Jess Phillips has full confidence of PM, says minister, after grooming gang survivors say inquiry will fail if she stays
Good morning. Kemi Badenoch is entitled to take a bit of the credit for persuading Keir Starmer to change his mind and agree to a national grooming gangs inquiry. (GB News and Elon Musk probably played a rule too – although Starmer says the voice that mattered was Louise Casey’s.) When opposition parties influence policy, they always look a bit more serious. But – intentionally or not – by getting the inquiry off the ground, Badenoch has also plunged the government into process turmoil that guarantees endless negative headlines and unwanted distraction.
The government is now on day four of the grooming gangs inquiry “crisis” and it is not getting any better. After the resignation of four survivors on the inquiry’s oversight panel, and the withdrawal of both lead candidates to be chair, Starmer is now under fresh pressure to sack Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, over claims that she falsely accused survivors of lying about the process in an urgent question in the Commons on Tuesday.
Last night the four survivors who have resigned from the oversight panel released a joint statement saying Phillips’s comment took them “right back to that feeling of not being believed all over again”.
The survivors said that Phillips was unfit to oversee the inquiry process and that they would not rejoin the inquiry panel unless she went.
It is important to remember that most of the survivors on the oversight panel have not quit, and that there are plenty of victims who do not agree with these criticisms. Still, it is far from ideal.
In the Commons yesterday Starmer defended Phillips. Josh MacAlister, the children’s minister, has been doing a media round this morning and he said Phillips has the “full backing of the prime minister and the home secretary” and that he would “stay in post”.
He went on:
I know Jess, she’s been a lifelong advocate and champion for young girls who’ve been abused, and she has already shown that she’s properly engaging with the survivor community.
MacAlister said the scope of the inquiry would not be broadened (one of the concerns of survivors).
He added:
The government’s intent on this is incredibly solid. We want to get this right. We’re taking action and we’ll set the inquiry up.
I would just urge other political parties to turn the volume down a little bit, or turn the heat down a little bit on, on their attacks.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Darren Jones, the Cabinet Office minister, takes questions in the Commons.
9.30am: The ONS publishes crime figures for England and Wales for the year ending June 2025.
9.30am: David Lammy, the deputy PM, gives a speech in London.
10.15am: The Lords committee considering the assisted dying bill takes evidence from medical and legal experts.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Morning: John Healey, the defence secretary, and his German counterpart Boris Pistorious visit RAF Lossiemouth in north-east Scotland.
Noon: The ballot for the deputy Labour leadership closes. The result will be announced on Saturday.
Afternoon: Kemi Badenoch is on a visit in north-west London.
And in Caerphilly voters are going to the polls for a Senedd byelection that may herald a fundamental realignment in Welsh politics. Steven Morris has a very good preview here.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm BST at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
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Key events
Mahmood says violence against women and girls ‘national emergency’ as recorded sexual offences reach record high
Rajeev Syal
Rajeev Syal is the Guardian’s home affairs editor.
The Office for National Statistics report also says that the number of sexual offences, including rape, recorded by the police is at a record level since current reporting methods were established.
The report says:
There have been general increases in police recorded sexual offences over the last decade, largely because of improvements in police recording practices. There was a 9% increase in YE [the year ending] June 2025 (to 211,225 offences), compared with the previous year (193,684 offences). This is partly because of the introduction of two new sexual offences subcodes in January 2024. These subcodes relate to sending or sharing intimate photographs or films following the Online Safety Act 2023.
Around 34% (72,804 offences) of all sexual offences recorded by the police in YE June 2025 were rape offences. This was a 6% increase, compared with YE June 2024 (68,970 offences).
But the ONS also says that the police recorded crime figures are not a good way of measuring trends over time, because new offences are created, police recording methods change, and there has been an increase in the number of victims reporting offences.
The ONS also looks at Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) figures, and these are considered a more reliable guide to trends over time because the CSEW measures if people say they have been a victim of crime, regardless of whether or not the offence was reported to the police.
It says;
When analysing long-term trends, we use the 16 to 59 years age range to give a comparable data time series. The prevalence of sexual assault among people aged 16 to 59 years has fluctuated between 1.5% and 3.0% over the last 20 years. Over the last 10 years there has been an increase in sexual assault, after a previous decrease from YE March 2005 to YE March 2014. In the YE March 2025 survey, 2.4% of people aged 16 to 59 years had experienced sexual assault, compared with 1.7% in the YE March 2015 survey.
