Put politics aside when it comes to child sexual exploitation, grooming gang survivors urge
Alexandra Topping
The political “tug-of-war with vulnerable women” abused by grooming gangs must stop ahead of a new national inquiry into the crimes, survivors have told the Guardian.
Holly Archer and Scarlett Jones, two survivors who played a key role in a “gold-standard” local inquiry into the crime in Telford, have urged politicians and those without experience of abuse to allow women to shape the investigation.
“We have to put politics aside when it comes to child sexual exploitation, we have to stop this tug-of-war with vulnerable women,” said Archer, author of I Never Gave My Consent: A Schoolgirl’s Life Inside the Telford Sex Ring.
“There are so many voices that need to be heard. There’s some voices, though, that need to step away,” she said. “We can do it, let us do it – we don’t need you to speak on our behalf.”
Jones, who works with Archer at the Holly Project, a support service helping survivors of child sexual exploitation (CSE) and their families, added: “There are so many people out there at this moment exploiting the exploited – it’s happening all the time.”
Key events
Blue Labour leader Dan Carden to vote against assisted dying bill
Aletha Adu
The leader of the Blue Labour group has said he will vote against the assisted dying bill – one of the most high-profile switchers – as both sides make their final pleas to MPs before Friday’s crunch vote.
It comes as campaigners and bereaved relatives joined the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater ahead of the third reading of the bill, to urge parliament to back the reforms, saying it would be at least a decade before another chance to change the law.
The bill would legalise assisted dying for mentally competent adults in their final months of life.
Dan Carden, who previously abstained, said it was core Labour vales that drove him to vote against the bill. He said:
Legalising assisted suicide will normalise the choice of death over life, care, respect and love. I draw on my own family experience, caring for my dad who died from lung cancer three years ago.
I genuinely fear the legislation will take us in the wrong direction. The values of family, social bonds, responsibilities, time and community will be diminished, with isolation, atomisation and individualism winning again.
The MP for Liverpool Walton, whose group seeks to promote culturally conservative – or what it says are blue-collar –values within the party, added:
For people who live with the reality of rundown public services, particularly palliative end-of-life care, poverty, hardship and broken-down communities are a fact of life. They will be impacted very differently. And that’s something the political class doesn’t dare discuss.
CMA to review delivery of UK road and railway infrastructure
A review of the design, planning and delivery of UK road and railway infrastructure projects has been launched.
Regulator the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said its inquiry will examine whether there are opportunities to enhance how the public sector and industry work together, reports the PA news agency.
It is hoped this will lead to improvements in procurements process, enabling more cost-effective infrastructure schemes.
Road and railway projects account for around 70-75% of government spending on infrastructure that helps the economy.
The market study will focus on the full lifecycle of roads and railways, including their enhancement and maintenance. It will exclude HS2 because it has undergone multiple reviews amid delays and spiralling costs.
The launch of the review comes as the government set out a 10-year infrastructure plan.
CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell said:
There’s no question that reliable, high-quality infrastructure is critical in accelerating economic growth.
To achieve this, public authorities and the civil engineering sector must be able to work together to deliver projects on time, within budget and to high standards.
This review is a crucial step in identifying barriers holding back the sector.
Chief secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones said:
Upgrading the country’s economic infrastructure is essential for unlocking growth across the country and delivering our Plan for Change.
This study will build on our 10-year infrastructure strategy and help us deliver growth with its evidence-based, independent findings.
Remove decisions on lone child asylum seekers from Home Office, report says
Diane Taylor
Decisions relating to lone child asylum seekers should be removed from Home Office officials because of fundamental problems with the way they treat this vulnerable group, a report has found.
The report calls for root-and-branch reform of the treatment of thousands of children who have fled persecution in their home countries and made hazardous journeys in search of safety, often crossing the Channel in a dinghy or concealing themselves in the back of a lorry.
Once they arrive in the UK many are wrongly classified as adults by the Home Office and sent to adult accommodation where they may be exploited or locked up in adult immigration detention centres.
Research by the Helen Bamber Foundation in the first half of 2024 in England and Scotland found 53% of young people initially told by the Home Office that they were adults were confirmed to be children by social worker assessments – at least 262 children.
