Violence against Women and Girls

12:52:00

I beg to move, That this House has considered the matter of tackling violence against women and girls. As things stand today, the scale of violence against women in this country is intolerable and a national emergency, so I welcome the opportunity for the House to unite and debate it. Tackling violence against women and girls in all its forms is a top priority for the Government and central to our wider mission to make the country’s streets safer. Let me be clear from the start that I condemn the threats against the Safeguarding Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), in the strongest possible terms. They are abhorrent and demonstrate all too clearly how some men view women’s place in the world. I know that so many right hon. and hon. Members have experienced that kind of hateful misogyny online—threats and abuse levelled at us just for doing our job—but we will continue to speak out; we will not be silenced. I am sure that the House will join me in offering my friend every support. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] The Government were elected on a landmark pledge to halve violence against women and girls over the next decade, rightly putting the issue at the forefront of the political agenda after years of neglect, and where women have been let down by the system. It is an ambitious target, but it is absolutely right that we are ambitious when it comes to the safety of women and girls. In this country, it is estimated that a woman is killed by a man every three days, on average, yet that rarely makes the headlines. Their deaths have become normalised and I think we, as a society, have become desensitised. That is nothing short of a national scandal. Every woman lost is a daughter, a mother and a friend with her life brutally cut short. They are not statistics to me, and nor are they to the Government; their lives matter and we are determined to act. We will use every tool at our disposal to target perpetrators, protect victims and address the causes of this appalling abuse and violence. We will go further than ever before to transform how we work together across Government, public services, the private sector and charities, and our efforts will be underpinned by a new strategy to combat violence against women and girls that we will publish later this year. As a first principle, prevention will always be better than cure, so if we are to tackle these crimes we must start by tackling their root causes. Education will be fundamental to our approach. We need a culture shift where abusive, harassing and discriminatory behaviour is called out for exactly what it is, where women are at last respected and championed and where every woman can be safe wherever they are, whether at work, at school, online, in the street or in their own homes. Women make up over 50% of society, but the mission shared by those of us in the Chamber cannot be achieved by halves or by women speaking only to women; everyone needs to play their part. Men must be part of the conversation and part of the solution, and I am clear that there are many great male role models out there—many of them in this Chamber We need to understand why boys and young men are being drawn down the rabbit hole of toxic masculinity that so often fuels these crimes. Critically, how can we step in, support them and steer them away from that? No one agency can solve this alone. It will mean working across the House and across society with schools, parents, police and the judiciary—everyone—if we are to make a difference for the next generation of women. That is the approach the Government will take. Secondly, we must ensure that our legal system is able to respond effectively to these crimes so that women are protected and perpetrators are swiftly brought to justice.

I understand that there may be some difficulties with the criminal law in relation to people being followed. In the event that they have been actively harassed and threatened, there is a potential crime in the threat, but there may be a gap in the criminal law for those who are simply followed, with that not being part of a continuing course of conduct. Will the Minister commit to looking into that, please?

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. We will happily look at that. We have already done some incredible work on stalking and harassment, but we will look to go further wherever possible. Let us look at the offence of rape. As it stands, about 60% of adult rape complainants, despite bravely coming forward, eventually withdraw from the criminal justice process. That means too many offenders are getting away with their crimes and too many victims are being left without the justice they deserve. Often that is because the agony of a long wait for justice is much more than they can bear. It is a sad fact that some victims, and particularly those of sexual offences, are waiting almost three years for their case to come to trial. Some decide not to pursue their cases at all, feeling, quite understandably, that they need to focus on their own mental health and move on with their lives. I once spoke to a victim who told me that she had been raped and her case had taken years to come to trial. She told me something that I will never forget: that the experience had made her want to die. That anyone should feel that way about our justice system is unconscionable. The Government are determined to do better. Justice must be swifter. We will work with the judiciary to fast-track rape cases through the courts so that victims like her are not left in limbo. There is no escaping the Government’s bleak inheritance of a criminal court system under the most intense pressure. Nowhere is that more evident than in the Crown court, where the outstanding caseload stands at over 73,000—a record high. We have taken decisive action to drive the caseload down, funding an extra 2,000 sitting days, which will see courts sit for a total of 108,500 days this financial year—the highest level in almost a decade. We are also extending magistrates court sentencing powers from six months to 12 months for a single triable either- way offence, which we expect will free up about 2,000 sitting days and allow judges to deal with the most serious cases. But if victims are to see justice done more swiftly, we cannot simply do more of the same; we have to go further. It will take once-in-a-generation reform. That is why the Lord Chancellor has commissioned Sir Brian Leveson, one of the country’s top legal minds, to carry out an independent review of the criminal courts. Sir Brian will consider the merits of longer-term reform during the first phase of the review. That could include consideration of an entirely new type of court entirely, intermediate courts, in which cases too serious to be heard by a magistrate alone could be heard by a judge flanked by magistrates. The second phase of the review will consider how our courts can operate more efficiently, and the timeliness of processes. Sir Brian will report his findings later this year, and I am sure that Members will await them with interest. As a third principle, we must ensure that the criminal law is equipped to deal with the evolving range of threats that women face today. I am sure the House agrees that sexually explicit deepfake images are particularly appalling, and shares my concern about the fact that this kind of abuse is on the rise. Artificial intelligence technology now means that perpetrators can, at the click of a button, turn innocent images from a person’s social media account into pornographic material—images that can then be shared with millions online, in milliseconds. It is not funny. It is not banter. It is a gross violation of a woman’s privacy and autonomy which causes untold harm, and it is disturbing to hear that a third of women report falling victim to intimate image abuse. It cannot continue unchecked. Our laws must protect victims and punish those responsible. That is why the Government made a clear manifesto commitment to ban the creation of these vile images, and it is why we are committed to tackling the creation of sexually explicit deepfakes by introducing a new criminal offence in the policing and crime Bill. However, we are going further. While it is already a criminal offence to share, or threaten to share, an intimate image without consent, it is, quite bizarrely, an offence to take an image without consent only in certain circumstances. So-called up-skirting is an offence, while taking photos down someone’s blouse or setting up cameras in a changing room is not. As I am sure the House will agree, that makes little sense, so as I explained earlier this week, the Government will introduce new offences for the taking of intimate images without consent and the installation of equipment with intent to enable the taking of an intimate image without consent. We are sending the clear message that this appalling, misogynistic behaviour will not be tolerated and that predators who violate women’s trust in this way will face the consequences, which could mean up to two years in custody, depending on the perpetrator’s intent. As women, Madam Deputy Speaker, we should not have to watch our friends’ drinks while they go to the bathroom. We should not have to worry about being spiked by a needle, or a vape. The Government will therefore introduce a new criminal offence covering spiking, and will work hand in hand with police and business leaders to crack down on this behaviour so that women can enjoy a night out without fear and victims are empowered to come forward, knowing that they will be taken seriously.

I welcome the Government’s announcement just before Christmas that spiking will become a specific offence. Will the Minister join me in commending the campaigning work of my constituent Dawn Dines and the organisation Stamp Out Spiking, and will she commit herself to working with Stamp Out Spiking and other organisations to ensure that the new law and other issues related to spiking are embedded in the knowledge of, in particular, police forces around the country?

I will take every opportunity to commend Dawn Dines and the work of Stamp Out Spiking. Both the Safeguarding Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), and I have met Dawn Dines many times. We will, of course, be working with every single agency to ensure that we crack down on this abhorrent crime. In November, we announced pilots of domestic abuse protection notices and domestic abuse protection orders with Greater Manchester police, in three London boroughs and with the British Transport police; North Wales police and Cleveland police will come on board early this year. Domestic abuse protection orders will impose tough restrictions on abusers and keep victims safe, making it a legal requirement for perpetrators to inform the police of any change of name or address, with the option to impose electronic tagging to keep tabs on offenders. They will also enable assessments for behaviour change programmes to be ordered to prevent the cycle of abuse from being repeated. We need to stop this behaviour. Fourthly, we must ensure that victims are given the right support, wherever they are in the justice process. We need them to be empowered to come forward in the first place, whether to make a report or just to obtain the help that they need to rebuild their lives. Every woman should know that she is seen, heard and taken seriously—that is the kind of justice system to which we should aspire—but sadly that is not always the case, especially for those who have endured rape or other sexual offences. We are determined to improve women’s confidence in the justice system by ensuring that it focuses on perpetrators rather than pointing the finger of blame at victims. No one who has been burgled has been told, “Maybe you gave the wrong signals, and he thought you wanted to be burgled.” No one who has had their wallet stolen has been asked, “What were you wearing at the time?” For far too long, the way in which survivors of rape and sexual offences have been treated has been unacceptable, and this Government are determined to stamp out those harmful, misogynistic stereotypes. They are a threat to justice, and a threat to women in all aspects of our society. My colleague the Lord Chancellor has announced the introduction of independent legal advisers who will offer free legal advice to victims of adult rape at any point from report to trial, helping them to understand their rights in relation to, for example, the use of personal information, such as counselling details or medical records, to which access can be gained during an investigation. As will have been said in the House before, such demands have sometimes gone too far, causing unnecessary upset to victims, compounding their trauma and, on occasion, resulting in their dropping out of a case altogether. Requests of that kind should be made only when they are relevant, necessary and proportionate to the case. The advisers will not undermine the right to a fair trial or prevent evidence from coming to light; they will simply help victims to understand and, if necessary, take steps to protect the rights that they already have. More broadly, the Government will ensure that all victims know their rights and that those rights are upheld, and that they are supported as they go through the justice process, not retraumatised when their day in court finally arrives. The victims code helps victims to understand what they can expect from the criminal justice system, and sets out the minimum level of service that they should receive. The Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 has the potential to improve awareness of and compliance with the victims code by ensuring that the victims know about their rights under the code, and it sets out a new compliance framework to ensure that agencies will be held accountable for delivering those rights. The Act also places a duty on local commissioners in England to collaborate in the commissioning of support services for victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and serious violence. We will soon consult on a revised victims code and the duty to collaborate guidance, and we will ensure that the right data and systems are is in place to monitor compliance with the new code. The Government have also pledged to increase the powers of the Victims’ Commissioner so that there is more accountability when victims’ needs are not being met. Let me emphasise that while women may suffer these horrific crimes more often, I am well aware that many men are affected by domestic abuse and sexual violence. They too deserve every protection and support, and these measures will of course apply equally to them. Let me also take a moment to thank victim support organisations. I am sure the House will agree that they are vital to the justice process: without them, many victims would struggle to see their cases through, which means that many more perpetrators would get away with their crimes. As I have said, this Government inherited a criminal justice system under immense pressure, and a black hole in the nation’s finances. While we have had to make difficult decisions to deliver the justice that victims deserve, through the courts and across the system as a whole, I am pleased that we have been able to protect dedicated VAWG victims spending in the Department by maintaining the 2024-25 funding levels, which have been ringfenced for sexual violence and domestic abuse support next year. We want to ensure that help is available to survivors of these awful crimes as they seek to rebuild their lives. That includes funding for independent sexual violence advisers and independent domestic abuse advisers, and is in addition to the core funding that the Department provides for police and crime commissioners to allocate at their discretion on the basis of their assessment of local need. As I have also said, the answer to these appalling crimes does not lie with a single Government Department or agency. It demands a united effort across Departments, across the system and across society. We must all commit ourselves to ambitious change, and I know that everyone here today shares that view. I look forward to hearing from Members in all parts of the House, and to a productive debate that will move this important conversation forward as we collectively say, “Enough is enough.” Violence against women and girls can have no place in our society, and every woman and girl deserves to live her life free from violence, abuse and harassment.

I call the shadow Minister and my Sussex neighbour, Mims Davies.

13:09:00

It is a pleasure to be called in this important debate to speak on behalf of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition. I welcome this general debate being called by the Government on such a topical issue as we return to the Chamber in the new year. It is important that there is a significant focus on women and girls being heard in every single community. I agree with the Minister: enough is enough. That is one of the most magnificent campaigns the Home Office could have come up with, and I applaud all those who work in the Department on this important issue and who are focused on protecting women and girls in every nation, region and community. I heard people being congratulated in business questions on their awards in the new year honours. One of those was Nicole Jacobs, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, who I had the pleasure of working with, and I know that Ministers will enjoy working with her. Let us all agree in the Chamber this afternoon and say clearly that we do not accept any abuse directed at us as Members of Parliament, Ministers and people speaking up for women and girls, such as that we have seen in recent days. There are women and girls in our communities who want to know that we are here and are focused on keeping them safe. When it comes to domestic abuse or any kind of criminality aimed at women and girls in our community, criminality is criminality, wherever it is found. Domestic abuse, wherever it is, must continue to be tackled. It cannot remain untackled; it must always be uncovered. I welcome the measures that the Minister outlined in her speech and the strategy, in terms of education, support and the pursuit of justice, particularly in respect of deepfakes and intimate images. I appreciate the focus on halving violence against women and girls, but that is not enough. Let us focus on pure eradication—that is one thing that those from all parts of the House can agree on. We can equally agree on how wonderful Dawn Dines is. She has led the Stamp Out Spiking campaign and brought such energy to it. In my brief time working in the Department, I wanted to see a focus on an updated spiking law, so let us celebrate with Dawn when that comes through. We very much welcome the protection orders that have been brought forward. On behalf of my party, I want to thank and applaud all the charities, groups and networks that support survivors and victims, so that there is always someone to turn to. I would like to reiterate that: there is always someone to turn to, so please speak out. All too often, people feel that they will not be heard. Sadly, there is a leap from rhetoric to intimidation and then potentially to violence when it comes into the political arena. We need to ensure that that does not seep down into what victims feel might happen to them if they come forward and speak out. Our men and young boys are key, as the Minister said. This is a partnership. Everything in life and in the community is a partnership. I have the honour of co-chairing the all-party parliamentary group on men and boys’ issues, and I ask the Minister to update the House on the men and boys ambassador and the ministerial work being done on this. It is the duty of any Government to keep their citizens safe, and I am proud of the work of the outgoing Conservative Government. We did our utmost to fulfil that job. In the face of the pandemic and the war on our continent, we focused on ensuring that our constituents felt safer and that our commitment to this never wavered. Progress is best made when a Government build on the foundations of the previous one; perhaps this fixing of the foundations is one area that we can agree on. It was therefore a little bit disappointing to see in the Labour manifesto—some of us did read it—that “For too long, violence against women and girls has been ignored.” I do not think that is the case, but let us not have 50% of it ignored; let us have the whole lot eradicated. Let us ensure that the voices and the asks of the women and girls in our communities are listened to. In the last 24 hours there has been a vote on victims of grooming gangs, which was very difficult. We need to set the record straight on why the Opposition are strongly focused on getting agreement that no stone should be left unturned on this issue. The previous Government accepted 18 of the 20 recommendations in the important Jay review, and it is disappointing that the legislation could not be agreed on before the change of Government, although it was put forward in the wash-up—a techie term, for people watching. Ultimately, we wanted to tackle the issue, and my party is again determined to work with the Government to get this moving. The last Conservative Home Secretary to focus on grooming gangs was my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman), who rightly set up the taskforce that led to 500 further arrests and over 4,000 more victims protected. In all the hubbub of the last day or two, what is important is that the questions of victims and survivors are answered on the recommendations of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. The taskforce set up under the Conservative Government worked with 43 forces in England and Wales on supporting investigations into child sexual exploitation and grooming. It is right to give our police officers on the frontline the support they need to tackle this scandal. The Minister rightly talked about justice, but it must start with coming forward to the police. I completely agree with her: the crucial step of coming forward and saying what has happened is the bravest and hardest thing imaginable for a young child or woman who knows that the people around them should have been protecting them. We need to ensure that the police are there for them. As a vital next step, let us all agree to collect the data on ethnicity. Let us not shy away from this. Let us get it and share it. This is at the heart of the matter. People feel that political correctness should not hold us back. To protect all victims from sexual abuse and abhorrent crimes, no stone should be unturned. This is further and wider than what IICSA investigated, which is why my party believes that a further-reaching inquiry is urgently needed. There was nothing in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) said, nobody in the Chamber should feel that they cannot raise on the Floor of the House, without fear or favour, something that is happening in their constituency. That is what we come here to do.