Commenting on the figures, Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, said these figures showed why the government was treating violence against women and girls as a “national emergency”. She said:
These figures tell us what, tragically, many have long known: violence against women and girls is a national emergency.
It is encouraging to see from this data that victims are coming forward, and that police and prosecutors are acting. These crimes too often go unreported, and we cannot solve a crisis until we can see it fully.
Now, we must redouble our efforts to eradicate this evil. That’s why this government has made it our mission to halve violence against women and girls within a decade, as part of our Plan for Change.
As home secretary, I will ensure police have the tools to relentlessly pursue dangerous offenders and that victims receive the support they need.
Homicide rate in England and Wales down to lowest rate for at least two decades, ONS says
The number of homicides recorded by police in England and Wales has dropped to its lowest level since current methods of reporting began in 2003, PA Media reports. PA says:
Some 518 homicides were recorded in the year to June, including 444 offences of murder and 68 of manslaughter, according to a report from the Office for National Statistics.
This is a drop of 6% from 552 in the previous year and 27% below the pre-pandemic total of 710 in 2019/20.
The current method of recording homicides dates from 2002/03, when the figure stood at 1,047 – although this includes the 173 victims of serial killer doctor Harold Shipman.
The homicide rate in the year to June stood at 8.4 offences per million people – the lowest level since the 1970s, the Home Office said.
New crime figures for England and Wales published this morning also show there were 51,527 knife offences recorded by forces in the 12 months to June, down year on year by 5%.
Other types of police-recorded offences increased, with shoplifting up 13% year on year to 529,994 – just below the recent all-time high – and theft from the person at 145,860, up 5%.
Reform’s only Black branch chair quits over ‘harmful’ migration debate
The only Black branch chair of Reform UK has left the rightwing populist party, saying the tone of Britain’s migration debate is “doing more harm than good”, Chris Osuh reports.
Cleverly wrongly claims Tory deportation policy would not retrospectively impact people with indefinite leave to remain
Peter Walker
Peter Walker is the Guardian’s senior political correspondent.
The Conservatives’ policy of retrospectively removing the right to live in the UK from large numbers of families appears to be causing confusion even among shadow ministers, with James Cleverly arguing this morning that the plan would not affect life for people who already have indefinite leave to remain.
Quizzed about the proposals, as set out in an interview over the weekend by Katie Lam, a junior Home Office frontbencher for the Tories, Cleverly, the shadow housing secretary, denied that people already with ILR could be removed under a future Conservative government.
He told Times Radio:
That’s not the full detail of the policy. That’s not quite the right interpretation of the policy. What we’re saying is indefinite leave to remain needs to be tighter.
Pressed on whether the changes would be retrospective, he said:
Retrospective changes are not what we are talking about as our policy.
This is curious, given that the Conservative plans on ILR, as set out in a draft bill presented by the shadow home secretary, Chris Philp, explicitly sets out that people with ILR can have this removed if they commit a crime, claim any kind of benefits, or earn less than £38,700 for six months or longer. The section is even titled “Revocation of Indefinite Leave to Remain in certain circumstances”.
Assuming this is still the policy – and Kemi Badenoch’s spokesperson said it was on Wednesday, and even explicitly defended the retrospective aspect – it is unusual for someone like Cleverly, who was both home secretary and shadow home secretary, to not be across the details.
In fairness to him, while Philp’s bill was tabled in May, few people paid much attention before Lam’s comments. The details of how the deportations would work, including whether it might involve splitting up families, are also still unclear.
Claire Coutinho claims Tony Blair’s thinktank ‘catching up’ with Tories after it says 2030 ‘clean power’ target should be dropped
The Tories have welcomed a report from the Tony Blair Institute (TBI), the former Labour’s PMs thinktank, saying the government should drop its plan to decarbonise electricity production in the UK by 2030.
Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary, claimed that the TBI was “catching up” with the Conservative party – even though the thinktank tank is not supporting the Tory call for the 2050 net zero target to be abandoned.
In a report, the TBI said that, while the 2030 clean power mission was laudable when it was launched as one of Keir Starmer’s five missions in 2023, the government should now be focusing more on cost of living issues. The TBI report said:
Launched in the middle of the gas crisis and in a low-interest environment, [the clean power misison] was right for its time, but circumstances have changed. The UK now needs more than a decarbonisation plan. It needs a full-spectrum energy strategy built on growth, resilience and abundant clean electricity. This means prioritising cost, flexibility and long-term stability – the real building blocks of electrification – not just short-term emissions cuts …
To focus minds across government, the clean power 2030 mission should therefore be reframed as cheaper power 2030, net zero 2050.