Researchers at the London School of Economics and University of Bedfordshire, in partnership with the South London Refugee Association, compiled the findings along with young people who have experienced the asylum system.
The report says:
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The government should take the asylum decision-making away from the Home Office and give it to independent professionals who know about children and children’s circumstances.
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Children and young people need independent legal guardians from the time they arrive in the UK.
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Decision-making processes should be faster so that children and young people do not have to spend years waiting to secure their status.
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Children should be subject to age disputes only where there is a significant reason to doubt their age and as a measure of last resort where other approaches have been exhausted.
Chief secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones told MPs that investors had avoided the UK for years because “they thought we’d lost the plot”.
According to the PA news agency, he said:
The good news is we know there is plenty of private capital that wants to invest in the UK.
But they’ve told us through the British infrastructure taskforce and through other vehicles they haven’t invested for many years because they thought we’d lost the plot in this country.
Whereas now, we’ve got a clear strategy, we’ve got stability, both politically and economically, and we’ll now be working with those investors to provide those opportunities across the country to bring money to communities who have missed out for too long.
Reeves promised oil industry ‘quid pro quo’ over windfall tax in private meeting
The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, told a fossil fuel company the industry would receive a “quid pro quo” in return for higher taxes on its windfall profits, it can be revealed.
In a meeting with the Norwegian state energy company Equinor on 27 August, Reeves suggested that the government’s carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) subsidies were a payoff for oil firms being hit with a higher tax rate.
Minutes of the meeting obtained by DeSmog and seen by the Guardian state that Equinor’s CEO, Anders Opedal, raised concerns over the energy profits levy – also known as the “windfall tax” – and “its impact on the value” of Equinor’s UK portfolio.
In response, Reeves said that raising the windfall tax from 35% to 38% was a “manifesto commitment”, but stated that “Equinor should recognise the quid pro quo – the funds raised enable government investment in CCUS etc”.
CCUS is the controversial practice of trapping the emissions produced by fossil fuel plants before they enter the atmosphere. Many scientific experts have suggested the technology is not economically viable. It is accused of being a favourite climate “solution” of the fossil fuel industry since it allows for the continued extraction of oil and gas.
The Labour government announced in October it would provide £22bn in subsidies to CCUS projects over 25 years after an increase in lobbying by the fossil fuel industry.
The Green party co-leader, Carla Denyer, said Reeves and the Labour government had been “caught out making promises in a secret exchange deal which goes against the interests of the British people”.
The MP for Bristol Central added:
In public, they claim to be taxing fossil fuel giants more fairly by raising the windfall tax, but behind closed doors they are giving back with dodgy deals to allow the fossil fuel corporates to continue with business as usual under the guise of CCUS – an expensive distraction and largely unproven technology.
Welsh secretary Jo Stevens has refused to say whether the UK government should allow the US to use the Diego Garcia airbase to launch an attack on Iran.
Speaking to the PA news agency while on a visit to Port Talbot, she said:
The prime minister has spent the last few days at the G7 summit speaking to our allies and including President Trump. This is a fast moving, fluid situation.
You obviously would not expect me to be talking about operational details and anything to do with what’s going on in the Middle East on a news bulletin.
We have said the position needs to be de-escalated, we’ve called for more diplomacy. That’s what needs to happen. That’s what we have said should happen, and that’s what we want to continue.
The UK is planning for a “variety of scenarios and contingencies” for Britons stranded in Israel as the US said it was looking at evacuating Americans from using cruise ships and flights, reports the PA news agency.
Asked why the UK was not following the US example, a No 10 spokesperson said:
There’s a huge amount of work being done in the background on contingency planning. It is a fast-moving situation and we keep all our advice and planning under constant review.
On the US position, I’d point you to their latest update from the state department – like us, they’ve asked their citizens to register their presence.
But clearly, there’s a lot of work going on, and we keep our position under constant review.
‘Too much is at stake’ for Iran-Israel conflict to escalate further, says Reeves
“Too much is at stake” for the Iran-Israel conflict to escalate further, Rachel Reeves has said, as US president Donald Trump mulls over whether to enter the arena.
