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And let's start with that Casey report that was presented to Parliament yesterday, shall we
0:06
And lots of our viewers questioning the Tory record on this. We've known about this scandal, rumblings and rumours and whispers of this scandal since the early noughties
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And many people saying the Tories didn't do enough. And looking at Kemi Badenonk yesterday at the PMQs and her outrage towards Sakhir Starmer
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pointing at the fact that she was MP for eight years. In fact, she was Children's Minister and Women's Equality Minister
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And not once did she call for a national inquiry until 2025
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I don't think that's an accurate reflection of all the things that we did do to try and get to grips with this issue
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I'll use one example, the Grooming Gangs Task Force, which was a police home office funded initiative
0:49
that has led to hundreds of the perpetrators of these kinds of offences being arrested
0:54
thousands of victims uncovered. But, of course, one of the main driving forces for us to look into this more deeply was the J inquiry into child sexual abuse
1:03
That's an inquiry that we set up, that we funded and we supported. There is a whole range of other work that we've done in relation to child sexual exploitation, violence against women and girls
1:13
that I think we can be proud of in government. And actually, 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
1:23
because we're open to the idea that we may need to go further, but that doesn diminish the positive things that we did do in government even if there is more still needs to be done Yeah but Mr Mullen you only been calling for an inquiry when critics would argue it seems fashionable to do so
1:37
Your party were in power for 14 years, some of those with the Lib Dems, of course, but you didn't
1:43
The fact of the matter is, despite what you just said, you did the grooming gangs task force and whatever else
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the fact of the matter is, not once did you call for a national inquiry during your time in power when it mattered
1:54
well i don't think it's a matter of whatever else i think things like arresting and investigating
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the perpetrators of these crimes setting up the inquiry that led to in a large way the further
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demands for a national inquiry specifically into grooming gangs were very important and
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significant steps that were taken in the right direction and it's actually the sorry sorry to
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Those things were things that we did in government. And when it comes..
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Victims during that time were calling for a national inquiry? Sure. As I've said on a number of occasions, we set up the J-inquiry
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which was a broader look into child sexual abuse that uncovered further details and concerns around these allegations of grooming gangs
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And that then naturally led to us thinking how we could go further. And we did do that in many respects
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And actually, it's not about jumping on a bandwagon. And it was about listening to, quite rightly, the calls from MPs
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Conservative MPs included, like Robbie Moore in Bradford, for victims of these sorts of crimes who have said that we needed a national inquiry
2:55
And we got behind those calls for an inquiry in opposition. I think that's the perfectly reasonable thing to do
3:00
And the question is, why did Labour fight so hard against that
