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.”
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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.
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Keir Starmer said there was a “real risk of escalation” in the Middle East as Donald Trump considers whether to join Israel in striking Iran. The prime minister repeated his call for de-escalation, adding: “Yes, the nuclear issue has to be dealt with, but it’s better dealt with by way of negotiations than by way of conflict.” Seperately, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said on Thursday that “too much is at stake” for the Iran-Israel conflict to escalate further.
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The prime minister would not be drawn on reports that the attorney general, Richard Hermer, has legal concerns over potential UK involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict. Hermer, the government’s most senior legal officer, is understood to have raised concerns internally about the legality of joining a bombing campaign against Iran.
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Responding to the attorney general’s warning that getting involved in Israel’s war against Iran could be illegal beyond offering defensive support, the Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, said the government should publish Hermer’s advice. However, on Thursday, Starmer said “the attorney’s advice is never disclosed by any government”.
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Shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel said the Conservative party would support the government in joining the military fight against Iran if it was deemed necessary. She said she believed the opposition would be able to hold the government to account without a vote in parliament on such a decision. Asked if she believed the attorney general was right to sound a warning Patel said the UK cannot “hide behind legal advice at a time of crisis”.
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Foreign secretary David Lammy will meet US counterpart Marco Rubio later this evening. Lammy and US secretary of state Rubio will discuss the situation in the Middle East at 7pm BST.
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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. 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.”
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The government will spend £725bn on infrastructure in the next decade, Treasury minister Darren Jones has said. He said the 10-year infrastructure plan aimed to show that “change is possible”. The Tories responded by asking the government to say “which major projects are being abandoned” as part of its strategy.
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Liberal Democrats spokesperson Sarah Olney said Thursday’s infrastructure announcement must be “a line in the sand” under Conservative mismanagement, while Jones said Olney was “right to point to the fiasco of HS2”.
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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.
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The environment secretary, Steve Reed, has said the government is stepping up preparations for temporary nationalisation of Thames Water, indicating it will reject pleas from the company’s creditors for leniency from fines and penalties. Thames Water’s largest creditors control the utility, and have made a bid to cut some of its debts and provide £5.3bn in new funding to try to turn it around.
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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.
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The UK government will have to sign off on the US use of its Diego Garcia base in any bombing raid on Iran, it has emerged, as ministers gathered to discuss a range of scenarios amid further increasing tensions in the region. The prime minster chaired an emergency Cobra meeting to discuss the UK’s response to the crisis in the Middle East which could escalate further should the US enter the conflict between Israel and Iran.
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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.
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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.
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Ministers will restart the approval process for two controversial oilfields, Rosebank field and Jackdaw, on Thursday, even as new figures show the UK will be almost entirely dependent on foreign gas by 2050 regardless of whether they are approved.
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New floating windfarms, expected to be among the biggest in the world, will create thousands of jobs and power millions of homes, Jo Stevens, the secretary of state for Wales, has said. Turbines up to 300m tall will sit on platforms floating off the coast of Wales, powering four million homes under plans revealed on Thursday.
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Doctor Who actor Ncuti Gatwa, Judi Dench and Nobel peace prize winner Malala Yousafzai have added their names to an open letter urging the prime minister to suspend arms sales to Israel. As well as suspending UK arms sales to Israel, the letter calls on Starmer to “use all available means” to ensure humanitarian aid gets in to the territory.
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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.
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Keir Starmer needs to reset standards in public life and bring in proper sanctions before trust in the UK system is damaged beyond salvage, John Major has said. The former Conservative prime minister said proposals for an ethics commission appeared to be “in the long grass” but No 10 could strengthen the Nolan principles of public life and make sure there was punishment for misconduct within the standards framework.
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Britain’s benefits system faces collapse without cuts to disability payments, Liz Kendall has said, as the government published plans that put it on a collision course with dozens of angry Labour MPs. Kendall published her welfare reform bill on Wednesday, confirming it would lead to benefit cuts for 950,000 people by 2030. She said the country’s £326bn social security net might cease to exist if costs continued to escalate.
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The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has issued an amber heat-health alert for all regions in England. The alert will be in force from 12pm on Thursday until 9am on Monday. It warned that “significant impacts are likely” across health and social care services because of high temperatures.
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Air pollution in the UK is costing more than £500m a week in ill health, NHS care and productivity losses, with 99% of the population breathing in “toxic air”, doctors have said. Dirty air is killing more than 500 people a week, with health harm to almost every organ of the body caused by air pollution, even at low concentrations, the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) said.
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Campaigners from trade unions, voluntary organisations and the Church of Scotland have announced plans for an anti-poverty march to “demand better” from politicians in Scotland. The campaign, Scotland Demands Better, will culminate in a march in Edinburgh on 25 October, walking from the Scottish parliament, up the Royal Mile and along George IV Bridge to The Meadows.
New floating windfarms, expected to be among the biggest in the world, will create thousands of jobs and power millions of homes, a minister has said.
Turbines up to 300m tall will sit on platforms floating off the coast of Wales, powering four million homes under plans revealed on Thursday, reports the PA news agency.
The project, which is jointly run by the crown estate, Equinor and Gwynt Glas, is expected to be completed by the mid-2030s, with several windfarms to be constructed. The turbines are expected to be assembled in Bristol and Port Talbot, from where they will be towed out to the final project sites.
Jo Stevens, the secretary of state for Wales, said the announcement was “great news” for the country, and could create 5,300 new jobs.
Speaking to the PA news agency on a visit to Port Talbot, she said:
These are going to be the biggest offshore floating windfarms in the world, and they’re going to be off the coast of Wales.
It is going to create thousands of jobs, power four million homes and bring down energy bills.
This is really, really good news for Wales, and especially for young people and people wanting apprenticeships, because there are guarantees within the process that there will be specific apprenticeships and jobs for young people.
The minister’s visit also follows the announcement of funding for the redevelopment of the port in Port Talbot as part of the spending review last week.
The crown estate – which manages the seabed around England, Wales and Northern Ireland – is making a £400m investment in the UK’s offshore wind supply chain. While profits from the crown estate go to the Treasury, it is owned by the monarch and run independently.
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.