No one should ever feel afraid of raising any issue in this Chamber with me or anybody else. To reiterate, the ethnicity data is collected. It was published for the first time in November, and I am not entirely sure why the Opposition keep insisting that it has not been published. To be honest, the data that had started to be collected under their Government is not good enough, and we will be working to improve it, but ethnicity data is collected and published.

I thank the hon. Lady for coming to the Dispatch Box to give that undertaking to the House. Our friend Sajid Javid and others were keen to ensure that that was out there. I am sure that will reassure the House.

I want to go a bit further on that data. Does the hon. Member accept that in the 2022 police report on child sexual exploitation, where there were more than two perpetrators, the ethnicity data pointed to 76% of the perpetrators being white, 9% being black and 9% being Asian?

I thank the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee; hers is a welcome voice for women and girls. I agree with her: we are keen to look at the data. What has been underscored this week, however, is that some people feel that we have not got to the broadest extent of the issue. That is why some people feel disappointed. Let me broaden our discussion of VAWG. Significant measures were introduced by the former Conservative Government, including a rapid increase in the number of police officers and the introduction of the all-important law enforcement tool that they need in communities to listen to victims and act on their behalf. New legislation was introduced—crucial legislation that the Government are rightly building on—in the form of the Conservatives’ landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which was passed to recognise the more insidious forms of abuse that blight victims’ lives, often before they realise it themselves. Lady Theresa May and others have campaigned against those insidious forms of abuse, which can also lead to gateway crimes in other areas. On VAWG specifically, a further domestic abuse plan was launched in 2021, with over half the commitments completed by the previous Conservative Government. Many people will remember that, crucially, it brought young children and family members into the purview of domestic abuse. Other strategies included spending £6.6 million on delivering interventions to improve our understanding of what works in preventing violence against women and girls; ensuring the consistency of support services through the introduction of the national commissioning standards of the victims funding strategy, to which the Minister alluded; and launching the VAWG support and specialist services fund, with £8.3 million to support victims who face barriers to coming forward. The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 brought in a new duty for employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of employees. From my time at the Department of Work and Pensions, I know that talking to people about what is going on in their world and bringing it forward to their employer is often a gateway for people to be able to move to safety. We delivered £150 million of funding for the safer streets fund and the safety of women at night fund, with a range of projects helping to improve public safety. Sussex’s police and crime commissioner Katie Bourne and others will know about that. Importantly, we have the national domestic abuse helpline, other helplines on revenge porn and the Suzy Lamplugh Trust national stalking helpline, and I welcome the Minister’s comments on that. Through the important flexible support fund, we provided a further £2 million to remove the additional barriers that domestic abuse victims face when leaving their abusers, which can be costly. Domestic abuse is in every corner of our country and at every economic level. People perceive that only certain women and certain families can be affected by this matter, which often stops those who are in fear coming forward. I know that Labour Members like to conclude that we did nothing for 14 years, but let me quickly remind them that we won four elections. We did not do nothing on women and girls; we made a real and tangible difference in tackling violence against women and girls. I am sure that we all agree this afternoon that there is always more to be done in every nation, region and community.

My hon. Friend is making a very effective speech and showing that this is a process, not an event. Governments have been working hard on this issue for many years, and this year marks 10 years since the introduction of the coercive control offence, which I was very proud to take through as a Minister in the Serious Crime Act 2015. That is the kind of change that Governments have built on and worked on, and we are all on the same page on this issue.

I thank my right hon. Friend for her work. We in this House will go wherever this issue takes us in every community. What is crucial is that victims and, equally, perpetrators know that VAWG will be tackled and that we will act in uniformity where we can. Rightly, the Minister mentioned that we banned upskirting and ended the so-called rough sex defence. We introduced the offence of non-fatal strangulation and, through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, ended the automatic halfway release for serious violent and sexual offenders. From my time at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, I remember that we extended the “positions of trust” focus on sports coaches and faith leaders. The Minister rightly talked about the courts process and the feeling of justice; what would be the point of letting people out halfway through their sentence? I remind the House that, sadly, the Labour party did not always support us, but now it is in government. Women’s charities have continued to express concerns about the Government’s early release scheme, including Women’s Aid back in October. Following the first wave of releases last month, we have seen our long-standing concerns come to fruition. On behalf of Women’s Aid, I ask Ministers to reiterate the importance of tackling this matter. On the early release of perpetrators, the issue is not necessarily finance but the mental health of their victims. In this afternoon’s debate we need to think about the women and girls—our constituents—growing up in our communities and families. We will continue to have a thoughtful examination of the facts, find a way forward to tackle this set of horrendous crimes, and give women and girls the confidence to come forward and have it tackled.

I call the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee.

13:27:00

I thank the Government for providing time for this incredibly important debate. The debate is timely, but unfortunately it is always timely to discuss violence against women and girls, given the issues that we face. I thank the Minister for her opening remarks, and for showing the dedication that she has throughout her working life as an MP to making our spaces—online, in person, at home or at work—safer for all of us. Why are we here to discuss violence against women and girls? It is because we live in a country where 97% of recorded rapes go unpunished. That is an improvement on the 98% that went unpunished just a few years ago. If they do get processed, it takes years for victims to fight through the backlogs for justice, as we have heard. We know that over 80 women were killed by men last year. The true figure is probably much more, because at least 11 cases of women’s murders are still to be solved. As the Minister rightly said, a woman is killed every three days at the hands of a man. The revenge porn helpline deals with 9,000 cases every year, and the number is increasing. We are increasingly seeing men and boys become victims of sextortion, but the victims of revenge porn and non-consensual intimate image abuse are predominantly women, and the problem is only going to get worse with new AI technology and nudification apps. One in three women has been sexually assaulted, so the chances are that we will know women and girls—see them, work with them and cross paths with them every single day—who have been victims. Given the level of under-reporting in this country, we can assume that they have probably been sexually assaulted multiple times. We live in a world in which Iraq has lowered the age of consent for girls to nine years old. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, women and girls describe their bodies as being an extension of a battlefield. Médecins Sans Frontières estimates that at least 25,000 women have been raped by militia in Congo. If that is too far afield for Members or people at home to empathise with the seriousness of the situation for women and girls not just in this country but across the world, what about the group of 70,000 men in Germany who shared tips on how to rape, how to drug, how to get away with sexual assault, and how to wreak revenge on women and girls? Just in Germany, 70,000 men shared those tips. Can we guarantee that something similar is not happening closer to home? Probably not. We are about to witness the inauguration of a President who openly boasted about grabbing women “by the pussy,” enabled by the richest man in the world, Elon Musk—who, on the one hand, has pretended over the last few weeks to care about the victims of sexual violence while, on the other hand, targeting and inciting hatred against the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), calling her an “evil witch.” That is digging deep into historical misogyny. How long have powerful women who stand up been constantly called a witch, or something that rhymes with it? I am pretty sure that most of us have been called something similar for standing up to those in power. The hypocrisy of this man continues. He helped to elect a man who has lost another lawsuit against a woman who claims that he raped her—a man who has 26 claims of sexual assault against him. We have Members of this House who champion both those men. We often share this Chamber with a man who has been convicted of kicking a woman, and with others who think that is acceptable. Sadly, violence against women and girls does not start or end with politics and war. As we have heard, society’s view of women is such an important part of this. In 2025, where are we as a society when it is okay for 70,000 men to get together to share tips on how to rape and sexually assault women and get away with it? What is our place in this world? What is the place of women and girls in this world? Are our institutions designed for us? Are they working for us? Are our services actually protecting or supporting us? For over a decade, when it comes to health, the police and justice, no one can say that is clearly the case. We have been failed by institutions and individuals, which is why many of us still ask our friends to text us to say that they have got home safely. It is why many of us will not run at night, and why many of us wear just one earphone, if that, when we are walking around. It is why we carry keys in our pockets, rolled up in our hands. It is why we have to explain to our daughters what is appropriate and what is not, and it is why we should also explain that to our sons. All of this happens, and continues to happen, to women and girls, and more so if they are black, Asian or minority ethnic, if they are disabled or if they are LGBT, which is why I am so grateful that we have a plan of action for halving violence against women and girls. That sounds like an incredible aim—an impossible task—but I hope it is not. I have printed just one page, but the measures that will happen under this Labour Government to tackle violence against women extend over many pages. The ones I pick out are, first, that there will be domestic abuse specialists in every 999 control room, which will be life-changing for those with the bravery to pick up the phone and say, “I am being abused by a loved one.” Rape cases will be fast-tracked through the courts. We have heard that justice delayed is justice denied. The minuscule number of reported rape cases that actually find their way to court are being dragged out to the extent that people give up hope. Banning the creation of deepfakes and non-consensual intimate images is hugely important. The Women and Equalities Committee has heard evidence from brave survivors and victims of this cruel, degrading abuse. The impact that has, and continues to have, on their lives does not match the punishment that perpetrators currently face. I am grateful that we will see a minimum two-year sentence for these offences. The Government are seeking to ensure that all victims of violence are seen, supported and protected, particularly migrant women and girls, as well as black, Asian and minority ethnic, LGBT+ and disabled women and girls. We can receive abuse and violence for multiple reasons—because we are a woman and because we are an ethnic minority, or because we are a woman and because we are disabled. Hatred never stays in one lane, or at least not for very long. These measures are all needed and, in many areas, they have been neglected for years. We cannot take our eye off the ball, because there are those who seek to sell off our rights and freedoms to the highest bidder on the world stage. Violence against women and girls does not come out of nowhere. I do not believe that any child is born with hatred in their heart and their mind. No baby boy is born thinking that he has a right over a woman’s body, or the right to abuse or rape her. It is society that instils that belief.

Before upskirting became a specific criminal offence, people said it was “just a laugh”. Does the hon. Member think we have a massive problem in society when offences against women are dismissed as just a laugh and seen as acceptable?

Yes, and that is why I want to talk about why society needs to move on. We can implement all these measures in the criminal justice system to make sure that the right people get the right support when they need it, but ultimately, we need to see the societal changes that the hon. Member outlines to ensure that we are not here having the same discussion 10 years down the line. It is so important to address how society views not just women but men. What makes a good man? What makes a good boy, and which men should he aspire to become? I am looking forward to hearing more about the men and boys ambassador, but who are boys aspiring to become at the moment? Unfortunately, it is the men who shout the loudest and have the most money, even if they got their money, power and influence through the sex trafficking of women or by starting new political parties for “bros”. This is nothing new, sadly. Whether it is the Harrods scandal, Harvey Weinstein or Jeffrey Epstein, we see the same pattern, time and again, of influence, power and money making them unaccountable to anybody until it is far too late. The answer to that is good role models, and there are plenty of them. There are so many. Being a strong, good man is very different from being the men I have highlighted. I am lucky to work alongside some of them, I am lucky to call some of them my friends, and I am really lucky to have some of them in my family. It is also about holding up a mirror to the men who use their power, position and money to try to crush women and girls, and who see it as a badge of honour, rather than the badge of shame that it should be. What path leads a man to conclude that it is okay to rape someone? What path leads a man to believe that women are just commodities to buy, sell and traffic to please his needs? What kind of man uses his body to kick, punch and strangle women? How hollow is the shell of a man who gets his kicks from sending intimate videos or photos of a girl to embarrass or degrade her? Unfortunately, just as we know many good men, we also know bad men. We work alongside them, and they are around every day of our lives, in every part of our lives. We like to paint rapists, perpetrators of sexual assault and predators as monsters or something “other”, but if we think about the statistics of sexual violence and rape that were highlighted earlier, we see that those men walk among us. Young boys need better role models than those promoted on X, Telegram and soon, I fear, Meta. I want to end by talking about the people who embody the mirror that ensures shame is reflected on those who deserve it: Gisèle Pelicot and every other victim of abuse who steps forward. Gisèle Pelicot was drugged by her husband and raped by 51 men—betrayed by the person who should have loved and cherished her. As with so many cases of violence against women and girls, it was a supposed loved one—a close one. She waived her right to anonymity because she felt the “shame must change sides”. She could not be more right, but are we up to that challenge? Will women and girls stop being blamed and shamed, and will male perpetrators actually be held to account? We are seeing action, but with technology we are always playing catch-up. The founder of the website that hosted the ads placed by Gisèle Pelicot’s husband to recruit his wife’s rapists has just been arrested in France. I am grateful that this Government are introducing measures to tackle online abuse and violence against women, but we cannot let up. We have to continue. During my Committee’s most recent inquiry into non-consensual intimate image abuse, we heard that police officers were handing devices containing intimate images back to the perpetrators. That was a ludicrous situation, so I am grateful that the Minister outlined that there will be strengthening of the codes to ensure that no perpetrator of NCIIs will have devices or materials related to the original offence returned to them. We need to continue the fight against violence against women and girls, because it was never won in the first place. Perpetrators are using new technologies to evade justice and to inflict greater harms. I will end with the words of Gisèle Pelicot after the verdicts against her husband and her rapists were given. She said: “I now have confidence in our capacity to find a better future where everyone, women and men alike, can live in harmony with respect and mutual understanding.” My goodness, I wish I shared her confidence, but I do share her hope. Much of that rests on the Government’s aim to halve violence against women and girls, and that the next generation of women have fire in their bellies, and a hunger for change and equality in their hearts.

That was very powerful indeed. I call the spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats.