Speaking at the Times CEO summit, the chancellor said:
We want to see a de-escalation, not an escalation of hostilities in the Middle East. We don’t think it’s in anyone’s interest to see an escalation. Too much is at stake.
The prime minister made that case when he was in Canada earlier this week, and as a government, we continue to do so.
At the same time, we have moved assets into the region, including Typhoon jets, but we do have bases, we do have personnel in the region.
As a government, of course, we always want to protect our interests, and so that’s why we’ve made those decisions to move those assets there, in the case of them being needed.
Liberal Democrats spokesperson Sarah Olney said today’s infrastructure announcement must be “a line in the sand” under Conservative mismanagement.
The PA news agency reports that Olney said:
Boosting our infrastructure is vital, given the appalling mismanagement under the last Conservative government, which left our school and hospital buildings crumbling while neglecting critical infrastructure from transport to renewable energy generation.
Today’s plan must draw a line in the sand under that disastrous mismanagement of projects like HS2, which promised to connect our country and communities, only to end up another hollow Conservative promise long delayed and billions over budget.
So while we welcome the government’s intention to deliver productive investment, we will closely scrutinise its implementation.
The Richmond Park MP asked if the minister will “set up a crumbling hospitals taskforce to identify creative funding ideas, speed up construction timelines and put an end to the vicious cycle and false economies of delayed rebuilds leading to rising repair costs”.
Chief secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones said Olney was “right to point to the fiasco of HS2”.
According to the PA news agency, the minister told MPs on Thursday:
The complete, utter negligence in delivering on that project over many, many years has left us with the legacy of having to pay more for longer, having implications on all the other things we would like to do in the country.
So we have commissioned the James Stewart review, which was published yesterday. All of the recommendations have been adopted, and lessons are already flowing through this infrastructure strategy so that we never end up in that situation ever again.
He added:
Now, maintenance isn’t sexy. It’s not good for election leaflets, but it is really important, which is why we’re committing so many billions today to maintenance, because there is an enormous backlog.
Jones told MPs that maintenance will be prioritised so people can see “quick, real, tangible improvements to their public infrastructure in their local communities”.
Libby Brooks
Patrick Harvie, who is stepping down as Scottish Greens co-leader after 17 years used his final first minister’s questions (FMQs) to hit out at John Swinney over lack of progress since he convened a cross-party summit of politicians and civic leaders in April with the high aim of protecting Scotland’s democratic values.
Harvie said there had been “no meaningful change” since the summit, despite all the warm words – and went on to attack the first minister for “walking away” from progressive green policies.
Between the lines, Harvie was making plain how unhappy he still is about the way that his party’s governing partnership with the Greens brokered by Nicola Sturgeon was blown up by her successor Humza Yousaf, and the way that policy on climate targets, recycling, marine conservation to name a few have been gradually shelved by Yousaf and later Swinney.
In a warning to Swinney, that “in the face of the threat from the far right, a ‘steady as she goes’ approach is a course to disaster,” was a direct hit on the first minister’s leadership style, which some within the Scottish National Party (SNP) are worried won’t take them over the line at next year’s Holyrood elections.
The SNP’s loss at the Hamilton byelection earlier this month was evidence of that, alongside a much-criticised strategy of fore-grounding Reform UK as the Nationalists’ main rivals instead of Scottish Labour, who ultimately won the seat.
The prime minister would not be drawn on reports that the attorney general, Richard Hermer, has legal concerns (see 9.41am BST) over potential UK involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict.
According to the PA news agency, Keir Starmer said:
The attorney’s advice is never disclosed by any government, but I can tell you the principle, the driving intent, which is that [of] de-escalation. Because the risk of escalation across the region is obvious, and the impact it would have.
I’m talking to leaders across the region all of the time. They’re voicing their concerns about what might happen in relation to them.
Obviously, it’s having an impact on the economy and Gaza is already in an intolerable situation.
So it’s very clear: yes, we need to deal with the nuclear programme, there’s no doubt about that in my mind, but it is better dealt with as a negotiated outcome.
De-escalate and get to that point. There have been several rounds of discussions with the US, that, to me, is the way to resolve this issue.