employees in the UK.
Rachel Reeves is currently seeking ways to fill a black hole in the public finances and has refused to rule out wealth taxes at the next budget.
Mr Solomon expressed sympathy for her as her tears in parliament earlier this month led to speculation about the pressure of the job.
“I have sympathy, I have empathy not just for the chancellor, but for anyone who’s serving in one of these governments,” he said, referring to the turbulent political landscape globally.
Commenting on the chancellor’s Mansion House speech last week, he added: “The chancellor spoke here about regulation, she’s talking about regulation not just for safety and soundness, but also for growth.
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Takeaways from chancellor’s Mansion House speech
“And now we have to see the action steps that actually follow through and encourage that.”
One area he was particularly keen to see follow through from her Mansion House speech was ringfencing – the post financial crisis regulation that requires banks to separate their retail activities from their investment banking activities.
“It’s a place where the UK is an outlier, and by being an outlier, it prevents capital formation and growth.
“What’s the justification for being an outlier? Why is this so difficult to change? It’s hard to make a substantive policy argument that this is like a great policy for the UK. So why is it so hard to change?”
The Master Investor Podcast with Wilfred Frost is available across multiple podcast platforms
Social media limits for children are being planned by the government to tackle “compulsive” screen time, the technology secretary has told Sky News.
Peter Kyle said he was concerned about “the overall amount of time kids spend on these apps” as well as the content they see.
A two-hour cap per platform is being seriously considered after meetings with current and former employees of tech companies. A night-time or school-time curfew has also been discussed.
Children would be blocked from accessing apps such as TikTok or Snapchat once they have hit the limit, rather than just reminded of how long they have been scrolling, it is understood.
An announcement on screen time is expected this autumn.
Mr Kyle said: “I’ll be making an announcement on these things in the near future. But I am looking very carefully about the overall time kids spend on these apps.
“I think some parents feel a bit disempowered about how to actually make their kids healthier online.
“I think some kids feel that sometimes there is so much compulsive behaviour with interaction with the apps they need some help just to take control of their online lives and those are things I’m looking at really carefully.
“We talk a lot about a healthy childhood offline. We need to do the same online. I think sleep is very important, to be able to focus on studying is very important.”
Charlotte, 17, said she believes there needs to be ‘harsher controls’
He added that he wanted to stop children spending hours viewing content which “isn’t criminal, but it’s unhealthy, the overuse of some of these apps”.
“I think we can incentivise the companies and we can set a slightly different threshold that will just tip the balance in favour of parents not always being the ones who are just ripping phones out of the kids’ hands and having a really awkward, difficult conversation around it,” he added.
Mr Kyle spoke exclusively to Sky News after meeting with a group of pupils from Darlington who have spent a year participating in regular focus groups about smartphones and social media, organised by their Labour MP Lola McEvoy.
The tech secretary is considering limiting screen time to two hours
They took part in a survey of 1,000 children from the town, mostly aged 14 and 15, which found that 40% of them spent at least six hours a day online. One in five spent as long as eight hours scrolling.
Most of the under-16s (55%) had seen inappropriate sexual or violent content – often unprompted. And three-quarters of the under-16s had been contacted online by strangers.
In the session in parliament, in which the children were asked what they were most concerned about, Jacob, 15, said: “A lack of restrictions on screen time I would personally say, which leads to people scrolling for hours on Tiktok.
“People just glue their eyes to their phone and just spent hours on it, instead of seeing the real world.”
Tom, 17, said: “I get the feeling you have to be quite tech savvy to protect your kids online. You have to go into the settings and work out each one. It should be the default. It needs to be straight away, day one.”
Matthew, 15, said: “I think because everybody is online all the time and there’s no real moderation to what people can say or what can be shared, it can really affect people’s lives because it’s always there.
“As soon as I wake up, I check my phone and until I go to bed. The only time I take a break is when I eat or am talking to someone.”
Some of the teenagers had spent 12 or even up to 16 hours a day online.
MP Lola McEvoy has been holding focus groups with teens to find out how severe the issue is
Nathan, 15, said: “When, for example, a 13-year-old is on their phone ’til midnight, you can’t sleep, your body can’t function properly and your mind is all over the place.”
But there was scepticism about what could be done.
Charlotte, 17, said: “If your parents sets a restriction on Instagram and say, ‘right, you’re coming off it now’ – there’s TikTok, there is Pinterest, there is Facebook, there’s Snapchat, there so many different other ones, you can go on, and it just builds up and builds and builds up, and you end up sat there for the entire evening just on social media. I think we need harsher controls.”
Several of the pupils who met Mr Kyle detailed being contacted by adult strangers, either on social media apps or online gaming, in ways which made them feel uncomfortable.
Mr Kyle said: “It is madness, it is total madness, and many of the apps or the companies have taken action to restrict contacts that adults – particularly strangers – have with children, but we need to go further and I accept that.
“At the moment, I think the balance is tipped slightly in the wrong direction. Parents don’t feel they have the skills, the tools or the ability to really have a grip on the childhood experience online, how much time, what they’re seeing, they don’t feel that kids are protected from unhealthy activity or content when they are online.”
The tech secretary is in the process of implementing the 2023 Online Safety Act, passed by the previous government.
From this Friday, all platforms must introduce stronger protections for children online, including a legal requirement for all pornography sites accessed in the UK to have effective age verification in place – such as facial age estimation or ID checks.
Briony and Matthew took part in the group
Mr Kyle added: “I don’t just want the base level set where kids aren’t being criminally exploited and damaged, that shouldn’t be the height of our aspirations. The height of our aspirations should be a healthy experience.”
Labour MP Lola McEvoy, who organised the focus group, said: “I knew things were bad online for children and young people but their testimony revealed the extent of explicit, disturbing and toxic content that is now the norm.
“Their articulation of the changes they wanted to see was excellent and they’ve done our town and their generation proud.”
Tiktok, Pinterest, Meta and Snapchat were contacted for comment, but none provided an on the record statement. The companies have accounts for under-16s with parental controls and some set reminders for screen time.
TikTok has a 60-minute daily screen time limit for under-18s after which they must enter a password to continue, and a reminder to switch off at 10pm. The company say this is to support a healthy relationship with screen time.
Pinterest have supported phone-free policies at schools, in the US and Canada and say they are looking to expand this elsewhere.
The UK will prohibit its public sector, such as its health service and local councils, from paying ransomware in a bid to “smash the cyber criminal business model.”
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