13:42:00

Nine years ago or thereabouts, I was sitting in a courtroom supporting victims of domestic abuse. I saw at first hand how our systems of justice were failing women and girls when they were at their most vulnerable. That was my first motivation to enter politics, and it is a privilege to stand here and speak today, in this Chamber, in honour of all the women and girls who have faced abuse, violence, misogyny, harassment, stalking, spiking, non-consensual image abuse and everyday sexism. Violence against women and girls is systemic. It transcends constituency boundaries and national borders, and it is embedded in a global culture of discrimination and inequality that is even present in this House. I have heard casual sexism roll off the tongue as a female MP’s domestic context was used as a reason she should not progress. To those who believe that feminism has gone too far or that equality is here, I say this: the evidence shows otherwise. As if all the shocking statistics we have heard so far were not enough, here are some more. There is still a 13% gender pay gap. Some 41% of women provide unpaid care for children, grandchildren, older people or people with a disability, compared with 25% of men. Despite significant progress, we still do not have a Parliament that is representative of society with 50% women. This inequality manifests itself in discrimination across our systems, which just do not work for women. Our society still sees femininity as “less than”, and too much violence is tolerated. Some 3,000 crimes of violence against women and girls are recorded every day, and that is just a tiny part of the story. We have heard already about the number of women murdered every week by a partner or ex-partner, a figure that has not changed in decades. At least one in four women has been raped or sexually assaulted since the age of 16, and hundreds of thousands of crimes against women and girls every year have an online element. Given the fear and shame around reporting, it is certain that in reality, the figure is significantly higher. A woman in a domestic abuse situation will experience an average of 35 assaults before calling the police. We are not talking about a few isolated incidents; 2.3 million people aged 16 years and over experienced domestic abuse in the year ending March 2024. Those numbers seem abstract, but they represent real women, real children and real lives. That violence is enabled by a bedrock of inequality and a culture of disbelief. The experiences of women and girls are ignored, deprioritised and doubted. The Jay report on child sexual exploitation—yes, the same report on which the former Government took no action—found in 2022 that individuals and institutions often thought children were lying when they tried to disclose what was being done to them, and found that victims were frequently blamed for their own sexual abuse. We are not beyond the days of saying, “She was asking for it.” That disbelief has consequences for abusers. Last year, fewer than three in 100 rapes recorded by the police resulted in someone being charged in the same year. The Government must do what the previous Government did not: tackle violence against women and girls head-on. I support the Government’s ambition to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. It is a bold aim, but a vast undertaking. To achieve it, we must have cultural and legislative change. We have the opportunity in this House to create laws that not only protect women and girls, but effect significant cultural shifts. Passing the Domestic Abuse (Aggravated Offences) Bill, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde), would enable domestic abuse to be considered an aggravating factor in assault cases. That would distinguish it from other offences, and its severity and gravity could be understood more clearly. The Bill would exclude domestic violence perpetrators from schemes for early release from prison, and protect survivors of domestic abuse. In a survey conducted for a Crown Prosecution Service report on prosecution of rape and sexual offenses, 92% of CPS staff agreed that current court backlogs inhibit the prosecution of rape and serious sexual assault. The Government must address these backlogs, improve safety for women in the justice system, and fully support the staff who are working daily to support victims of trauma and abuse. Training of those who work with victims is of the utmost importance, but has not been prioritised. From my previous work supporting victims, and from my casework, I know that victims of domestic violence have had their and their advocate’s safety compromised because details have been shared with an abuser by someone working in the statutory services. All reports and information surrounding domestic abuse must be handled with exceptional sensitivity. That highlights the need for more specialist training, not just for our police forces—that will be welcomed—but in social services. The majority of cases in children’s social care involve domestic abuse, but the training done on it as part of social work qualification is insufficient. We must ensure that funding for services supporting survivors of domestic abuse is sufficient and secure. Charities that provide refuge and community services for victims inherently require long-term decisions and planning, but are frequently left with one-year funding agreements and one-off grants that limit their capacity to operate effectively. What about the men? I was pleased to see that a debate on paternity leave was extremely well attended by male MPs, who clearly wanted more time with their children. I am also pleased to see so many men supporting this debate. Unpaid caring work is still disproportionately done by women, but men are also disadvantaged, as valuable time with loved ones is lost. Our culture maintains an imbalance in expectations and opportunity for both men and women. The UK’s two weeks of statutory paternity leave lags far behind the entitlement in most advanced economies, and I call on the Government to make improvements to all parental leave, so that parents in every family have the opportunity to bond with their children in those first crucial months. Financial independence is a significant factor in women being able to leave an abusive partner, so for both men and women, we need to tackle the gender pay gap. We also need to tackle paternity leave, pay for carers, violence and issues with the criminal justice system, so that we stop seeing femininity as “less than”. We must tackle all aspects of inequality that underpin violence against women and girls for justice to become a reality.

13:51:00

I am glad that we are discussing this most important issue today. The National Police Chiefs’ Council rightly stated last year: “Violence against women and girls is a national emergency.” Action must be taken against our societal epidemic of violence, including sexual violence, against women and girls, and I am glad that the Government are committed to halving it in a decade. I will do my part to ensure that promise is delivered. We rightly talk a lot—although not nearly enough—in this place about victims. They must be at the heart of our work. Society has reached a place where most of us can accept the fact that we will all know victims of domestic or sexual violence. How could we not, with the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s statistics showing that approximately one in 12 women will be a victim in any given year, and as many as one in three over the course of a lifetime? Violence against women and girls is endemic in our country. It happens all around us and is committed by people—mainly men—whom we all know, and often trust and love. Societally, that is the aspect with which we have failed to grapple. Even though we accept that we know victims, far fewer people can accept that they know perpetrators. Instead, the 3,000 offences that happen each day, which leave behind psychological wreckage, seem to be rhetorically and conceptually driven by some sort of mysterious, passive, abstract force. It may be tempting to imagine that predators and perpetrators are unusual and could be identified if only we ditched our politically correct attitudes. However, that ignores the majority of abuse that takes place. Worse, it leads to a complacency that makes women and girls more vulnerable. It is easier, psychologically and societally, to hold to the idea that sexual violence is a rare thing, perpetrated by monsters that we can spot a mile off. Finding any excuse to delegitimise those who come forward—for example, by victim blaming, or by having preconceived ideas about how a “real” victim would behave—is key to upholding that. We see excuses made constantly for such behaviour, including in this place, and often by people who claim to be feminist or Christian, but who do not demonstrate any of the values that they claim to hold when it comes to having to confront the behaviour of someone in their circle. It is easier to immediately accept the abuser’s wholesale narrative and deflect, minimise, deny, defend or rubbish the victim’s credibility than to accept that someone we know is not only capable of that type of violence, but has perpetrated it. That tendency is at its most egregious when there is an institutional failure of reckoning, but all institutions are made up of individuals who share in and perpetuate that culpability. Even in the vanishingly rare cases in which someone is successfully convicted for domestic or sexual violence, we need only look at the comments online about how they had been “hard done by” or were “such a nice neighbour” and “couldn’t possibly have done it”. We all know that the vast majority of cases will never even make it that far, so what then? Let us be clear. According to the National Police Chiefs’ Council, “1 in 20 people are estimated to be perpetrators of VAWG per year”. Many of those will be repeat perpetrators. We will all know at least one of them. They hide in plain sight. They may very well be the last person we expect to be a perpetrator, and they know exactly what they are doing. Failure to acknowledge that means forcing victims to carry the shame that belongs to their abusers. We cannot say that we support victims coming forward if we cannot reconcile the fact that everyone here and everyone watching will know perpetrators of that form of violence. If we are to turn the tide, we need better education. We need more honest discussions of women’s safety and men’s roles. We need cultural change to identify and call out abusive behaviour. We need structures that believe women and girls and take misconduct seriously. We need investment in mental health and victim support services far above that currently on offer, including in the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, and support from independent sexual violence advisers and independent domestic violence advisers. We also need a justice system that works, that can deliver timely justice and in which women can have faith that they will not be further traumatised, as happens all too often, when seeking justice. Fundamentally, we all—in this place and right across society—need the courage to be more honest with ourselves about what we collectively look away from because it is too difficult. If we are ever going to hold perpetrators accountable and create and sustain a culture where women’s and girls’ safety is the norm, not the exception, that is where we need to begin.

13:57:00

I was not expecting be called so early. I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this important debate. I have taken part in many debates on these topics over the years, and they show the House at its best, because they are when we come together. This House, when speaking with one voice in our determination to tackle these issues, is incredibly powerful. What we say is heard beyond these walls; it is heard by law enforcement, the judiciary, the media and others. I am grateful for this chance to speak together and come together to find ways to tackle horrendous crimes. As I said in my intervention on the shadow Minister, we are talking about a process, not an event. We are all working towards the eradication of these crimes, and making them socially unacceptable in our country, but that is a massive challenge. Anybody—any Government—who stands still on this issue will go backwards, because the offences change and technology enables new offences. When I was a Minister in the Home Office, the idea of deepfake imagery or even revenge porn was simply not coming across my desk. It simply was not happening; the technology was not there. We all have to be on our guard, and must make sure that we all work towards tackling those crimes. I agree with the Minister, who made a powerful speech, that this is not a problem that can be solved only by women. Women and girls are predominantly the victims, but we need men to be part of the solution, and I am grateful to see so many men in the Chamber today. There have been too many occasions when taking part in this sort of debate has felt like being in a women-only club. We need men to be part of the solution and to work with us. I have sat where the Ministers are sitting, and I suspect that I have felt the frustrations that they are feeling. I have probably felt what one of the Ministers—the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips)—is feeling particularly acutely this week, having been through many media onslaughts on social media and otherwise over the years. I have immense sympathy for what she is going through. There is frustration as well because the levers that can be pulled by a Minister to resolve these issues are really quite limited. We can legislate—of course we can—but the police need to understand what the crime looks like. I refer here to my taking the coercive control offence through Parliament 10 years ago. I remember the media at the time saying, “Why on earth are you doing this? There is no way that this can ever be prosecuted. There is no way that anyone can ever understand it. There is no way that they can ever get the evidence.” I remember saying to one journalist, “So is that your answer—just don’t do it, because it’s too hard?” Surely we need to do these difficult things, but we also need to recognise that seeing the fruits of our labours will take a long time and that these things do not change overnight.

My right hon. Friend is making an important point. Does she agree that this House has to legislate in order to lead cultural change in our country? Furthermore, does she support some of the work that the Government are doing in exactly that direction?

I do agree with my right hon. Friend: I fully support what the Government are doing and I fully support their aims and goals. We might have slightly different ways of getting there, but all of us in this House want the same thing. We need to be supportive. If we scrutinise the Government and suggest areas where they might improve their position or their policies, it is not a criticism of their intent; it is merely that we think there may be other ways of doing things or that there may be improvements that could be made. I took such suggestions when I was a Minister in the faith in which they were intended, and I hope that that will happen here. I am certain that, with the two Ministers on the Front Bench, that will absolutely be the case. Earlier, I was talking about the levers that can be pulled. When those levers need to be enforced by law enforcement, local authorities, the health service or education, there is a real frustration that there is not a simple direction that can be given so that everyone understands the changes that, as a Minister, one wants to see. That is why cross-departmental work is so important. I believe that inter-ministerial groups are being deployed again, which is an excellent step, and I wholeheartedly congratulate the Government on that. When I was a Minister, such groups were so, so important. We must also ensure that there is a multi-agency working. We have to make sure—I saw this myself as a Minister—that the police are not the point of last resort. I remember going to visit the A&E at the Royal Stoke, my local acute hospital, 10 years ago and seeing the domestic violence specialists spotting the signs of domestic abuse. That is vital. So, too, is the schoolteacher recognising that when the child is coming to school late every day, or missing their class, something is wrong and action needs to be taken. We cannot always leave this to the police and law enforcement. We must make sure that there is multi-agency working. Having domestic abuse specialists in 999 centres and emergency centres is another a good step. I introduced a VAWG strategy in 2016 when I was a Minister. Another one was introduced in 2021, and I know that we will get another one soon. I am certain that that will be victim focused. These are crimes that cannot be tackled without putting the emphasis on the victims. But all victims are different. The abuse that one victim has suffered will be different from that of another victim. Let us be clear: getting someone who has been a victim of one of these most horrendous of crimes to accept that they are a victim is incredibly difficult. To be brave enough to pick up the phone to dial 999 is a really big step, because that victim has probably been enduring the abuse over many, many occasions. She does not believe that she is a victim. She thinks that she is in control. She thinks that she can deal with this problem without involving the authorities. We have to get to the point where victims are able to accept that they are victims and where we give them the support that is needed. That is why the multi-agency approach is so important. A victim of female genital mutation will be different from a victim of modern slavery, and a victim of domestic abuse will be different from a grooming victim. They all have individual needs. Even within the categories, there will be different needs. It may be better for some victims of domestic abuse to remain in their homes and for the perpetrator to be removed and tackled. [Interruption.] Absolutely. I see the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley doing a thumbs away sign. I totally agree with her. However, for other victims that will simply not be practical. There need to be places of safety that those victims can be taken to. Those places of safety need to be different for each victim. A mother with children needs a different place from a young girl, and that young girl needs a different place from somebody who has severe learning disabilities, mental health issues or addiction. There are all sorts of problems that victims face—often caused by the abuse—and they need different approaches. I have made the point about multi-agency working, but we cannot arrest our way out of the problem. There needs to be a strategy that looks across all aspects of the four Ps, as they used to be called in my time at the Home Office—the pursuit, protect, prevent and prepare strands. We need to make sure that we take every step possible. I welcome the ringfencing of funding that the Minister talked about. I am keen to make sure that police, fire and crime commissioners and mayors who have responsibility for these areas have the correct funding to commission the services that they need to support victims. My final point is on the online world. Not only do new offences get created, but the online world has provided a place of safety for perpetrators. Behaviour that is simply unacceptable offline is something that is normalised, socialised and anonymised online. A person can go online and find somebody who has a similar interest to them in something that is totally and utterly unacceptable. They have some images that they can share. They do not know who they are dealing with, so therefore it is fine. They can look at those images because nobody knows that it is them, nobody knows what they do in the real world, and nobody knows that they are looking at them. It also seems absolutely normal, because everybody else is doing it in this room. This is an incredibly difficult thing to solve. It is really difficult to get normal policing methods to work in this environment.

My right hon. Friend is making a valuable point about the dangers online. Does she agrees that one of the big threats is the incel community? This highlights the need to approach violence against women and girls from a public health perspective, because we cannot just rely on the police to deal with it. Often there are mental health issues and all sorts of family breakdown challenges. Does she agree that tackling the incel issue is vital in this environment?

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. This is something that has to start in schools and in the workplace. We need to ensure that all of society appreciates, understands and gets behind this. To conclude, I started the internet safety strategy as the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. I am pleased that we have the Online Safety Act 2023, but if the Government wish to do more, they have my wholehearted support. I might scrutinise their work, but I will support them.