The UK’s commitment to net zero remains firm. Britain led the world in enshrining the Climate Change Act, and that legal duty stands. While some have suggested walking back the country’s commitment to the Climate Change Act or to achieving net zero by 2050, that choice would amount to rolling back progress. The question is no longer whether to decarbonise, but how – how to deliver clean power affordably, securely and with public support.
This passage does not mention the fact that Blair himself was at one point one of those suggesting “walking back” on net zero 2050. Blair has subsequently clarified his thinking, and his thinktank backs the Climate Change Act – unlike the Conserative party, that wants to repeal it.
But this did not stop Coutinho this morning claiming that Blair is on her side. She said:
I’m glad Tony Blair’s thinktank has been copy-and-pasting my speeches. Energy is prosperity and the priority for any energy policy has to be dealing with the fact that we have got the most expensive electricity in the world.
The Conservative party are the only party with a plan to cut bills. We will axe the carbon tax to cut bills for every family instantly. It’s good that the TBI is catching up – and now it’s time for Ed Miliband to adopt our cheap power plan to cut electricity bills by 20% tomorrow.
Commenting on the TBI report, a spokesperson for Miliband’s energy department said:
This report rightly recognises that clean power is the right choice for this country. This government’s clean power mission is exactly how we will deliver cheaper power and bring down bills for good.
As Kiran Stacey and Helena Horton report, the TBI may be on to something; ministers believe they may have to accept that they won’t be able to achieve the clean power 2030 target because they need to keep energy bills down.
Renewable energy investment should come from defence budgets, say retired military leaders
Investment in renewable energy should be counted under defence expenditure, says a group of retired senior military personnel, because the climate crisis represents a threat to national security, Fiona Harvey reports.
Rachel Reeves has announced a £500m investment package for new homes and stronger transport links between Oxford and Cambridge as part of a bid to create “Europe’s Silicon Valley” in southern England, PA Media reports. PA says:
The Cowley Branch railway line in Oxford will reopen with new stations in Littlemore and Cowley, which the Treasury said would support up to 10,000 new jobs.
The investment will also go towards the development of affordable homes in Cambridge, with plans to launch a consultation on forming a new centrally led development corporation to support the growth of the city.
The Cambridge Growth Company, which was established by the government and brings together local leaders, communities and industry, will begin recruiting for a new chief executive.
Its aim is to develop proposals for housing, transport, water and other infrastructure in the Greater Cambridge region.
Tom Tugendhat, the Tory former security minister, asked why one of the witness statements provided by the deputy national security adviser, Matthew Collins, included comments from the Labour manifesto about Labour’s China policy. He asked what that was the case when the case was meant to relate to the policy in place when the alleged offences were committed, when the Conservatives were in office.
Reeves said the most important witness statement was the one that was submitted when the Tories were in office.
Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, tabled the urgent question on the China spy case. Responding to Reeves, he said the attorney general reportedly heard the CPS were about to drop the case a few days before that was announced. He asked what steps the attorney general, Lord Hermer, took to ensure the CPS got the extra evidence it needed to ensure the prosecution could go ahead.
Reeves did not address this point in her reply. Instead she accused the Tories of “baseless smears”, and said that the attorney general will be giving evidence to the joint committee on the national security strategy next week.
Solicitor general Ellie Reeves says disinformation’ from Tories on China spy case is distracting from anti-espionage work
In the Commons Ellie Reeves, the solicitor general, is responding to a Tory urgent question about the China spy case, and the role of the attorney general in the case.
Reeves says in this country the Crown Prosecution Service is independent.
It is a bedrock constitutional principle that prosecutions in this country are free from political influence. This means that prosecutors, not politicians who decide which cases to prosecute. It is prosecutors, not politicians, who decide what evidence will be used at criminal trials, and it is prosecutors, not politicians, who decide when cases should be dropped.
Reeves says although individual CPS decisions are protected from political interference, it is “superintended” by the attorney general. Details of how this works are set out in a framework agreement signed by the attorney general under the last govenrment.
Reeves says, in some cases, including Official Secrets Act cases, the attorney general has to approve prosection decisions. She goes on:
In doing so, the law officer acts in a quasi-judicial capacity independently of government and applies the same two-stage test [as the CPS applies].
