Jess Phillips’ safeguarding record is untenable
By The Dale Blues Editorial Team
Jess Phillips came into the Home Office as Minister for Safeguarding promising candour and change. What we’ve had instead is drift, defensiveness, and a deepening trust deficit with survivors. On the most sensitive brief in government, that is untenable.
A process in chaos—and survivors walking away
This week’s Commons exchanges laid bare the mess. Two members of the Victims & Survivors Liaison Panel resigned, alleging the inquiry is being diluted; shortly after, two frontrunners to chair the national grooming gangs inquiry also withdrew. Whatever the internal justifications, that outward picture is instability and lost confidence—precisely what a safeguarding minister must prevent.
Phillips told MPs “misinformation undermines this process” and insisted the inquiry would remain “laser-focused on grooming gangs,” yet the headline is still survivors quitting and candidates pulling out. That is a ministerial failure of stewardship and communication.
Disingenuous lines, biased instincts, clueless management
Disingenuous, because the department keeps insisting everything is on track while the public sees resignations and U-turns. Biased, because survivors’ concerns about scope and leadership are too often waved away as “misinterpretations” rather than treated as red flags that require visible course-correction. Clueless, because basic sequencing—secure an uncontested chair, publish clear terms of reference, set transparent timelines—has been mishandled to the point of paralysis. The upshot is an inquiry that looks captured by process instead of driven by purpose.
The Commons test Phillips is failing
Hansard tells its own story. In Tuesday’s urgent question on the statutory inquiry, Phillips insisted the process was handled by an external charity and that critics were wrong about “dilution.” Fine words, but the job isn’t to win arguments at the despatch box; it’s to command confidence beyond it. Right now, she doesn’t.
Badenoch’s challenge—and the line that will stick
Kemi Badenoch has hammered the government on pace and credibility, and she’s not wrong about the optics. Her June Commons response to the Casey audit captured the public mood: “After months of pressure, the Prime Minister has finally accepted our call for a full, statutory, national inquiry into grooming gangs.” Whatever your politics, that’s an indictment of the government’s reluctant posture—and, by extension, of a safeguarding minister who hasn’t imposed grip.
Why this is now untenable
Safeguarding demands three things: survivor confidence, procedural competence, and public clarity. On all three, Phillips’ record is failing:
Confidence: Resignations from the survivor panel and the collapse of preferred chairs speak louder than any press line.
Competence: Months in, there is still no confirmed chair or settled, published terms of reference—despite ministerial comparisons with other inquiries that hardly reassure those waiting for justice.
Clarity: Mixed messages about scope and leadership have left victims fearing another exercise in delay and deflection.
A safeguarding minister who cannot keep survivors at the centre, steady the process, and bring the country with her should not remain in post. On that standard, Jess Phillips’ position is no longer credible.
Sources:
Key responsibilities and appointment record for the Minister for Safeguarding (Home Office).
Commons UQ: “Rape Gangs: National Statutory Inquiry”, 21 Oct 2025.
Kemi Badenoch, Commons debate on the Casey audit, 16 Jun 2025.
Latest reporting on survivor resignations and chair withdrawals.