14:08:00

I wish to acknowledge that I have had the privilege of working alongside the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), for a number of years while I worked in the domestic abuse sector. She was a one-woman safeguarding service. Members from across the House would ask for her advice, so frequently she would advocate for victims when others were unable to do so or when no other service would come to their aid. She has done more for abused women than anyone at X or in the Reform party, Members of which have not appeared here today. I therefore add my voice to those condemning the attacks on her and on others who have spent so long trying to fight for victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence. Having spent my career working to prevent violence against women and girls, I am dismayed and frankly disgusted by the way the issue of child sexual abuse, mostly against vulnerable girls, has recently been exploited by political opportunists for their own gain. To see the way people both in and outside the House have spoken about this issue, as if victims and survivors were a political football to be kicked about because of the passing interest of social media-crazed billionaires and their political servants, has been disgraceful. We do not need empty rhetoric or opportunism; we need action, and we need it now. The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, led by Professor Alexis Jay, published its report in 2022, after a seven year-long process that engaged with more than 7,000 victims and survivors, many of them girls. It processed 2 million pages of evidence and published 61 reports and publications. It spent two years working on an inquiry into child sexual exploitation and grooming specifically. In the last three years, I worked closely with colleagues across the children’s sector, including survivors of child sexual abuse, to ensure that the previous Government implemented the inquiry’s recommendations. I am grateful to the Government for having said that they will take many of them forward, but as organisations such as the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and the National Association for People Abused in Childhood have argued, what we need now, and crucially what victims and survivors urgently deserve, is for the recommendations to be implemented. I have been shocked by the lack of progress that we have made as a country in tackling violence against women and girls. I pay tribute to hon. Members across the Chamber who have made a number of big steps to ensure that women and girls are safer, most notably through the Domestic Abuse Act, but despite the changes that we have made in this House, the problem is only getting worse. It has been driven by technological changes and exacerbated by cuts over the last few years to the provision of support for victims and survivors and those at risk. The financial situation facing local specialist charities, for example, is acutely concerning, particularly as many, such as Suffolk Rape Crisis in my area, have been forced to close. I totally understand the financial pressures facing the Government due to the huge black hole the Conservatives left, but charities such as Women’s Aid and Victim Support have raised real concerns after cuts were made to grants in the core victim services budget for police and crime commissioners, at the same time as they are having to grapple with national insurance contributions increasing. After terrible cuts for many years, services are faced with the spectre of having to think about whether they need to close, just as we start our mission as a Government to halve violence against women and girls. Victims deserve to be, and should have a right to be, adequately supported and kept safe from further harm. Services such as the Waveney Domestic Violence and Abuse Forum in my constituency support hundreds of victims without any statutory funding, yet the work that they do is high risk and specialist, and saves women’s lives. Specialist services need long-term, sustainable funding arrangements. We in this place should look to formulate a new statutory duty to commission services for victims of domestic and sexual abuse, both adults and children, and thereby end the postcode lottery that leaves too many vulnerable women and children to fend for themselves. That would meet a key recommendation of the IICSA review, which was to ensure that all child victims of sexual abuse are offered specialist therapeutic support. Similarly, given the significant harm and trauma caused by growing up being exposed to domestic abuse, we need to address the critical shortage of child independent domestic violence advisers. One in five children experience domestic abuse growing up, yet there are barely any services to support them. The domestic abuse charity SafeLives has estimated that an additional 1,900 CHIDVAs are needed to meet the needs of children identified in domestic abuse cases. We also need to look at the drivers behind men’s violence against women and girls. As an officer of the all-party parliamentary group on commercial sexual exploitation, I would like to raise the issue of pornography. Women are the targets of both physical and verbal aggression in 94% of scenes in pornographic content, and most of the time the aggressors are men. One woman involved in the pornography industry describes her experience: “I was being hit and choked. I was really upset and they didn’t stop. They kept filming. I asked them to turn the camera off and they kept going.” I am hopeful that the Government will look more closely at online pornographic content that depicts sexual activity with adult actors made to look like children, and content that depicts sexual activity between family members. Children’s charities such as Barnardo’s are concerned that such content acts as a gateway for some viewers who, after repeated consumption, end up needing ever-more-real content, leading them to seek out child sexual abuse material. What is the purpose of pornography that dresses adult women as children—girls, with lollipops and teddy bears, in school uniform? Widely accessible violent pornography is normalising abuse in everyday life, warping the perceptions of both young men and women of sex and healthy relationships, and fuelling the rise of a misogynistic incel culture. Illegal pornographic content is found across the internet, from the most popular pornography websites to social media apps that children still have access to. Ensuring that the Online Safety Act’s age verification checks for children are brought in properly this year, and that websites are held accountable by Ofcom, are paramount in tackling this issue. If necessary, we need to close any loopholes that might allow websites such as Pornhub to swerve their responsibilities under the Act. The Government should also require all online platforms to verify that every individual featured in pornographic content on their site is an adult, consenting to publication, and should bring the regime of online pornographic content regulation into the same system as offline pornography, which is regulated by the British Board of Film Classification. We know that online pornographic content is normalising strangulation. Devon and Cornwall sexual assault referral centre looked at a five-month period in 2023. Of the referrals in that period, 31%—53 out of 172—were of victims who had suffered non-fatal strangulation as part of the sexual violence that they had experienced. Only seven of those cases involved a stranger. Three had to go to A&E due to the severity of their symptoms. Pornography has repositioned strangulation as “breath play”, and so minimised the hugely detrimental health implications: seizures, stroke, paralysis and death. I am, however, particularly glad to see that the victims Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), has this week confirmed that the Government will introduce legislation to create a new offence for creating sexually explicit deepfake images. New deepfakes are having an increasingly insidious impact on children’s lives in particular, as well as the many women and girls who experience it every day. I have been campaigning alongside organisations such as Internet Matters to ban the nudifying tools and apps that create deepfakes. We know they have only one purpose: to violate women and girls; 99% of the images created on the apps are of women, and many do not work on images of men. I see no reason why they not only are freely available to use, but are free to advertise themselves to young people on platforms, such as TikTok and Instagram, and app stores, where there is no true age verification. Even with age verification, it is up to the app stores to determine whether content meets an adult’s level of age verification, and I urge the Government to look closely at the regulation of app stores to ensure that the content is independently verified as being suitable for our children to access every day. We are failing our women and girls, and men, if we continue to ignore the public health crisis generated by violent and addictive pornography and the porn culture it generates. I know just how committed the Government and our Front Bench are to tackling violence against women and girls, and I am honoured to be here to support the—I hope—cross-party work we will do to truly end the huge trauma that too many women and girls face.

14:20:00

I just want to take a moment, because I found it incredibly distressing to sit and listen to the brilliant remarks from the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato). Why would I find that upsetting? I find that upsetting because I am a survivor of abuse myself. Northern Ireland is one of the most dangerous places in Europe to be a woman. I have to say that I am upset that no other Members from Northern Ireland are here at the minute. Eight women were murdered last year and over 20 in the last four years. But why should I feel like this? It should be the people who are out there perpetrating these crimes—people who are in this building, people who are everywhere. As previous Members have stated, statistically speaking, there will be people in this building who are the perpetrators. More often, the people doing this are people we know, people we love, and that is what makes it even more traumatic, upsetting and disgusting. We live in a society where it was only in 1991 in the case of R v. R that marital rape was made an offence. It took until March 2000 for a Belfast man to be convicted for raping his wife. I could talk of the case of Alexander McCartney, a prolific paedophile, which speaks directly to what the hon. Member spoke about. Thousands of children were abused. Whenever I, the hon. Member and other Members across the House met big tech companies just a number of weeks ago, I put it to them: “Are you aware of the case of Alexander McCartney? We have heard from you that you’re a self-regulating industry and that you take this matter of child abuse seriously. Have you heard of the case?” Not one of them, bar the one who happened to own the platform where Mr McCartney was so prolific, had heard of the case. We are living through a crisis where women are having their rights eroded every day. My mum was brought up during a time whenever she could only dream of having some of the rights that I and others in my generation were promised. We did get some of them—we did—but we have seen more rowed back in recent weeks, months and years. We are now literally having to fight for our lives. Northern Ireland remains an outlier in Europe for violence against women and girls. There are many reasons why that is the case. One of them is the legacy of our troubled past, and we have heard from other Members about the impact of war and conflict, and Northern Ireland is not exempt. We have to deal with that legacy of trauma and conflict. Layered on top of it, we have to deal with the issues that every other woman and girl across the globe faces. One thing that really disturbs me, terrifies me for my life, is incel culture. I am an elected rep in Northern Ireland. I stood for election for the first time in 2017, and that was whenever I received my first rape threat—my first. That should not be normal. In recent days, Members have sought to put forward a narrative that it should be taken as part and parcel not just of public life, but particularly of the lives of elected reps in this House. [Hon. Members: “Shame!”] I profoundly disagree with them. Many trolls, no doubt online, will later consider my contribution to the House to be a self-indulgent rant—shrieking, shrill. I am a privileged woman. What can I say to my constituents in Lagan Valley? I do not know what to say to them. As the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley), said, this is a societal issue and not one person will tackle it by themselves. However, various individuals in our society at this point in time are playing an outsized, toxic and disturbing role. I would like to put on the record my thanks to the Safeguarding Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), for the role she has played not just in recent days and weeks, but for years in protecting and standing up for women and girls. Only a matter of months ago, another Member of this House said to me whenever I talked about wanting to do more on violence against women and girls that it was “topical”—a passing interest, bit of a fleeting thought, topical. Sorry, no. We have been dealing with this for years, and it is now turbocharged. That means our response must be turbocharged. But I have to be honest that, like other Members, I am torn because I do not want to give oxygen or a platform to these hatemongers and women abusers. How can we even deal with what is in front of our faces if we do not call it out in the most explicit way? That does not demean us or bring us down to that level. I do not think for a second that it takes away from the import of what we are saying or doing. It is actually essential, and we should not be ashamed because every single one of us in this House has to stand up for our constituents. I see many women come across the door of my office in Lisburn who have been through years of systemic abuse, failed at every cut and turn by statutory agencies and others who had a duty and did not report. They are left in a position where we have to build up trust with them, not just in terms of their life but the societal and statutory response. I know every single person in the House today will commit to doing that, and I am delighted to see the seriousness with which this new Government have taken and gripped the issue. We need to address the root causes, including online abuse and harmful cultural norms. We would see a lot of school groups coming through the constituency. We previously did a lot of visits to the Parliament Building in Stormont whenever I sat there in the Northern Ireland Assembly. During one school visit, a member of the public came up and said that they wanted to rape me. There were two people there, and we were just kind of paralysed in response. That was not the right response—not from me, but from the people around—but it is so normalised that that was exactly what people thought. That is not good enough. If people have an issue with champions of women and girls, and of marginalised communities, standing up and using their voice to call that behaviour out—if it makes others feel awkward, and if others see it as creating a fuss or causing a big deal—that is not my problem. Otherwise we will never deal with the cause of it. Sometimes there is a narrative that these murders are a tragic inevitability. That is not the case. Those deaths are preventable—so preventable—yet we are living in an age when, as the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) said, women dying is just seen as a normal phenomenon. That could not be further from the truth. I feel saddened that I have let myself down a bit by being so emotional at the start of my speech. [Hon. Members: “No.”] That is not my usual style. But like many other Members of the House, I feel that the abuse we have received in the last number of days, preceding the incidents in the House last night and over the hours afterwards, has compounded our feeling of being under attack simply for standing up not just for ourselves, but for the people across the United Kingdom that every single one of us was elected to serve. I simply implore Members not to forget Northern Ireland in this. We have an incredible Justice Minister in my party colleague and friend, Naomi Long. She and our First Minister and Deputy First Minister are all desperate and anxious to act. But we cannot do it alone; we need the help of every single Member of this House. Human rights are not devolved, and on a technical point, the regulation of social media is certainly not devolved. I stand ready to partner with the Government to tackle this work. I simply and honestly ask that others help me and the other Members who represent Northern Ireland to end this epidemic of violence against women and girls.

14:32:00

I sincerely thank the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) for what was a moving, extraordinary and really brave speech—thank you very much indeed. The Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen), rightly said that this is a timely debate. It is timely, but the truth is that violence against women and girls has been a scourge on England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and beyond our islands since time immemorial, and it will take serious, calm and well thought through policies and a collaborative approach to tackle it. That is exactly what the Government are trying to bring. There should be no illusions about how serious a problem this is. Nor should we pretend, as some on the Conservative Benches have appeared to do in recent weeks, that it is a problem only for one culture or ethnicity. That alone will not remove the threat of sex-based violence. In fact, in most places in the UK, including in my constituency, it would be unlikely to make any difference at all to the threat that women and girls face from violent men. If we want to be serious about tackling the grooming that leads to such violence, we must recognise the role that social media companies play in monetising hatred, promoting extreme misogyny for profit and making a packet out of legitimising the exploitation of women. The Minister mentioned in her opening remarks the problem of toxic masculinity, which we all know is ubiquitous online. The profiteers of this hatred dress up their indulgence of extremism as free speech advocacy, but they are in fact consciously hoping to create a world in which women—particularly those who stand against the extreme hatred promoted on social media, which is based on sex and ethnicity—are cowed into submission. In this House, our speech is formally protected, and no billionaire can hope to launch a libel suit to shut us up, but that does not stop them trying to find other means that they hope will silence us—principally the mob. We have all been on the end of it. Every woman in this House knows that anything we say in here that challenges power and privilege can put us at risk in a way that is quantitively and qualitatively different from our male colleagues. There has been far too much admiration for the tech bros, and too little willingness to challenge abuse. I thank the Prime Minister and the Ministers for their robust words this week, which made me proud to be a Labour MP. I hope that they mark a departure from what we have seen, and that we will see many more such responses in future. We should do more to tackle the abuse that the tech industry has been allowed to get away with for so long. I associate myself with every word that my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) said about the role that pornography plays, but I would add one piece of evidence that I find shocking. Eight-year-old boys regularly access pornography, and that has a well documented impact on violence against women and girls. I will take this opportunity to mention another area of tech that I think needs to be addressed: pimping websites, on which women’s bodies are freely advertised for sale to abusers. UK Feminista carried out a survey just before Christmas, and found that 368 women in my constituency of East Kilbride and Strathaven, and the surrounding area, were freely advertised online as for sale. That is legal. I know that many people argue that that is sex work, but as a socialist and a feminist, I remain wholly and utterly opposed to that dangerous idea. It is grotesque abuse and exploitation of vulnerable women, and it indicates to men that women are commodities to be bought and sold. Money should not make acts of physical abuse legal and lawful.

At a recent constituency surgery, the lack of care and oversight of dating apps towards their women users was mentioned. Does the hon. Member agree that dating apps, and the operators that profit from them, should be held to account for protecting the women and men who use them, in the same way that social media companies should be held to account?