Reeves says the attorney general approved the prosecution in this case on 3 April 2024. She goes on:
Following that date, no law officer intervened in the case at any stage. It would have been wholly inappropriate for the law officers to do so.
Once consent is given, then the law officer plays no on-going role.
If the prosecutor contemplates dropping the case because of evidential reasons, then the requirement is that the prosecutor informs the attorney general of the decision as soon as it has been taken. That is what happened in this case.
She ends by saying “ongoing disinformation around the collapse of this case” is distracting the government as it attempts to deal with Chinese espion are now distracting from the most important issue we should all be focused on how the government can dea with Chinese espionage.
Lindsay Hoyle suggests government, not parliamentary rules, to blame for MPs not getting chance to debate Prince Andrew
Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, has insisted that parliamentary rules do not prevent MPs debating the conduct of members of the royal family.
There are rules that limit the ability of MPs to discuss the royals in general debates. But, in a statement to MPs at the start of parliamentary business today, Hoyle insisted that these do not ban any reference to the king or his relatives.
The issue has come to the fore because some MPs want to debate Prince Andrew, either legislating to remove his titles, or to consider his lease arrangements at Royal Lodge.
Hoyle said:
I know there has been some commentary on what members of this house may or may not discuss in the chamber in relation to Prince Andrew, some of which is inaccurate.
There is understandably great interest from members and from the public on this matter. For the benefit of the house, I would like to be clear that there are ways for the house to properly consider this matter.
Any discussions about the conduct or reflections on members of the royal family can be properly discussed on the substantive motions. And I know some members have already tabled such a motion. I am not able to allocate time for a debate on such a motion, but others are able to do so, if wishing to do that.
But on questions, the long-standing practice of the house, as set out in Erskine May, is that criticism of members of the royal family cannot be made as part of questions. I hope this is helpful clarification, as there is lots of online speculation.
Hoyle was, in effect, trying to ensure that the government, not parliament, gets the blame for MPs not debating Andrew. When Hoyle said “others” are able to allocate time for debate on a sustantive motion, he was referring to the government, which controls most of what gets debated in the Commons.
While ministers have not ruled out allowing MPs to debate legislation relating to Andrew, they have said they will be guided by the wishes of the king, and they have suggested that MPs have more important issues to focus on.
Some 220 migrants arrived in the UK on Wednesday after crossing the Channel, bringing the cumulative number so far in 2025 to 36,954 – more than the 36,816 arrivals in the whole of 2024, PA Media reports. PA says:
It is too early to tell whether this year will see a record number of migrants arriving in the UK after crossing the Channel.
The cumulative total for 2025 so far, 36,954, is 30% higher than at this point in 2024 and 41% higher than in 2023, but 2% lower than at this stage in 2022.
The record for the most arrivals in a calendar year is 45,774 in 2022.
Bridget Phillipson and Lucy Powell make their final arguments ahead of ballot closing in Labour’s deputy leadership contest
Jessica Elgot
Jessica Elgot is the Guardian’s deputy political editor.
At noon today voting will close in the Labour’s deputy leadership election. It has been a tight race between education secretary Bridget Phillipson and Lucy Powell, the recently ousted cabinet minister.
Powell has been calling for Labour to change direction and to champion more loudly progressive values, so as to take on both Nigel Farage and leftwing parties.
And Phillipson has told supporters that she needs a “mandate to smash child poverty” so that in cabinet she can get agreeement to end the two-child benefit cap.
Powell has led comfortably in polls of Labour members, but Phillipson has endorsements of three of the largest unions whose members have not been polled and who also get a vote if they pay into the party.
Powell wrote to supporters last night:
The politics of division and hate are on the rise, and it is up to us, the Labour party, to stand firm against it, and show that progressive, mainstream politics can make the change people have voted for again and again.
I want to help Keir and our government to succeed. But we all know that we must change how we are doing things to turn things around.
Phillipson has said she does not believe changes comes from criticism of Keir Starmer’s leadership. “We all know Reform are a clear and present danger which we can’t ignore – so are the Greens peddling their false hope,” she said in a final statement last night.
But we’re not going to beat them by having spats in public. We’re not going to beat them by throwing rocks at the leadership just as we’re not going to beat them by straying from our values. We’re going to beat them by coming together.
Powell has routinely been dubbed as the divisive candidate by her rival, in a contest that has left both camps feeling bruised, though there is particular anger from allies of Powell.
