Bridget Phillipson said Robert Jenrick should “hang his head in shame” for only calling for a fresh public inquiry into grooming gangs now.

The education secretary said Jenrick, who was a minister in the Home Office under Rishi Sunak, did not use his platform to raise the issue when the Tories were in power.

It comes as the Conservatives are planning on voting down Labour’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill today, so they can put forward an amendment which would force a fresh public inquiry into grooming gangs.

Labour do not want a new inquiry and insist they are focused on implementing the recommendation of Professor Alexis Jay’s child abuse inquiry, which reported in 2022.

The bill is certain to pass because Labour has such a large majority – but the Tories are still pressing MPs to back their amendment anyway.

Today programme host Emma Barnett said: “Robert Jenrick, who has been on our programme he has been on various programmes in the last 24 hours, he says there’s 50 towns and cities where this needs to be looked into.

“How many local inquiries do you think there should be?”

“Oh, we’ve heard a lot from Robert Jenrick these last few days, haven’t we?” Phillipson said.

“We didn’t hear very much from him when he was a Home Office minister,” she continued. “He should hang his head in shame about his level of responsibility, his failure to deliver justice for victims, a system which failed to deliver prosecutions, where victims were left waiting years on end.”

Phillipson did not say how many local inquiries there should be, but went on: “We will take whatever steps necessary to keep children safe.”

The cabinet minister then accused Tories of wanting to “play politics with children’s lives, children’s safety”.

“They pretend to care about this stuff, they had years to do it! They had 14 years in government, they received the response of Alexis Jay’s review, and all of the recommendations that came from it.”

Jenrick was cornered for his record on calling out grooming gangs yesterday, too.

BBC Radio 4′s Nick Robinson told him: “I’ve checked Hansard [official report of all parliamentary debates] today and – it’s not a perfect test – when you put in the name Robert Jenrick, grooming, no mention, grooming gang, no mention, Rotherham, no mention, Rochdale, no mention, child sexual abuse, no mention, child rape, no mention.”

The presenter continued: “You have not raised – please correct me if my search is wrong – the issue of mass-gang rape and child sex abuse that you are so energised about, you have no evidence that you raised it as a minister and no evidence that you raised it in the House of Commons.”

Jenrick just repeatedly said he wrote about the topic last year.