Yes, I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment, and I hope that we can work across the House to make that happen. My plea to Ministers is that they consider introducing legislation to tackle pimping websites, pornography and the abuses of dating apps. Perhaps the Government could take firmer action against online abuse at its source, and spend money on some of the wonderfully thought through measures that the Minister outlined in her speech, the likes of which we have not seen for some time.

Order. Before I call the next speaker, Members will have seen how many people wish to speak in this debate. It is such an important debate, and I do want to get everybody in, so I am going to introduce a six-minute time limit.

14:39:00

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me the opportunity to speak in this incredibly important debate. I very much welcome the Government’s ambition to halve violence against women and girls over the next decade, and I hope everyone in this place will work together to ensure success, because if we do not, it is our daughters, mothers, sisters, neighbours and friends who will all pay the price. There are many factors driving sex-based violence, and many powerful contributions have been made today laying them out. I intend to speak specifically about the impact of online pornography on attitudes and violence towards women and girls, especially when viewed by young people during their formative years. With 50%—yes, 50%—of all internet-using adult males in the UK visiting Pornhub in September 2020, this is not a fringe concern or something that can be ignored. To be very clear, we are not talking about the type of content once seen in ’80s jazz mags, but about harmful, degrading and violent imagery that dehumanises women. This type of extreme online pornographic content has proliferated over the last decade and includes footage featuring physical aggression and violence, predominantly directed at women. This material has become mainstream, though it bears little resemblance to real sex or what goes on in genuinely loving relationships. Worryingly, in these videos, women are typically shown responding neutrally when on the receiving end of this aggression, or even with pleasure. Make no mistake, this content reinforces the idea that women desire and derive pleasure from violence, and ultimately perpetuates rape culture. When we then layer on the fact that this content can be pulled out of anyone’s pocket and watched repeatedly throughout the day on smartphones, even by children, it becomes clear why this is such a problem for our society. Boys will think that this type of activity is normal in the bedroom, while girls will think it is expected. A survey done by the Children’s Commissioner in November 2022 found that one in 10 children had seen pornography by the age of nine, with half having seen it before they turned 13. It is horrifying to think of our children watching these acts of sexual violence that they cannot properly comprehend or understand. Its consequences can be clearly seen, with 47% of young people between the ages of 16 and 21 stating that girls “expect” sex to involve aggression, and a further 42% stating that most girls “enjoy” it. A study that analysed heterosexual scenes published on two leading free pornographic websites found that between 35% and 45% of content contained at least one act of physical aggression, the most common of which were gagging, choking, spanking, slapping and hair-pulling. Women were the target of the aggression in 97% of those scenes. It can be no surprise to anyone that if young men are watching this content day in and day out, it will impact their perceptions and relationships with women negatively. Hundreds of studies have been undertaken over the past 30 years, which confirm the obvious: porn culture is pervasive and influential. It has normalised and sexualised choking and strangling of women during sex, spitting on them, and other unsafe and degrading acts. As Dr Jackson Katz, an educator and author, has said, “It requires wilful naivety to pretend that this has no negative effects on generations of young people’s sexuality or has no connection to the ongoing pandemic of men’s violence against women”. Moreover, disturbingly, frequent viewing of online pornography can desensitise some men to sexual content, driving a need for ever more hardcore content to satisfy them. This causes some boys and men who would not otherwise do so to escalate to viewing illegal content such as child abuse imagery or rape videos. So what do we do to address this situation? It is not easy—it is a bit like trying to get the genie back in the bottle—but we must address it. I suspect that in the years to come, we will look back at the content that was so accessible to our children and so damaging and be utterly incredulous. Today, I have two asks for the Minister. First, we must put in place basic safeguards requiring online platforms to verify that every individual featured in pornographic content is an adult and gave permission for their content to be published. Verification information must be provided by each individual featured in the content, not by any other person, and most importantly, failure to comply with this requirement must result in robust sanctions by Ofcom, including preventing the website in question from operating in the UK if need be. Enforcement must be swift and robust to protect victims and create the necessary deterrent effect. Secondly, we must bring the regulation of online pornography in line with that for offline pornography. The main statutory regulator of offline pornography is the British Board of Film Classification. It is responsible for classifying pornographic content before it can be published and ensuring it does not contain illegal content such as child sexual abuse, incest, trafficking, torture, rape or strangulation. Any such offline illegal content cannot be sold or supplied in the UK, yet the law has never been extended to cover regulation of online pornographic content. This is anachronistic.

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point: what is illegal offline must be treated the same way online. I fully support everything she is saying.

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention, and I completely concur. The fact that our laws have not been extended in this way demonstrates that they have not kept up with our ever-changing world. I therefore call on the Government to ensure that online pornographic content is held to the same standards as offline pornographic content. Lastly, I thank the all-party parliamentary group on commercial sexual exploitation for its groundbreaking inquiry into pornography during the last parliamentary term. That APPG has shone a light on this important issue, and has not shied away from harsh truths. We cannot end the epidemic of male violence against women and girls in this country without recognising and confronting the role that harmful online pornography is playing. Enough is enough. If everyone in this House cares about women and girls—and our boys too, because this is bad for them as well—it is time to take action and ensure that online content is properly regulated.

14:46:00

I begin by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood). Her speech was incredibly courageous and brave. In recent days, like most women Members of this House, I assume, I have received online abuse, but her courage and bravery inspire us all, and give us the confidence to stand here. I give her my personal thanks for sharing what she did with us. Violence against women and girls is nothing short of a national emergency. In my constituency of Thurrock alone, 317 sexual offences and 1,841 incidents of stalking and harassment were recorded in one year. Behind each of those statistics is a woman or girl whose life has been impacted by some of the worst crimes, but those figures are just the tip of the iceberg—the sharp end of unrestrained misogyny and hate directed towards women and girls—so I strongly welcome the Government’s commitment to halving violence against women and girls in a decade, and the measures that have been outlined so far to deliver justice for victims of these awful offences, and to ensure that perpetrators are held accountable. We must tackle the root cause of this epidemic of violence—more often than not, male violence—towards women and girls. The societal attitude that women and girls are second-class citizens, and are less worthy of respect and value, and expectations of the “perfect victim”—these all need to stop. Young boys and girls are exposed every day to a virulent mix of misogyny and sex-based hate crime online. It cannot be right for children to view strangulation as a standard practice in sexual intercourse, or for there to be any question around when no does not mean no. To bring the meaningful change needed to end this scourge of violence, we need to tackle these issues at root. We need to educate and empower boys to show respect and call out misogyny in their peers. We need to encourage and support men to identify and speak out against all forms of sex-based hate, challenge their peers on what is and is not acceptable, and reflect on where the communities and spaces that they are in can do and be better. We need to support women and girls who have experienced the worst of our society through male violence. SERRIC—the South Essex Rape and Incest Crisis Centre—in my constituency is a pioneering rape and abuse support service. Set up by women determined that rape victims would not be left unsupported, it provides specialist support, built up through years of experience, to victims of rape, sexual abuse or violence. It allows survivors to reclaim control over their life, understand the impact of what they have lived through and move forward. SERRIC is keen to highlight that for all victims, a criminal justice outcome alone is not enough to repair the harm done. Indeed, for some victims, a criminal justice outcome is not the desired or best approach. Retraumatising victims in the criminal justice system by forcing them to repeatedly retell what happened to them needs to be minimised, and support needs to be prioritised, but that will require a cross-Government effort. Health services need to be equipped to recognise the signs of physical and sexual abuse, and to provide support for victims that is not purely focused on gathering evidence for prosecution. Specialist support services such as SERRIC need to be funded to deal with referrals from health services, particularly community therapy services that will not treat a woman who has been the victim of sexual violence or rape. There is no statutory framework for specialist rape and sexual violence support services, so specialist support is often under-supported, compared to more generic provision. I welcome the Minister’s commitment to developing a strong and sustainable model that ensures that specialist services are protected, and I request that she meets me and SERRIC to make sure that we do not miss out on its valuable input on amplifying the voices of victims of male violence against women and girls. To conclude, with the spotlight on this issue—as a woman, I know that it very seldom is—we have an opportunity to tackle the causes of male violence against women and girls at root, to implement the recommendations of IICSA, and to listen to the voices of victims and provide the support that they need to rebuild their life. I hope this opportunity is not squandered by those who seek to put their political ambition, or spreading misinformation, insinuations and division, ahead of making real change.

14:51:00

In 2021, Plymouth, part of which is in my constituency of South West Devon, had two horrific tragedies affecting a number of people. We had the Keyham shootings, which were incel-linked, hence my question about that earlier, and the tragic murder of Bobbi-Anne McLeod. I know that both Ministers are well aware of those cases. What came out of those tragedies was an opportunity to shine a light on VAWG in the city in a way that had never happened before, as well as to see what was already being done, and what more could be done to make things even better, and ultimately to make women and girls safe, and feel safe. The Plymouth violence against women and girls commission was established in response, and I had the privilege of leading it. It took us six months, but we worked cross party, and we reported back with 15 recommendations, which were supported by organisations and businesses right across the city. Hon. Members may be interested to know that we deliberately called it the “Male Violence Against Women and Girls Report”. At the time, it felt as though we were breaking ground, but we have moved on a long way since then. In January 2023, one of the recommendations, which was for a Westminster Hall debate, came to fruition, so my name was mentioned in Hansard. The Ministers both took part in that debate, which my predecessor, Sir Gary Streeter, organised, and it enabled us to share our learning, which we were really keen to do. We all know that violence against women and girls is a huge topic, and it is very difficult sometimes even to figure out the best way to approach it. That is why we approached it through the lens of public health. We recognised that there are no quick fixes, and that multiple factors influence the likelihood of someone being a perpetrator or a victim, and that was key to what we did. We wanted to change culture and behaviour in the city, and to support women and girls by being victim-focused and trauma-informed. I pay tribute to the organisations that were already working hard to do that in the city, including Trevi, First Light, Ahimsa, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and our police and crime commissioner, Alison Hernandez, as well as the police and the city council. In particular, I want to name Hannah Shead, who has worked for Trevi for a number of years and is now moving on. I thought it would be nice to get her mentioned. We also recognise the importance of creating safe spaces and the building blocks for the future. That was two years ago, and I will briefly update the House on what we have done since. A key thing we did was appoint a strategic lead in the city, and there are now four women—Meghan, Verity, Tracy and Lisa—whose job it is to bring everything that is happening across the city together. If any Members want to take a good example back to their constituencies, I would highly recommend that one. On changing culture, there was a focus on allyship and education for those of all ages. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has done fantastic work in schools focusing on pornography, and we have seen the establishment of a group called Man Culture, which wants to work collaboratively on reducing VAWG in the city. It received funding under the serious violence duty, and has delivered workshops that facilitated conversations about healthy and positive masculinity, a subject raised today. A huge amount is being done to support women and girls and to make it easier to access support. Since 2022, the city has been pursuing co-ordinated community response accreditation. It is working with Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse, and we want to ensure that we have an assessment of how we deal with all this multi-agency work. There has been a review of the city’s multi-agency risk assessment conference, which has led to improvements and a new steering group, which is ongoing. It is looking at developing a multi-agency tasking and co-ordination process in the city, and the working group for that was launched in autumn 2024. We want the council, police, probation and local charities to work with perpetrators, engaging with them, disrupting their behaviour, and seeing high-harm domestic abuse perpetrators tackled. A huge amount has been done on creating safe spaces. Of particular note is—the House will have to bear with me; it is a long name—Plymouth’s evening and night-time economy predatory behaviour disruption partnership. It is working on a pilot looking at how we can bring together civic and criminal justice tools to tackle predatory behaviours. Criminal justice tools are often not enough, or do not hit a trigger point. In the past 12 months, we have had 12 community protection notice warnings served, one antisocial behaviour stage 2 warning served, and five meetings at police stations with words of advice. That is cracking action. We have brought together those criminal justice actions to tackle that predatory behaviour. Well done to everyone involved. The key is working together and holding each other to account. Still on the theme of safe spaces, I will touch on single-sex spaces. I ask the House to hear me out, as I say this with a real spirit of gentleness. I appreciate that there are a lot of women out there—some are my constituents—for whom this issue is particularly important, and it is important that their voices be heard. There is a concern among women about the lack of clarity over language and guidelines, and that is why my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch), when she was Women and Equalities Minister, called for examples of guidance that might wrongly suggest that people have a legal right to access all single-sex spaces and services on the basis of their self-identified gender. The new Government responded to that in December, and we are concerned that it has led to a lack of clarity about whether a single-sex space can be used by those who self-identify, or is specifically just for women.

My hon. Friend is making another powerful speech, and her real-life examples of how we can change things with a multi-agency approach are so powerful. Her point on clarity is important, and I urge her to keep fighting to make sure we have that clarity.

I thank my right hon. Friend for her contribution. It would be great if Ministers could address that point this afternoon, so that those who are watching this debate can understand whether the Government will recommit to doing something on single-sex spaces. To go back to Plymouth, the experts in our city are beginning to look at the fact that the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 created the statutory standing for children to be considered victims in their own right. The men and women working on the issue in Plymouth are beginning to wonder whether we should call it violence against women and children, rather than girls, because the challenge with any label is that it can take our focus off what we need to be talking about. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response to that. I have briefly set out the results of the commission on violence against women and girls and our recommendations. Members are all welcome to visit Plymouth to see what we have done. We have not solved the problem, but we have gone a long way to playing our part in tackling violence against women and girls.