In her letter, Powell said:
[It is] not divisive to be honest about where we are, it’s the only way we can collectively face up to it and change course. Blindly following along is not unity, it’s a dereliction of our duty to defeat the politics of hate and division.
There will be two urgent questions in the Commons after 10.30am. First, Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, is asking for a statement about the role of the attorney general in the collapse of the China spy trial. And then the SNP’s Seamus Logan is asking for a statement on the fishing and coastal growth fund.
Badenoch criticised for using grooming gangs inquiry for ‘point scoring’
Yesterday Jim Gamble, a former deputy chief constable and a former head the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command centre, said he was no longer interested in being chair of the grooming gangs inquiry. He was the only known candidate left, because the other candidate known to have been shortlisted pulled out earlier in the week.
In an interview with Times Radio, Gamble said that he was “disappointed” with the with Kemi Badenoch has approached this issue. He said:
She’s a forthright and direct individual. But I was disappointed at the manner of the engagement because actually it would be much better to say, look, I’ve been speaking to some of the victims and survivors, you know, let’s get together and discuss this because not all victims and survivors want the same thing.
At PMQs yesterday Badenoch devoted all her questions to the grooming gangs inquiry, using the topic to attack Keir Starmer’s leadership.
In a separate interview with GB News, Gamble said the atmosphere around the inquiry had become “toxic”. He explained:
And my goodness, if politicians can’t come together cross-party on this, when are they ever going to come together?
I think the toxic environment; there needs to be a pause now. There needs to be a calming. Those people in positions of responsibility need to think about the victims and survivors rather than their own political point scoring.
Jess Phillips has full confidence of PM, says minister, after grooming gang survivors say inquiry will fail if she stays
Good morning. Kemi Badenoch is entitled to take a bit of the credit for persuading Keir Starmer to change his mind and agree to a national grooming gangs inquiry. (GB News and Elon Musk probably played a rule too – although Starmer says the voice that mattered was Louise Casey’s.) When opposition parties influence policy, they always look a bit more serious. But – intentionally or not – by getting the inquiry off the ground, Badenoch has also plunged the government into process turmoil that guarantees endless negative headlines and unwanted distraction.
The government is now on day four of the grooming gangs inquiry “crisis” and it is not getting any better. After the resignation of four survivors on the inquiry’s oversight panel, and the withdrawal of both lead candidates to be chair, Starmer is now under fresh pressure to sack Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, over claims that she falsely accused survivors of lying about the process in an urgent question in the Commons on Tuesday.
Last night the four survivors who have resigned from the oversight panel released a joint statement saying Phillips’s comment took them “right back to that feeling of not being believed all over again”.
The survivors said that Phillips was unfit to oversee the inquiry process and that they would not rejoin the inquiry panel unless she went.
It is important to remember that most of the survivors on the oversight panel have not quit, and that there are plenty of victims who do not agree with these criticisms. Still, it is far from ideal.
In the Commons yesterday Starmer defended Phillips. Josh MacAlister, the children’s minister, has been doing a media round this morning and he said Phillips has the “full backing of the prime minister and the home secretary” and that he would “stay in post”.
He went on:
I know Jess, she’s been a lifelong advocate and champion for young girls who’ve been abused, and she has already shown that she’s properly engaging with the survivor community.
MacAlister said the scope of the inquiry would not be broadened (one of the concerns of survivors).
He added:
The government’s intent on this is incredibly solid. We want to get this right. We’re taking action and we’ll set the inquiry up.
I would just urge other political parties to turn the volume down a little bit, or turn the heat down a little bit on, on their attacks.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Darren Jones, the Cabinet Office minister, takes questions in the Commons.
9.30am: The ONS publishes crime figures for England and Wales for the year ending June 2025.
9.30am: David Lammy, the deputy PM, gives a speech in London.
10.15am: The Lords committee considering the assisted dying bill takes evidence from medical and legal experts.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Morning: John Healey, the defence secretary, and his German counterpart Boris Pistorious visit RAF Lossiemouth in north-east Scotland.
Noon: The ballot for the deputy Labour leadership closes. The result will be announced on Saturday.
Afternoon: Kemi Badenoch is on a visit in north-west London.
And in Caerphilly voters are going to the polls for a Senedd byelection that may herald a fundamental realignment in Welsh politics. Steven Morris has a very good preview here.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm BST at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
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