The leader of Rotherham Council has criticised tech billionaire Elon Musk’s recent comments about grooming gangs and child sexual exploitation (CSE) in the UK, suggesting that Musk’s framing of the topic as ‘solely a racial issue’ is ‘unhelpful’.

During yesterday’s (January 15) full council meeting of Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, leader Chris Read said that a new national inquiry suggested by the Conservative party would not be ‘in any way helpful,’ and instead called for the voices of victims to be ‘front and centre’ of conversations on the topic.

Musk, who owns the social media platform X, has been vocal in his criticisms of the UK government’s handling of grooming gangs, particularly targeting Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and Home Office minister Jess Phillips. In a series of posts over several days, Musk repeatedly shared posts from Reform and Conservative MPs calling for a new national inquiry into child sexual exploitation.

In a speech during yesterday’s meeting, councillor Read said he was ‘frustrated’ over Conservative MPs’ calls for a new national inquiry, and branded Musk’s narrative ‘unhelpful’.

“I do think it’s time that the country learns the lessons from places like Rotherham and Telford and elsewhere in the country, and got on with making sure that those safeguarding arrangements are as strong and effective as they can be,” said Coun Read.

“I am frustrated, frankly, that there are politicians now at a national level within the Conservative Party…who were in government, in a position to move some of this agenda forward, who didn’t do that when they were in government, who have now found the opportunity to raise those issues in public, and are actually doing so in a way that is harmful to community relations.

“That isn’t helpful and neither is it helpful to have a national narrative in the way that Elon Musk, god knows what his safeguarding qualifications are, what Elon Musk has done to present this as solely a racial issue, when we know that simply isn’t true, and the majority of child abuse, sexual abuse of children in this country is perpetrated by white British people.

“There is certainly an argument that this is a problem for men. Curiously, that isn’t a conversation we’re having as a country and it isn’t helpful to direct people to just one particular part of the problem, however important that part of the problem is, when there’s a whole range of other things that need addressing as well.”

Coun Read added that it is now ‘years and years past time for action’ for survivors of CSE, following Professor Alex Jay’s report in 2014, which found that at least 1,400 children were subjected to sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013.

“It certainly is time for action. In fact, it’s years and years past time for action.

“We know many of the issues that affect vulnerable children. We know what children’s services across the country have been cut back for a long, long time.

“What Alexis Jay’s IICSA [Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse] report showed, was that in every walk of life, in all kinds of organisations – sports clubs, religious groups, educational establishments – children have been failed, and failed in the most horrific and violent ways for decades.

“That should be a wake up call for all of us. In that sense, I don’t think waiting for a further inquiry on a particular type of child abuse would be in any way helpful.

“There are lots and lots of victims of child abuse in this country….who have not been heard, and their voices need to be front and centre in this conversation.

“I am far from convinced that a national inquiry specifically into grooming-gang type CSE will move us any further forward.

“The suggestion that you can investigate 50 different towns and cities across the country with the power to force witnesses to attend and deliver some kind of justice about people who failed in the past I think frankly and perhaps sadly, but I think that’s fanciful.

“We came through a really difficult process in Rotherham which laid bare weaknesses in the system. I wrote to the Home Secretary some years ago and asked for help holding former professionals in this authority to account and help came there none.

“Our ability nationally to fund that in lots of places all at once, I think it just going to be beyond what’s possible. If we could do it then we would so it, but I don’t think we should be waiting for that.

“If there are questions which survivors themselves need answering, and that can be done in a timely way by some sort of national inquiry then I’ve no problem with that at all. I genuinely don’t think that will tell us any more about what happened here. We had eight separate inquiries about aspects of CSE in Rotherham.

“I think we have drawn out all of the things we’re ever going to be able to draw out. I understand why that is frustrating and upsetting for those people who are let down.”