Coffee House Shots: what's the point of public inquiries?
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The Spectator
4.4 • 785 Ratings
🗓️ 11 January 2025
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
If we did have a national inquiry, what would it achieve? We’ve had many in recent years; Iraq, Grenfell Covid, the Post Office. Do they achieve meaningful justice for victims, or are they a drawn-out way to avoid knotty legislative change? Does parliament have the mechanisms to enact the recommendations – have politicians ever done this in the past, and is there an appetite to do so in the future?
Deputy broadcast editor Natasha Feroze discusses with Spectator assistant editor Isabel Hardman, and Raja Miah, anti-grooming gang campaigner and Oldham commentator.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Spectator magazine is home to wonderful writing, insightful analysis, and unrivaled books and arts reviews. |
| 0:06.1 | Subscribe today for just £12 and receive a 12-week subscription in print and online. |
| 0:11.2 | Alongside that, you get a 20-pound John Lewis or Waitrose voucher. |
| 0:14.7 | Go to spectator.co.uk forward slash voucher. |
| 0:21.7 | Hello and welcome to a special Saturday edition of Coffee House Shots. |
| 0:25.8 | I'm Natasha Froes and I'm joined by Isabel Hardman and Rajamia who is a commentator and |
| 0:31.1 | campaigner from Oldham. |
| 0:33.0 | Now we're going to be talking about public inquiries because the grooming gang scandal |
| 0:37.4 | has remained at the top of the news this week and it was all sparked. Now, we're going to be talking about public inquiries because the grooming gang scandal has |
| 0:37.8 | remained at the top of the news this week, and it was all sparked when Oldham Council demanded |
| 0:44.2 | that the government would hold a nationwide inquiry into grooming gangs. Jess Phillips |
| 0:49.4 | consequently said no, it's a local matter, and there was a vote in Parliament which was voted against |
| 0:55.5 | on Wednesday. There have been several public inquiries over the past decade, and over |
| 1:01.2 | 100 million pounds per year is spent on public inquiries. There's been Leveson, the post office |
| 1:07.7 | scandal, Grenfell. Roger, I'll come to you first. |
| 1:11.9 | You've been campaigning for there to be a public inquiry |
| 1:14.1 | into the grooming gang scandal for the past six years. |
| 1:17.5 | Why is it so important to you? |
| 1:19.8 | I think for us in all of them, |
| 1:22.6 | it's a quest for truth and it's a quest for justice. |
| 1:25.9 | And we've looked at what's happened in the past, |
| 1:27.9 | particularly with the grooming gangs. And the campaigns in the main have been led by survivors |
... |
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