Kemi Badenoch brands Jess Phillips 'worst Safeguarding Minister ever' as bitter grooming gangs row becomes personal

Badenoch told the People's Channel: "Jess Phillips is the worst safeguarding minister we have ever had.

"I spoke about this issue during the leadership contest. I stood on a stage and I made the point about this being something that I was going to campaign on long before all of the furore that we saw this year."

Offering some stern advice to Phillips, Badenoch continued: "I'm not taking any lectures from Jess Phillips.

"She needs to go sit down and look at how she has let down quite a lot of people, including survivors, who told me today that she let them down."

The grooming gangs row turned personal after Phillips told Times Radio: "People can criticise me all they like, but if I were to put myself or Kemi Badenoch on the stand on this issue ... I never noticed her caring about it before.

"I'll gladly say when I'm wrong, I make the decisions I make on the basis on my years of experience and what I think is best."

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During her interview with GB News's Charlie Peters, Badenoch also highlighted Tory efforts to establish a grooming gangs taskforce.

She said: "This was something that I cared about even in Government. I knew what was going on with the gangs task force, for instance, that happened while I was in cabinet.

"Colleagues of mine, from Theresa May to Sajid Javid to Suella Braverman, had taken a lot of time and did a lot of work, and it still wasn't enough."

Noting the scale of the rape gangs operating in Britain, Badenoch cited Baroness Casey's report and said the need for a national investigation has "only really come to light".

The Tory leader explained: "The scale of it has really only come to light. We thought it was just a couple of towns here or there, but it is 50 towns.

"And we were actually putting a lot of work into a Bill, which Labour did not allow to pass when we went in for the election, so that Bill fell. And they have represented our work as their work, and I think that's dishonest."

Praising the work of the Conservatives in putting "pressure" on Sir Keir Starmer to hold a national inquiry, Badenoch stated that the Tories "did its job as opposition".

She told GB News: "It is very important to remind people that this did not happen easily. A lot of pressure was put on the Government.

"We did our job as opposition, we held votes, making it impossible for a lot of Labour MPs to avoid this issue. All of that pressure, alongside the work you [GB News] did and in particular what the survivors have been going through to tell their story has got us to this place."

GB News has approached the Home Office for comment.