Ahead of the second reading of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill last week, a campaign of misinformation and smears emerged—seemingly orchestrated by a hostile foreign billionaire.
Elon Musk used his platform to spread a barrage of hate and lies about our country, the Prime Minister, and my Labour colleagues, especially Jess Phillips, the Safeguarding Minister who has dedicated her life to supporting victims of sexual violence.
So, I’m setting the record straight: free speech is important, and the truth even more so.
The Bill I voted for last week represents the most significant child protection legislation in a generation.
It includes essential measures to prevent vulnerable young people from slipping through the cracks of our society, such as closing loopholes that allow abusers (like the father and stepmother of Sara Sharif) to exploit homeschooling to hide their abuse.
Horrendous crimes
The Bill will raise school standards, help parents save money through free breakfast clubs in primary schools, and reduce the cost of school uniforms by limiting branded items.
Additionally, it strengthens support for children in kinship care and ensures thorough investigations into teaching misconduct.
Rather than supporting these measures, the Conservatives and Reform Party tried to derail the Bill by voting for a “reasoned amendment” calling for a national inquiry into historical child exploitation.
If passed, this amendment would have killed legislation designed to improve the lives of children and families and keep them safe.
No one denies the importance of addressing child sexual exploitation and I share the anger at this despicable abuse. It is therefore appalling to witness it being exploited for political gain, with no real regard for the victims of these horrendous crimes.
Despite having never raised the issue of child sexual exploitation during her eight years in Government, Kemi Badenoch repeatedly raised it in PMQs.
Keir Starmer defended his record and rightly challenged her on the previous Government’s failure to act on the 20 recommendations from the 2022 seven-year-long independent Jay inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in England and Wales.
After PMQs, Badenoch’s spokesperson admitted that she had never met any survivors of sexual violence or grooming gangs and had no plans to do so.
Justice for victims
While the Government is not opposed to a new inquiry if that is what victims are calling for, many individuals involved in previous inquiries, including those who were instrumental in securing the first prosecutions against grooming gangs under Keir Starmer’s leadership at the CPS, believe that we should implement the recommendations of past investigations.
Rather than spending more time and money reaching the same conclusions, we need to act now to bring justice to victims.
That’s why the Government has accelerated its plans for mandatory reporting of abuse, criminal sanctions for cover-ups, and tougher sentencing for grooming.
We will overhaul how child sexual abuse and exploitation data is collected and embed it in a new, clear performance framework for policing.
This is a dangerous moment for our country and the world. If we allow an unelected wealthy foreign billionaire to control our news and political agenda on issues he knows little about, we risk destabilising our society.
Elon Musk’s tweets are now being investigated by the Government’s counter-extremism unit to assess the potential risks they pose to Britain. I believe these efforts could be extremely divisive and destabilising.
So, it does beg the question; why are Conservatives and Reform leaders so delighted to amplify the lies being told about their fellow MPs and our country?
This is a monthly guest column provided by
Mohammad Yasin, Labour MP for Bedford & Kempston.
It is published unedited and does not
reflect the views of the Bedford Independent.