14:58:00

I thank the hon. Members for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith), and for Reigate (Rebecca Paul), the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley), my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen), the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood), and my hon. Friends the Members for Lowestoft (Jess Asato), for East Kilbride and Strathaven (Joani Reid), and for Thurrock (Jen Craft). They have all made powerful and compelling speeches. It is such a shame that certain Members from some parties simply did not bother to turn up. I welcome the largely constructive tone from the shadow Minister, but I want to say something about the tone of the recent debate and how it has unleashed yet another tide of misinformation and lies. Overnight, Facebook groups have become a sewer of misinformation on last night’s vote. I proudly voted for the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill because it toughens the law to improve child protection and safeguarding. Anything else that is said about me or my colleagues is a lie. I have made it clear to my Rochdale constituents that I am open to a new inquiry into grooming gangs, if that is what is most helpful to the victims and survivors, and, crucially, if it can be done in a way that does not conflict with live police investigations and prosecutions. We must not forget—as people are forgetting—that the Jay inquiry had victims and survivors at its very heart. They were built into its process and consulted all the way along—at the start, during and after it. Many victims and survivors have said that they want that report to be implemented in full—that is their priority. Alexis Jay’s clear demand is to get on with it. That is exactly what this Government are doing. In Rochdale, a predominantly Pakistani-heritage grooming gang raped our local girls and tarnished our town’s good name. Andy Burnham’s independent inquiry into the council and police failures in Rochdale was published last year. Like the Jay report, the Rochdale report listened to victims and came up with recommendations. Crucially, the prosecutors and police have been able to get on and pursue further prosecutions as a result. That is what the public want. Their priority is locking up these paedophiles, and making sure that they get the strongest possible sentences and are brought to court swiftly. Telford is another excellent example of a local inquiry that builds on the survivors’ experience and makes sure that they are involved all the way along. They know what the flaws are, what the best solutions are and how they can be embedded locally and nationally. It is clear from the Greater Manchester inquiry that the central failure was working-class girls not being believed or respected, and the police thinking that their cases would not stack up in court. That was also the problem in the abuse of boys by Cyril Smith, which I had a role in exposing as a journalist more than a decade ago. Working-class youngsters were simply not believed by the authorities, locally or nationally. It was this Prime Minister, as Director of Public Prosecutions, who brought in real change to make sure that those working-class voices could be heard in court. The additional problem in Rochdale was delays in multi-agency working: social workers and the police not getting their act together, not getting the right specialist help and not spotting the patterns of organised abuse. We need specialists within police forces—rape specialists and child protection teams. We need to disrupt this wherever it happens and be tough on the sentencing. But what I loathe is the suggestion that this should be a political game. It sickens me that politicians can think that another party can be damaged or tarred by the idea of child abuse. I pay tribute to Theresa May for setting up the child abuse inquiry and to the former Prime Minister for setting up the grooming gangs taskforce. We should have cross-party consensus on this and maintain it at all costs. It is sad to see that certain Reform party Members are simply not here today. A responsible politician does not ride the wave of justified anger about child abuse; they do something about it. We can have a robust debate about policy, delays, action or inaction, but to suggest that someone who disagrees is somehow complicit in or endorses child abuse is completely unacceptable. The real danger in all this is that politics will suffer and the victims will suffer. I pay particular tribute to Sara Rowbotham, the former health worker in Rochdale who later became a Labour councillor. Her tireless work led to the exposure of the grooming gang in our town. Sara was played by Maxine Peake in the BBC drama “Three Girls”, the broadcast of which led to huge change and justice for many girls, not just across Rochdale but across the whole country. There is a remarkable effort in Rochdale—a collective movement that has long been at the forefront of protecting women and girls from domestic and sexual violence. Our town is not just a place of resilience, but a beacon of hope, support and empowerment of the most vulnerable in our society. I pay tribute to the exceptional individuals leading this work: Khaldha Manzoor, CEO of the Rochdale Women’s Welfare Association; Kathy Thomas, CEO of Rochdale Connections Trust; and Councillors Sameena Zaheer, Janet Emsley and Amber Nisa. They have all driven this work. Finally, I must pay tribute to the youngsters. Falinge Park high school’s white ribbon ambassadors and initiatives by the Rochdale Islamic academy girls school demonstrate how education can play a pivotal role in preventing abuse and changing societal attitudes. Rochdale stands as a testament to what can be achieved when individuals, charities, public institutions and political parties unite for a common cause. Let us honour their efforts not just with words, but with the continued support that they need to thrive.

15:04:00

I very much welcome the Government bringing this important debate to the House today. Every single day, 3,000 crimes of violence against women and girls are recorded. That is 3,000 acts of harm inflicted on women in our society. Yet according to the End Violence Against Women coalition, the true figure is likely far higher, as so many victims simply never come forward. One in 12 women will become a victim of these crimes each year, while it is estimated that one in 20 people will be a perpetrator annually, although, again, the actual number is thought to be significantly greater. These figures are not just statistics; they represent lives disrupted, confidence eroded and safety stolen. Violence against women and girls is horrifyingly prevalent in our society. Too many women feel unsafe walking down their own streets, in their homes and workplaces, and online. The reality of this violence has been felt profoundly in my constituency: in 2023, Emma Pattison and her seven-year-old daughter were brutally killed by her husband. There were warning signs of coercive, controlling behaviour, but they were not picked up on. The loss of Emma and Lettie Pattison should serve as a reminder of how domestic abuse can escalate rapidly, and how we must be ready to listen to women and pick up on these signs of abuse. We must learn from such tragedies and act decisively to prevent others. Our criminal justice system is failing women, survivors are not supported as they should be and, far too often, perpetrators evade justice. Online abuse, workplace harassment and daily intimidation are all too common, and they reveal a society that continues to let women down. We need a whole-system approach to tackle this issue. Criminal justice partners, Government bodies, voluntary organisations and industry must come together to improve early identification, risk assessment and the provision of support for survivors. Most importantly, when there are reports of any sort of violence or sexual misconduct, they must be taken seriously. We will not end this surge of violence against women and girls in our society if the police do not take women seriously, investigate the reported crime and bring the perpetrators to justice. The Liberal Democrats believe in a clear path forward that includes making misogyny a hate crime; fully implementing the Istanbul convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, with protections for all survivors, regardless of nationality or immigration status; and ensuring sustainable funding for refuge spaces and rape crisis centres to meet the overwhelming demand. Survivors deserve better. They deserve domestic abuse specialists embedded in every police force, mandatory trauma training for officers and prosecutors, and real action to address the delays in the justice system that put women at further risk. Social media companies must also play their part by addressing the appalling abuse faced by women online, including Members of the House today. This is often how abuse starts. Transparency and accountability must be non-negotiable. No woman should have to live in fear of violence; no girl should grow up thinking this is the norm. We have the tools and knowledge to make a difference; what we need now is the will to act. I welcome the announcements from this Government and the fact that they are maintaining this as a key priority, and I stand ready to work with anyone in this Chamber to build a safer, fairer society for women and girls.

15:08:00

Before I begin, I want to remind everyone that every woman—and some men—has a story. Some are awful; many are devastating, including those of women in this House, like myself. If anyone is feeling affected by this debate and the issues raised, either in the House or watching online, please reach out to the many amazing organisations; for people in Milton Keynes, MK-ACT is one partner. It is for women like me and the women of Milton Keynes that I extend my thanks to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), and the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), because it is women like them who are making our lives safer. Previous Governments have treated violence against women and girls as inevitable, or, more recently, a political opportunity, instead of the national emergency that it is. I feel sorry for the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies), who I know feels strongly on this, but who is not in the Chamber today? There is not a single Reform MP, which shows how much they care. There is no show from the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), who said that he really cared about the issue, and no show from the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), who also said that he cared about the issue. I guess they care about it only when they can put out Facebook ads afterwards. We are sick and tired of seeing women and girls facing the same threats of violence and abuse generation after generation. After Sarah Everard was killed, women across the country demanded action, but too little changed. After Raneem Oudeh was killed, we expected major overhauls of policing and the criminal justice system, but barely anything was done. After the reports and the reviews, not a single recommendation was enacted. The passive response from previous Governments to those devastating crimes was hopeless. For those of us who care, the constant frustration, the mourning, the tragedy and the inevitability of male violence against women and girls in this country is exhausting, but we will never stop fighting. Every new case that makes the news of a woman killed by a husband, killed by a boyfriend, killed by a stranger or killed by an ex is a gut-wrenching reminder that you are never safe. Your daughter, your mother, your friend and your sister may never be safe, either. It has to stop. It happens everywhere, in every corner of the country and in every community. Unfortunately, it happened on Christmas day in Milton Keynes when two women, Joanne Pearson, 38, and Teohna Grant, 24, were killed. While the previous Government did not do enough, they did not create the crisis alone. How do we sort it? By understanding it. That starts with the House becoming the first white ribbon Parliament in the world. I am grateful to the Leader of the House, the Speaker and the Deputy Speakers for their support in that. We have to understand online radicalisation. A generation of young men are being raised in radical anti-women spaces online. Those used to be niche places that would have to be searched for on some kind of Telegram or 8chan channel, but they have been mainstreamed. Growing up, our children heard those jokes only from the drunk uncle in the corner who everyone ignored; now, they are there every day and have become popular with young and older men with aspirational lifestyles. I have spoken before in the House about Andrew Tate, but he is just one of an endless supply of misogynists repacking hate for women as standing up for men. The tactics and content used by these men to radicalise men in this country are the same psychological process used to radicalise Islamic extremists, yet the law, the press and the public do not treat it the same. The harm is extreme, with one woman killed every week in the UK, and the average age for rape is now 14 years old. That has been compounded by violent pornography. One young man reported on by Laura Bates —for those who want to read more, she is fantastic on this issue—was asked: “Why didn’t you stop when she was crying?” He looked back, bewildered, and said: “it’s normal for girls to cry during sex”. That is what our young people—and older people—are facing. We have to strengthen the Online Safety Act 2023 and ensure that the criminal law is robust and can keep pace with emerging technology issues, especially when we have social media tsars pushing their radical free-speech agendas that make our children less safe. We have to step up to prevent online radicalisation of our young men and boys and keep our women and girls safe online and offline. I believe in the Government’s mission to halve VAWG, I am proud of the work done so far, and I am proud of the women leading the effort to build a world where women can exist in online spaces without being exposed to sexist put downs and where we do not have to say, “This happened to me.”

15:14:00

We have heard many moving and personal accounts this afternoon from Members addressing the scourge of violence against women and girls. It is crucial that we continue to shed heat and light on this horrendous abuse—not just the horrific stories that make the news, but the hidden harms that we do not hear about. In 2024, domestic abuse-related crimes represented 15.8% of all offences recorded by police, with nearly three quarters of those victims being female. The incident that I wish to highlight involves a young woman who was violently attacked outside a nightclub. The man who was her attacker was also her boyfriend at the time. By his own admission, the young man said he had only pushed her and she fell to the ground and was hurt. Court records subsequently revealed that he had repeatedly kicked her, “around four times”. It was reported in the Daily Mail that the attack was stopped only when two doormen dragged the attacker away from the young woman and then called the police. The man was arrested and charged with assault. The Times reported that he had initially denied the charge, maintaining his innocence, which meant that both his victim and witnesses were forced to relive the attack by giving statements to the police ahead of going to trial. The young woman herself was left with both injuries and lasting mental scars. Speaking to the Daily Mail, the victim’s mother described how it had taken “two security guards to pull him off her”. She explained how he had “left marks on her body” from the violence of the assault, going on to describe her daughter’s attacker as “a monster” and stating: “There is no way he should be an MP in the House of Commons representing people.” As of July, that young woman’s attacker sits on these green Benches as a Member of Parliament. His constituents were made aware of the crime only when the story was reported in the Daily Mail on 12 July. After the story broke, the Member referred to it as a “teenage indiscretion” —even as recently as last weekend, during a fractious Sky News interview. While the Member maintains that the assault was nothing more than an argument followed by a push where his former girlfriend “fell over and…was hurt”, the extract from the Chelmsford Crown court records relating to the conviction explains why the judge awarded a custodial sentence, stating that “the sentence was not suspended in light of the serious nature of the offence”. It states that the offence “requires immediate punishment”, and that a pre-sentence report indicated a “lack of willingness to comply” before the man eventually submitted a late guilty plea. I find it incredible that a Member of this House has a conviction for a violent assault on a young woman, his own partner, receiving an immediate custodial sentence for it. In a previous interview with Sky News, there was a refusal from the very top of the Reform party to acknowledge that female constituents who might have suffered domestic abuse or violence might be uncomfortable with having an MP who had been convicted of attacking a woman. The party leader stated in November that the Member “wasn’t vetted at all”, but in July a party spokesman was quoted in the Daily Mail as saying that the party knew about the conviction because the Member had been “entirely honest with us when he applied to become our candidate”. On-the-record comments from the party leader and the party spokesman appear to contradict one another completely in respect of what was known. The Reform party appears to have knowingly put up a candidate with a conviction for attacking a woman—a party that does not believe that violence against women and girls should be taken seriously if the perpetrator is one of their own. We in this House, constituents and the wider public deserve to know precisely what Reform knew about this conviction; what they were told, when they were told it, and what they chose to disclose in subsequent statements to the media. I believe in the rehabilitation of offenders—I believe that the justice system needs to be rehabilitative in order to reduce the rate of recidivism, and that those who have served their sentences should be free to move on with their lives—but I also believe that being sentenced for such a heinous crime should mean forfeiting some of the privileges that those of us who have never attacked a woman are granted. One such privilege is being a Member of Parliament. If the conviction in question had been related to a sexual offence, would it have been accepted here so comfortably? Justice should not mean that victims are forced to see those convicted of attacking them being elected as Members of this House because there was no requirement to disclose their past. The Government have pledged to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, and to provide victims with better support. The presence of a Member of Parliament with a conviction for violently assaulting a woman has never been acknowledged in this House, let alone addressed. Any debate in the House on the subject of violence against women and girls should address the convicted criminal already in our midst. As this Government shape their legislative agenda, I ask the Minister to consider whether it is time to introduce legislation that bars those who have served a custodial sentence for violence against women and girls from standing as a Member of Parliament.

15:19:00

I want to thank all my colleagues for their valuable and powerful accounts, in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington), who has worked so hard on this issue, and my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh), who has done a great deal to assist in community cohesion. Violence against women and girls is undeniably difficult to speak about, especially as so many of us have suffered and will know friends and family who have been affected. Before I begin, I would like to express my solidarity with the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), who has received further vile and misogynistic attacks this week. I hope members of the official Opposition are brave enough to do the same and call out these vitriolic attacks for what they are. My hon. Friend has always shone brightly as a beacon for all victims of violent and sexual abuse. As my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) said, it feels like nothing has changed since the 1980s, when I went to university in Leeds in the wake of the Yorkshire ripper. Women’s behaviour is still dictated by fear of rape and violent attack. Violence against women and girls is a national emergency, not the inevitability that previous Governments have treated it as. We are sick and tired of seeing women and girls facing the same threats of violence and abuse, generation after generation. Recent generations have faced the new threat of image-based abuse. My colleagues and I on the Women and Equalities Committee investigated image-based abuse and produced a report, which recommended that the Government take action to protect victims. I am pleased that the Government will introduce three new offences to combat image-based abuse. These are steps in the right direction—steps that will protect more women from revenge porn and will hopefully lead more victims to feel confident in reporting perpetrators. We can go through statistic after statistic, but I want to speak about the experience of one of my constituents, who was brave enough to share her story with me and asked me to share it with the House. Olivia, in her words, was love-bombed before her abuse started. Her abuser emotionally manipulated her and then strangled her and left acid in her car. She did everything that we ask of victims. She called the police. She reported everything at the time and had witnesses who spoke to the police, but she was too scared to tell them about all the abuse that was happening. Then her perpetrator made her believe that he was the victim and convinced her to drop the charges and continue their relationship. They went away on holiday. There, the abuse continued, and she had to get the police involved abroad. She decided to end the relationship shortly after, but it did not end there. Her abuser harassed, stalked and threatened her at her own home and in public. Again, she did everything right. She called the police on every occasion to report it. When he was finally arrested, no further action was taken because there was not enough evidence to convict him. When she first reported him, she was told that he would be convicted and charged for non-fatal strangulation, but he still walks the streets, and it is her who must live in fear of what could happen next. We must confront the uncomfortable reality that even when victims of violence report domestic abuse to the police, they do not get the help they need. I asked Olivia whether there was anything she would like me to share, and she asked me to tell the House that “when a girl or woman approaches the police, faster action needs to be taken as the perpetrators can very quickly get back into our heads and feel that we are the problem and women are more likely to drop the case, there should be more support from the police when victims ask for cases to be dropped”. We know that domestic abuse is much more than physical abuse. Coercive control leaves victims helpless and unable to escape their abusers, like Olivia says. It is time we made sure that our first responders, police and ambulance crews know what coercive control looks like. We must make sure that teachers teach their students about coercive control, and that cases of coercive control are spotted and taken seriously by the police before it is too late, as was the case with another of my constituents, who sadly lost her daughter. The Government’s new ministerial board on tackling violence against women and girls will bring together Ministers from the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Education, the Department for Transport, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and many more Departments, to ensure that for the first time we have a truly cross-Government approach to violence against women and girls. I urge them to ensure that tackling coercive control is at the centre of that approach. This cross-Government approach and the introduction of domestic abuse specialists into 999 control rooms as part of Raneem’s law give me hope in the fight against gendered violence. We have a long way to go, but I am proud to be part of a Government who are committed to tackling misogyny, halving violence against women and girls and taking action now to make that a reality in every corner of our society.

