A Cabinet ally of Lucy Powell today batted away calls for the senior minister to quit after she described grooming gangs as a ‘dog whistle’ issue.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said Ms Powell, the Leader of the House of Commons, was ‘mortified’ about her comments and was ‘right’ to apologise for them.
He added the Labour Government took the issue of child sexual exploitation ‘extremely seriously’ and was ‘making real changes that will help to support victims’.
Mr Streeting also insisted that ministers were not ‘beating about the bush’ when it came to ‘thorny issues’ such as the ethnicity of perpetrators.
The issue of group-based child abuse – including by gangs of Pakistani origin – was put back into the spotlight after Labour denied a request for a new Whitehall-led inquiry.
The Government has instead favoured locally-led probes, although Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has ordered a ‘rapid audit’ into the scale of the issue across Britain.
During an appearance on a BBC radio programme on Friday, Ms Powell was asked if she had seen a recent TV documentary on grooming gangs.
She responded: ‘Oh, we want to blow that little trumpet now do we… let’s get that dog whistle out shall we’.
A Cabinet ally of Lucy Powell batted away calls for the senior minister to quit after she described grooming gangs as a ‘dog whistle’ issue
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said Ms Powell, the Leader of the House of Commons, was ‘mortified’ about her comments and was ‘right’ to apologise for them
The Conservatives have demanded Ms Powell resign from her Cabinet role over the remarks, claiming she had ‘belittled’ the victims of grooming gangs.
But, asked if Ms Powell’s job was safe, Mr Streeting told Sky News this morning: ‘Yes. I think she’s made a genuine mistake. She’s owned up to it. She said sorry, and we’ll move on.’
The Health Secretary added that Ms Powell’s comments had not been interpreted as his Cabinet colleague had intended.
Asked if he and his Labour colleagues see the grooming gangs scandal as a dog-whistle issue or a ‘coded signal to racists’, Mr Streeting said: ‘No.
‘And I don’t think that’s what Lucy intended to imply in a heated debate on Radio 4, and that’s why she’s apologised for what she said.
‘I don’t think for a moment she would have meant or wanted to imply that raising these issues, talking about these issues, is dog whistle.’
Speaking later to the BBC, the Health Secretary described Ms Powell as ‘mortified’.
‘She does not want and would not want people who’ve campaigned on, or been victims of, these most appalling crimes to think she was in any way trying to undermine those experiences or those arguments,’ he said.
‘I think the point she was trying to make, and the point I would make, is on such a serious issue the more we can take the heat of the politics out of this and gets the heart of the of the challenge, the better.’
But Tory MP Nigel Huddleston, a shadow Treasury minister, said Ms Powell’s comments were ‘completely inappropriate’.
He insisted the issue of grooming gangs needs ‘a proper, full inquiry’, adding: ‘The public demands that and I just do not understand the reasons why Labour is so reluctant.
‘And this is why I’m afraid it does smack of some kind of political cover-up because they’re worried that it could do some damage to Labour politicians and Labour councils.
‘There’s accusations that the Labour councils and some of the Labour areas that were responsible for overseeing some of the activities around here did not take appropriate action, and I think they’re embarrassed about that.
‘They should be embarrassed about it, to be fair, these are accusations, right? They are accusations, but then you clear up the accusations by having a full inquiry.’
Tim Montgomerie, a political commentator who questioned Ms Powell about grooming gangs during the BBC Radio 4 debate, said her comments were ‘clearly ill-judged’ but her words have ‘wider resonance’.
‘There’s been a tendency – it’s gone on for too long now – to close all sorts of important debates down by throwing that racist charge at people,’ said Mr Montgomerie, a Reform UK member.
He said people feel there is a ‘stifling of debate’, adding: ‘In the context of grooming gangs, an issue of such consequence, I think it was clearly ill-judged by Lucy Powell,
‘But she was, I think she was keen to have a very strong go at Reform, and I was the representative of Reform that night.
‘But unfortunately, the words she chose have wider resonance.’
Ms Powell posted on X/Twitter on Saturday: ‘In the heat of a discussion on AQ (Any Questions), I would like to clarify that I regard issues of child exploitation & grooming with the utmost seriousness.
‘I’m sorry if this was unclear. I was challenging the political point scoring around it, not the issue itself.
‘As a constituency MP I’ve dealt with horrendous cases. This Gvt is acting to get to the truth, and deliver justice.’
