Credit: Any Questions? | BBC Sounds
Grooming gang victims have accused Lucy Powell of “totally dismissing” thousands of abuse survivors by calling the scandal a “dog whistle” issue.
Sarah Wilson, who suffered years of sexual abuse from the age of 11 at the hands of paedophile gangs in Rotherham, said the attitude was “what victims and survivors have been up against all these years”.
Ms Wilson, now a campaigner on the issue, was one of at least 1,400 children in Rotherham exploited by gangs of men of predominantly Pakistani heritage between 1997 and 2013.
During an episode of BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions on Friday, Tim Montgomerie, a Reform backer, asked if Ms Powell had seen a Channel 4 documentary “about rape gangs”.
Ms Powell, the MP for Manchester Central, interrupted him and replied: “Oh, we want to blow that little trumpet now, do we? Yeah, OK, let’s get that dog whistle out.”
Sharing a clip of the Labour frontbencher’s remarks, Ms Wilson wrote: “This is what victims and survivors have been up against all these years. This is why we weren’t listened to.
“They never cared, and they never will. [They] totally dismissed survivors and our experiences of being groomed.”
‘We feel abused and disrespected once again’
Scarlett, a 20-year-old grooming survivor from Greater Manchester who appeared in the documentary, and Marlon, her father, also criticised Ms Powell.
He said: “Scarlett and I, who shared our story in the documentary despite the emotional challenges, are outraged by Lucy Powell.
“We feel abused and disrespected once again, and we did not anticipate this kind of treatment from our government leaders.
“You have used us as a political tool for an excuse to be critical towards Conservatives rather than supporting a public inquiry. You should be ashamed.”
On Sunday, it was confirmed that Ms Powell will stay on as Leader of the Commons despite the backlash.
Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, said his Cabinet colleague will continue in her role and that she felt “mortified”.
Asked by Sky’s Trevor Phillips whether Ms Powell’s job was safe, Mr Streeting replied: “Yes. I think she made a genuine mistake, she’s owned up to it, she said sorry and we’ll move on.”
Sir Keir Starmer has resisted Tory and Reform calls for a statutory inquiry into the historical sexual abuse of thousands of children by gangs of men, predominantly of Pakistani heritage.
Senior Labour figures, including Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, and Dan Carden, who leads the socially conservative Blue Labour group of MPs, have also said there should be a national inquiry.
The issue returned to public prominence in January amid hundreds of posts on the subject by Elon Musk, the owner of X and a close ally of Donald Trump.
Channel 4 aired a documentary called Groomed: A National Scandal last week that exposed institutional failures to protect vulnerable girls, including those in care homes.
Challenged on whether he saw this abuse as a “dog whistle”, Mr Streeting replied: “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.
“That’s the right thing to do but, you know, I’ve known Lucy for a long time. I don’t think for a moment she would have meant or wanted to imply that raising these issues, talking about these issues, is a dog whistle.”
Mr Streeting went on to insist that the scandal was not a “political thing” before appearing to accuse some Tory and Reform members of treating it as a “party political knockabout”.
He said: “I do think there’s been a degree of playing politics with it and we would rather that didn’t happen.
“I think that was actually what Lucy Powell was driving at on Radio 4 on Friday night and it came across in a way that she never, ever intended and that’s why she apologised.”
In a later interview with the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Mr Streeting said again that Ms Powell was “mortified” by the reaction to her remarks.
When it was put to him that Ms Powell is a member of the Cabinet, Mr Streeting said: “She’s also human. I’ve made mistakes in the past, I’m sure I’m going to make mistakes in the future.
“She’s mortified. She does not want and would not want people who have campaigned on or been victims of these crimes to think she was in any way trying to undermine those experiences or those arguments.”
Wes Streeting told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that Ms Powell was ‘mortified by the reaction to her remarks – JEFF OVERS/BBC
Ms Powell said in a statement on Saturday night that she had made the comments “in the heat of a discussion” on Any Questions.
She said: “I would like to clarify that I regard issues of child exploitation and 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 Government is acting to get to the truth and deliver justice.”
Labour has dropped previously announced plans for five local grooming gang inquiries in favour of a “flexible approach”, in which councils will be able to spend cash to tackle the issue as they wish.
This could mean full independent local inquiries, but could also take in “more bespoke work” such as victims’ panels or locally-led audits of past failings.
The Government is also awaiting the findings of an audit by Baroness Casey into the nature and scale of grooming, as well as the profile of the gangs behind it.