15:25:00

I welcome the opportunity to take part in this very important debate, and I pay tribute to right hon. and hon. Members for their extremely powerful, informed and personal contributions. According to the Office for National Statistics, 851,062 domestic abuse-related crimes were reported in England and Wales in the year ending March 2024. The NSPCC has reported that police in England and Wales made an average of 669 child protection referrals per day to social services in the last year. This week, I have been shocked to hear that an average of 500,000 children a year might be being abused in our country. We in this place must do everything in our power to protect those who have been victims and those who may end up becoming victims through our inaction. I do not want to make this a party political issue. I recognise the potential failings of the last Government to inform the debate, but I acknowledge the positive steps that they took in this space. However, we are here today because those steps were not enough, and I am grateful to those on the Opposition Benches for supporting the motion. The root causes of VAWG are not excuses for perpetrators to commit crimes, but they may lead to higher risks or a more difficult experience for those affected. Austerity and the devastating cuts to public services reduced funding for services that support victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse, and the cuts have led to fewer resources and support options for women in need. The weakening of social welfare programmes through policies aimed at reducing social welfare spending can disproportionately affect women, who are more likely to rely on such programmes. That leads to increased economic insecurity and vulnerability to abuse. There are insufficient legal protections and a lack of funding for the courts, and there has been criticism of the enforcement of laws relating to domestic violence and sexual abuse. Inadequate training for law enforcement and judicial personnel can result in poor handling of cases and insufficient protection for victims. There is also a lack of focus on gender equality. Policies that do not actively promote gender equality can perpetuate systemic issues that put women at risk, because they do not address the gender pay gap, the lack of affordable childcare, the insufficient support for women in the workforce, and the failure to implement the recommendations of the Jay review in order to support victims of child sexual abuse and protect children from the same risks. A constituent came to my surgery and recounted her experience. The person she was living with had drugged and raped her repeatedly. She had reported this to the police, who promised to take immediate action and arrest the alleged perpetrator. I will not go into the details here but, unfortunately, the perpetrator is currently living not very far from the victim who alleged abuse against him. I urge the Government to take immediate steps to protect those who have been abused, or who are making allegations of abuse, from the further trauma of living close by and having their alleged abuser walking the same streets, leaving them feeling unsafe every single moment of the day. I welcome and commend the Government’s commitment to cutting violence against all women and girls by 50% over the next 10 years, and I associate myself with the positive policies that have been proposed, but I urge them not to leave any stone unturned and to put in place, once and for all, the maximum practical measures to reduce the harm to women and girls forever. I draw attention to the plight of women and children in BAME communities. They face similar issues, but they also face language barriers, the fear of not being believed or understood, and the fear of discrimination by statutory services such as the police and social services.

The hon. Gentleman talks about people needing to be believed. Could he talk about that a bit further?

Every single person who reports a crime, especially violent or sexual abuse, must be taken seriously from the moment they present their issue to the relevant authority or any responsible person. Any person who turns a blind eye to such reports is directly or indirectly complicit. We need to tighten up the processes. Of course, we want to avoid miscarriages of justice, but it is really important that people are listened to. Women and children in BAME communities fear they may become isolated from their family or community if they seek help or leave a relationship, or, where their immigration status is an issue, they fear they may lose their residency in the UK. It is therefore imperative that support services are culturally aware and sensitive to the needs of BAME women to provide them with specialised—

Order. I call David Burton-Sampson. I have to impose an immediate four-minute time limit.

15:32:00

Tackling violence against women and girls is a job for everyone. We all know that tackling violence involves far more than just the police and the criminal justice system. Preventing abuse in the first place is crucial, and everyone needs to play their part. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh) and others in expressing my disappointment that some seem to pick and choose which type of abuse they wish to champion. Abuse is not a political football. All should come together to tackle abuse. Across Government, and with mayors, local councils and police and crime commissioners, we need to support strong preventive action. According to the crime survey for England and Wales for the year ending March 2024, 2.2 million women that year had experienced domestic abuse, 1.1 million had suffered sexual assault and 1.5 million had been stalked. Of course, it is not just physical abuse that women experience; they also experience online abuse. My fellow members of the Women and Equalities Committee and I recently heard evidence from young women about the abuse they experienced through non-consensual intimate images and deepfakes. It was harrowing to hear about the long-term impact this abuse has had on those young girls’ lives. As we have heard, this Government have pledged to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, and I am pleased by the action they are already taking. I must mention the tireless and dedicated work of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips). She has stood up and fought against violence against women and girls for many years, supported many victims and is now doing great work to influence the tackling of this issue in her role as Minster for Safeguarding and Violence against Women and Girls. However, the issue is not just what the Government should do. Preventing abuse in the first place is crucial, and everyone needs to play their part. Men need to play their part—men need to do more. The charity White Ribbon wants to prevent men’s violence against women and girls by addressing its root causes. It works with men and boys to change long-established and harmful attitudes, systems and behaviours that perpetuate inequality and violence. It is clear that many young men are being warped by toxic influencers online. Police chiefs have warned that young men are being radicalised online. The police have demanded that technology companies act more quickly to take down extreme material. Schools have a role to play in providing high-quality, inclusive and effective relationships and sex education that is relevant to the realities of children’s lives and empowers young people to understand the true relationship boys should have with girls: respect, respect and respect. That really matters. Men need to be champions of that cause and of women’s safety.

I thank my hon. Friend, who is my colleague on the Women and Equalities Committee, for everything he does to set an example to young men. Does he agree that we should call upon all our male colleagues to do the same in their constituencies?

I agree, and I call upon all men to do everything they can to champion the cause. Men need to be positive champions: there is so much we can do. We need to be allies, calling out poor language or behaviour in our own friendship groups when we witness it. We need to be conscious of our behaviour around women, such as keeping a distance if we are walking near a woman who is alone at night. If we see a woman being harassed on public transport, for example, we can be an active bystander by ignoring the aggressor and engaging the victim with a benign question, such as asking the time or offering a seat. That is non-confrontational intervention that can help diffuse a situation. There is so much more that we, as men, can do. We can all help. We need to educate, act and do more to support, and we need to drive down such behaviour once and for all.

15:37:00

It is a privilege to be here in the Chamber to experience so many astonishing speeches. I direct attention specifically to the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood), whose speech was one for the ages. I preface my contribution with the acknowledgment that there are 263 women Members of this Parliament who are often best equipped to speak on matters that impact women and girls. However, in the case of violence against women and girls, it is important that men speak. We should not shy away from the fact that such violence is often inflicted by men, from across society and from all walks of life. The recent convictions of the men who raped Gisèle Pelicot brought to light some information that shook my faith even in myself. Among the men who raped her were a journalist, a councillor, a soldier, lorry drivers, farm workers and even—pause for a moment to consider this—a nurse. One of the most shattering examples of violence against women and girls was the tragic case of Sara Sharif. Rarely am I moved to such anger as when I revisit that case. The man who tortured and murdered 10-year-old Sara was the one person whose primary responsibility as a human being was to protect his daughter. I echo the statement by the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols), who referred to labelling such men as monsters. To label him and the perpetrators of similarly disgusting crimes as monsters is to obscure an uncomfortable truth: they are often fathers and brothers, they are often our work colleagues. I note the absence today of the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (James McMurdock) and his enablers. Men across the country are outraged by violence against women and girls, but how many of us are ready to look in the mirror? Men taking a stand against demeaning language, inappropriate behaviours and toxic mentalities will prove central to winning the minds of men and boys, but we must also recognise it in ourselves. As with any other form of intolerance—I draw attention to the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen), who linked broader intolerance to the matter we are discussing—it is the othering of “them” and the validation of “us” that drives resentment.

May I associate myself with the words of the Minister, the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) and others on the comments made to the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls? I am appalled by the comments made online and by well-known members of the public. Will my hon. Friend join me in wholeheartedly condemning public sexual harassment, including so-called cat calling, which is designed to harass, intimidate and humiliate women and girls? Shamefully, 68% of adult women have experienced sexual harassment by the age of 15. Will my hon. Friend also join me in asking the Government to pass the statutory instrument required to enforce the legislation passed last year on that?

I absolutely stand by my hon. Friend’s comments. May I also congratulate him on the recent birth of his daughter? I am delighted that he will learn now, as I know, that there is nobody more blessed than the fathers of daughters. The attention of men and boys is often won through divisive and even violent rhetoric and behaviours. It appeals to men’s frustrations. It frames women as opponents— some adversary to be controlled or defeated—or an object to acquire, possess and impose our will upon. For some of us, that rhetoric is first experienced in our own home, growing up. If not, then it is experienced in the playground. It is not long before toxic role models are in our social media feeds, with algorithms repeating and reinforcing toxic messages. We can decide in this House to challenge toxic influence, predominantly through our schools. Boys and girls should be taught together to respect and appreciate each other for their differences, as well as for what they have in common. We should also mandate social media companies to publish the actions they take to address and control online abuse. Let me be explicit: those who do not measure up must have no such place of influence in our society. I will end with an acknowledgment that withdrawing our armed forces from Afghanistan and leaving millions of women to the will of the Taliban is a self-made humanitarian tragedy. Together with our allies, for 20 years, we brought Afghan women freedom and hope for the future. With the US-planned withdrawal and our corresponding actions, we condemned and, in so many cases, returned them to a pitiful and hellish existence.

15:43:00

I am honoured to participate in this debate and to follow such esteemed colleagues from all sides of the House. Violence takes many forms, not just physical or sexual, but emotional, financial and coercive control. Those acts, which do not leave physical bruises, have just as bruising an effect—the effect cutting off the women on the receiving end from their families, from the friends who support them, and not necessarily from their abuser. It is the effect of cutting off women from the people who will provide support and help, and from those who will utter the immortal words, “Do you know you are living in an abusive relationship?” I thank the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley) for what she said. We must not underestimate the power of those words, or the power of those friends. It was a person uttering those words that got me out. I did not believe it; I did not recognise it. I pooh-poohed it in that meeting, but then I sat back and reflected. Every single one of us here will have come to the debate thinking of women we know—women we met before we came to this place. There were those who I represented in the trade union. There was one I sat in the car with and did the midnight flit with. They got out. I phoned managers and said that we needed to get her moved. There are people whose stories I do not have the privilege or the permission to tell, but one woman—one of my constituents—who did give me that permission got out of the relationship. She moved 400 miles to be beside her family and is now sitting in temporary accommodation, working part-time and on universal credit. She cannot get a tenancy in a private flat, because she does not have the good financial standing to get a reference. She cannot get a council house, because we have a housing emergency, and she has no children. She does not want to sit and wait for 10 years without work. I know fine well that the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), and my hon. Friend the Safeguarding Minister know this inside out. I know that they can make the case that, as a joined-up Government, we need to solve the housing emergency, and we need to reform universal credit. It is only when we get this joined- up Government moving and working correctly—

Would the hon. Lady like me to intervene?

I will continue, if that is okay; I do not need the time. I am good, thank you. Everything I had written down has gone. I have been struck by the power of words in this Chamber. People out there listen. As has been said, we are working for the good today. We need to make sure that everybody out there hears us working for the good. We believe everyone who comes forward, and we thank everybody who has shared their stories this week. Thank you all.

15:47:00

Far from letting anybody down, the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) has lifted survivors up with her contribution today. One of them, who has been watching from home, is my mum, who suffered abuse at the hands of a former partner. I witnessed that abuse growing up, and that is apart from some of the things that happened to me. The statistic, and the reality, that two women a week are killed by their partner or former partner particularly terrifies me, and always has. That must change, so I sincerely thank the Government for their commitment to halving violence against women and girls over the coming decade. I also thank the Safeguarding Minister for the work that she has done on this issue throughout her career. The vast majority of us in this House know that no tech billionaire, no pound-shop Enoch Powell, and no keyboard warrior can take away that record from her. The silence from Reform party Members is utterly deafening today. They might tweet about this issue while we are debating, but they are not participating, and shame on them for that. Domestic abuse is a foul manifestation of violence against women and girls, as the Government recognised when they set out their intention of excluding domestic abusers from the standard determinate sentences 40% early release scheme, but as they have said, people can be excluded from early release only on the basis of the offence that they committed, not other antecedents. A challenge is that it is not possible to comprehensively exclude domestic abusers because there is no dedicated offence of domestic abuse in law. Instead, many abusers are convicted of offences such as actual bodily harm and grievous bodily harm, which are governed by a piece of legislation from 1861 that was not written with domestic abuse in mind. Domestic abusers convicted of such offences are being let out early, or qualifying for early release. We have seen some such cases, and that loophole needs to be closed. I convened survivors, academics and support organisations to come up with a solution, which exists in the form of a Bill that I introduced: the Domestic Abuse (Aggravated Offences) Bill, which would create a specific offence of domestic abuse in law for the first time. It would work in a similar way to racially and religiously aggravated offences by creating domestic abuse aggravated GBH, ABH or whatever it might be. Beyond giving the means for the Government to exclude domestic abusers from an early release scheme, it would tighten up some of the data, which is very difficult for academics and others to analyse when they are looking into the effectiveness of interventions.

Does my hon. Friend agree that collecting data is so important in really getting to grips with the issue?

