Kemi Badenoch has accused Labour of dropping plans for five local grooming gang inquiries promised in January. The Conservative leader called for a full national inquiry and suggested a “cover-up”, claiming Labour's refusal to act shows dishonesty and a failure to deliver justice. She pledged to force another vote, warning the public would “see who is on their side”. Report by Covellm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00I'm calling for a full national inquiry for this scandal.
00:05We have seen evidence that it is still ongoing.
00:08Just before we left government, we had a gang's task force
00:11that found between 450, I think, 500 new perpetrators.
00:15That means that there is much left still to be looked at.
00:18And we also need to look at where there were state failings.
00:21Where did local authorities fail? Where did the police fail?
00:24You can't have that without a full national statutory inquiry that compels witnesses.
00:28And what really shocked me was that Labour actually announced on the last day of Parliament
00:34that they're just not having any of the inquiries they promised back in January.
00:38Why did they announce that if they weren't going to go through with it?
00:41I think that that is dishonest and actually leads the public to believe that this is a government
00:45that just tells them what they want to hear but doesn't do anything.
00:47We have been trying to get cross-party support.
00:51Labour MPs are being heavily leaned on by their whips, by the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary.
00:57I don't think that is right, so we're going to force another vote.
01:00We'll try and get as many Labour MPs to vote with us, but this is a matter for them.
01:04The public will see who is on their side when we have another vote on getting a national inquiry.