Prime minister says if Tories vote for amendment on children’s wellbeing bill, it will show ‘they are more interested in retweets than children’s safety’ as shadow business secretary praises Musk
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, was on interview duty for No 10 this morning and if anything she was even stronger than Keir Starmer (see 9.35am) in attacking the Conservatives over the reasoned amendment they have tabled that would block the children’s wellbeing and schools bill. Speaking on the Today programme, she said:
Let me just be absolutely clear about the approach that we’re seeing today from the Conservatives. What they’re setting out would kill this legislation. It would kill it stone dead. This is the single biggest piece of children safeguarding legislation in a generation that they intend to block, that they want to stop altogether, all on the altar of political opportunism …
The measures that we’re setting out today, around making sure that everyone involved in children’s lives work to keep children safe will be absolutely central to how we stop more children being exposed to abuse.
[The Conservatives] come along today as we set out legislation to protect the very children they claim to care about and they intend to block it and kill it stone dead. It is absolutely sickening.
I would implore any right-thinking Tory MP to vote for the bill because [the Conservative reasoned amendment] would kill the bill, this would kill the legislation. It would kill the provisions for a unique identifying number that will stop children falling through the cracks …
No MP should be voting down children’s safeguarding measures. It’s shocking they are even thinking about this as a tactic. It’s the elevation of the desire for retweets over any real interest in the safeguarding of children.
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