I could not agree more, and I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution. If we do not have the data that we want on domestic abuse offences, how can we measure whether we are halving violence against women and girls over this decade, and whether our interventions designed to reduce reoffending among domestic abusers are working? The introduction of a domestic abuse aggravated offence could help employers with risk management; they could see it when it came up on a Disclosure and Barring Service certificate and press ahead accordingly. I am proud that Women’s Aid and Refuge are backing my Bill. They want to see it made a reality. I thank them and many of those in the media for their support. I also thank Members of this House for supporting my early-day motion 523, and for giving me their support in private discussions, especially folks on the other side of the House. I also thank Ministers for my constructive meetings with them, and the commitment that many have given that we will continue to discuss the Bill, with a view, I hope, to making it a reality. Lastly, and most importantly, I thank victims and survivors of domestic abuse, especially those I have had the honour of working with on the Bill, for their courage, resilience, hope and determination to ensure that others do not suffer as they have.

Order. Before I call the next speaker, I ask Members to reflect on whether they should take interventions, given that they cost time and will squeeze out some Members who wish to speak, and who may have personal testimony.

15:53:00

I thank all those who have contributed to this powerful debate. Violence against women and girls is a grave issue that urgently demands our attention and action. It is a distressing reality that countless women and girls across the UK continue to live in fear and face unacceptable violence. However, the digital era has led to a new arena for abuse, with the rise of online emotional abuse, emotional blackmail, harassment, pressure and coercion to send sexual images, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, and technologies such as deepfakes presenting urgent challenges. Perpetrators are exploiting digital technology to escalate abuse online to the real world. Most worryingly, abuse is now faceless. I will highlight online abuse in this debate. In deepfakes and synthetic media, a person’s likeness is manipulated to create false and often explicit content, which is weaponised. It is disproportionately women and girls who are affected. Our 2023 report found that 98% of deepfake videos are pornographic, and 99% of victims are women. The recent Ofcom report sheds further light on the scale of the problem. Alarmingly, one in seven adults reports having seen sexual deepfakes. Even more troublingly, 17% of adults thought that deepfakes depicted someone under the age of 18. Those figures expose the harrowing reach of this technology and its potential harm to women, girls and young children. The report also highlights a critical gap in awareness. Nine per cent of adults say that they are not confident that they could identify a deepfake. I welcome the Government’s recent announcement on criminalising the creation of explicit deepfakes without consent. However, legislation is not enough. Ofcom’s report underscores the need for a co-ordinated response involving Government, tech companies and civil society to tackle the issue. Developing tools to detect and remove harmful content is absolutely vital, as is ensuring that law enforcement agencies act swiftly to get the images removed. Education is equally important. Many victims are unaware of the risks, and public awareness campaigns can play a vital role in empowering individuals to recognise and report harmful content. Education is not just for the victims, but for young people, young men and men in society. Additionally, we must work with educators to ensure that we have the digital literacy to safely navigate the changing landscape. While technology brings tremendous benefits to our lives, its misuse should not disproportionately affect women and girls. Legislation like that recently announced by the Government is a vital step forward, but it must be accompanied by systemic change and cultural awareness to ensure that all individuals, including all women and girls, can live free from fear and abuse, online and offline.

15:56:00

I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips) on all the work she has done over the years standing up for women and girls and fighting violence against them. Violence against women and girls by men is a societal epidemic, and it is right that we in this place and the Government treat it as such. The Liberal Democrats welcome the Government’s pledge to halve violence against women and girls over this Parliament, and we are keen to reform the law as soon as possible, and to accelerate what should be a national mission to stamp out this awful violence. I particularly welcome the roll-out of the domestic abuse protection notices and orders pilot in Sutton borough, which covers my constituency of Sutton and Cheam. The orders will allow the police to take stronger, more immediate action in domestic abuse cases, and are a significant step forward, providing greater protections for victims and helping to ensure that abusers face the consequences of their actions without delay. In my borough of Sutton last month, we were tragically reminded of how urgent those protections are. The brutal murder of Gemma Devonish was a devastating blow to our community. Her death underscores the dire consequences of not providing all women with the critical support that they need. It is a dark reminder that those protections are not just necessary, but a matter of life and death. As with any kind of epidemic, we must recognise the warning signs, early indicators and normalised precursors that lead to this awful kind of violence. Stalking is not just a crime against someone’s safety; it is a violent psychological attack on their very sense of self. It chips away at their emotional wellbeing, their sense of security and their right to simply exist without fear. For far too many women and girls, this crime is a daily reality, yet despite previous legislative reforms, the system still is not properly protecting victims of this crime. Data shared with me via a freedom of information request shows that in London, more than one in three stalking cases ends with the victim withdrawing from the process. That is a shockingly high number, and it should concern us all. In some cases, that is because victims disagree with the proposed action, but many have told me that it is also because they feel unable to provide enough evidence, as the burden of proof to achieve a section 4A conviction is set unfathomably high. When the law places such an onerous burden on victims who are so clearly suffering torment, it is our job in this House to home in on it as a flawed piece of legislation. The current law is inconsistent and confusing, and is failing victims as a result. The current division of stalking offences into sections 2A and 4A just is not working, and the confusion allows perpetrators to buy time and continue tormenting their victims with little consequence. I fear that victims, who are overwhelmingly women and girls, are essentially being told that they need to be the perfect victim to ensure that the police get a conviction. They repeatedly have to expose their pain and humiliation to the system just to secure fundamental protection from the police. I draw the House’s attention to a report published in September by the chief inspector of constabulary, the Independent Office for Police Conduct and the College of Policing. The report, driven by a super-complaint from the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, has forced us to face the uncomfortable truth that many of us already knew: the system is failing women and girls. The report explores creating a single clear offence for stalking, rather than splitting it between sections 2A and 4A. The London Victims’ Commissioner has echoed those calls, and I strongly encourage the Government to do the same. The Minister for Safeguarding has promised a review of the current stalking legislation, so I ask again for the timeline for that review. More importantly, when will we see real changes to the law to protect victims and hold stalkers to account?

16:01:00

I welcome the debate and pay tribute to Members for their testimonies. The points raised by the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) and the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) relate very much to what I want to say. This place has gained a terrible reputation, and not just in recent years, for predatory behaviour by those who have manipulated and used the exalted power of our elected positions to groom, touch inappropriately, sexually assault and rape many women and young men who have worked here. We are all aware of the scandals, and some of us will be conscious of the cover-ups. I liken it to the influence that Jimmy Savile was able to wield when he got the keys to Broadmoor—it is that dangerous. Although better reporting systems are now in place, more can always be done to clean this place up. Every single one of us should have been required to undergo a Disclosure and Barring Service check before entering this House or the other place, particularly because our titles and positions open the doors to our public institutions, including hospitals, care homes, schools and children’s clubs and groups. Checks would create more openness and greater transparency, and trust should start before we make phone calls asking for visits or meetings. The other place runs the Learn with the Lords education scheme, for example, and although Members regularly visit schools, there are no checks or child protection or safety considerations. I also welcome the significant recommendation in the IICSA report to require improved compliance with statutory duties to inform the Disclosure and Barring Service of individuals who may pose a risk of harm to children. Although that would be a significant step forward, I want to raise our standard and begin the process immediately. As a prospective parliamentary candidate presenting myself as a suitable person for election, there was no requirement for me to provide a DBS or criminal record check. That simply is not good enough. Making the DBS check a necessary hurdle to entering Parliament would work to clean up politics, and I believe that it would lead to parties making better and more thorough choices about their candidates. I am here with the mission of cleaning up our politics and bringing the DBS check to Parliament, which would make it a safer place for us all to be in.

16:04:00

I thank the Minister for her statement and for bringing this debate to the Chamber. As has already been mentioned, there have been some powerful contributions today, none more so than that of my friend the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood). I also echo the sentiments of the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen), who mentioned that those who have a history of amplifying the voices of recorded misogynists are not welcome here to tell us how we should be running our country. Secondly and possibly more depressingly, the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) mentioned that children watch pornography, and cited the statistic that one in 10 children has watched pornography by the age of nine. This has led to a horrendous rise in child-on-child sexual abuse; according to the police, 52% of recorded sexual crime is child-on-child, the youngest being a child only four years old who uploaded an indecent image and shared it. Much more needs to be done on this matter with our children. I thank the Minister for mentioning male victims of sexual violence, and I also thank a charity in my constituency, First Step, which does some incredible work on this issue. It is really important that we focus on the needs of victims and survivors. That is why I would like to highlight some of the work that is being done in my constituency. Victims of rape, who have already had to endure such horrendous torture, are sometimes left behind and are victims once again because they get no support whatsoever. That is why for the past 35 years, Shama Women’s Centre in my constituency has provided sanctuary for victims of domestic abuse, among other incredible work. It helps those victims back on their feet, giving them training, job skills, advice, financial help and somewhere to stay while they are hiding from the perpetrators. This really helps women as they strive for independence in their battle for a better life, and to get away from the horrendous abuse they have experienced. We must do more to protect our charity sector; charities are sometimes the last place that these women have to go to, because they have been neglected by everybody else. Financial support is really needed.

On the subject of charities that support victims and survivors, yesterday I met representatives of Victim Support. They shared that, at a time when demand for their services is surging, they are facing a 7% real-terms cut in funding because of the increase in national insurance contributions, as well as cuts to police and crime commissioner budgets. Does the hon. Member agree that we should be doing more to support—

Order. If I am going to get every Member in—and I would very much like to do so—interventions must be short.

I agree with the hon. Member, which is why I have raised the issue of national insurance on a couple of occasions. In fact, Jasmine House, which supports women who are the victims of rape and already has a two-year waiting list, was looking to add an extra member of staff, but is now going to reduce its number of staff members. It just cannot afford it, because of the rise in national insurance contributions. With 8,000 cases of domestic violence being reported to the police in Leicester alone, it is clear that we need to ensure that the charity sector receives increased long-term funding, and that the police receive the best possible training on how to help the victims and investigate the cases. From our side, we offer cross-party support to help the Government however we can, to make sure that we can help with this matter.

16:07:00

I commend all the speeches made this afternoon, particularly those made by the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) and by my hon. Friends the Members for Luton North (Sarah Owen), for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) and for Rochdale (Paul Waugh). I have to confess that I felt quite shocked by some of the statistics and stories I heard, even though this is something I have been involved in for quite some time as a trade unionist. I also find myself warning my daughter to be careful when she goes out in a way that I would not with my son, even though they are of a similar age. That is unacceptable in this day and age. Data published by the National Police Chiefs’ Council in July 2024 found that over 1 million crimes of violence against women and girls were recorded by the police in 2022-23, equating to nearly 3,000 offences every single day, and that violent crime against women and girls increased by 37% during the five-year period between 2018 and 2023. Using data from the crime survey for England and Wales, the Office for National Statistics has found that domestic abuse-related crimes represented 15.8% of all offences recorded by the police last year. Domestic violence is something that affects all cultures and societies, as was acknowledged by the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies). In my constituency of Wolverhampton West, we have the headquarters of the Haven Wolverhampton, a charitable organisation that provides practical and emotional support services to women and children who have suffered domestic violence, abuse and homelessness. The Haven has been established for more than 50 years and is one of the largest refuge providers in the UK, but like other charities it requires financial support to assist these women and children. As a society, we need to maintain and increase such provision throughout the country, and ensure that these organisations get the financial support they need. We also need to safeguard victims of domestic violence in other ways. Currently, a survivor of domestic violence may be eligible for a debt solution to clear the debt accumulated during their abusive relationship, but once a debt solution is approved, their home address is published online on the individual insolvency register, which anyone can see. That is obviously terrifying for those who have been victims of domestic abuse, because it makes them vulnerable to further harm from their ex-partners, who can find their address online. There is an option to have their details hidden by obtaining what is known as a person at risk of violence order, but this requires them to pay £308 and attend court, which can be very difficult for traumatised survivors who are already in debt. I think that we should look at abolishing the fee for PARV orders. I am very proud that this Labour Government have already taken steps to halve violence against women and girls within a decade by, for example, introducing Raneem’s law, which from this year will see domestic abuse specialists placed in 999 control rooms, and launching the pilot of domestic abuse protection orders, as well as rolling out the independent legal advocates for rape victims. However, having heard everyone this afternoon, I am sure the House would agree that we all need to strive to do even more.

16:11:00

I am humbled to take part in this debate. I do not have my own personal testimony to offer, but the issue of violence against women and girls has become very evident to me in my years as an MP through my constituency surgeries. First, I have learned how hard it is for women to get away and, once an abuser has them in their sights, how very difficult it is for them to escape. Secondly, as has been highlighted, not least by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss), I have learned how abuse can be perpetuated by some of the institutions in this country, such as His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the financial system and the family courts. I had learned those things, but since my eyes were opened to the extent of domestic abuse in my constituency, I have really come to admire the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips) for all the work she has done on this issue before she came to this place, as a Back Bencher and now as a Minister. I urge her not to be deterred from the incredible work she has been doing by the awful experience she has had this week. However, I saw her compassionate and typically forthright response to the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) after her extraordinary speech, and all I can say is that I have been very reassured on that point. I just want to pledge my solidarity with the Minister for all she has been doing. I want to raise two particular issues that have come through in my casework. Very recently, constituents of mine who have been victims of violence have told me stories of how evidence of criminal activity has been removed from a crime scene—a violent crime scene—without forensic evidence being taken. I have challenged the Met police about this, and apparently it is no longer commonplace for forensic exams to be conducted due to budget cuts. Consequently, potential key evidence that could have contributed to the safety of my constituents has been lost. I have heard further examples of safety equipment, including panic alarms, being removed from the houses of vulnerable victims who remain under the threat of being attacked, and I am talking about very credible threats to life. I was again informed that this was for budgeting reasons. I have written to the Minister about this particular case, and I really hope she will make time for a meeting with me to discuss it. It is unacceptable that budget cuts are putting the protection and safety of domestic abuse victims at risk, and I really hope the Minister will be able to take this up with colleagues, because it is vital that victims who are under threat have sufficient safeguards in place to ensure their protection from past abusers. The cases that are being brought to my office have shown the immediate impact that Home Office cuts to policing are having on the safety and wellbeing of vulnerable victims. In many cases involving crimes such as rape and murder, victims and bereaved families do not attend trial to avoid further trauma, and the Minister will know, because we have discussed it directly before, that a constituent of mine who was drugged and raped by her then boyfriend in February 2020 was quoted nearly £7,000 to access the transcript of the trial in which he was convicted with an 18-year sentence. Without a transcript, many victims struggle to find out about the proceedings or why a certain verdict is reached. That is even more important in those cases where a not guilty verdict is returned. It is common for victims of violent crime to be advised by mental health professionals that a transcript of proceedings would aid their healing and help them process their experiences. In the previous Parliament, I introduced an amendment to the Victims and Prisoners Bill which, had it passed, would have made provision for victims of crime to access a transcript of their trial free of charge. Victims can apply to the Crown court for a free transcript, but in many cases, such as that of my constituent, this request is rejected. I urge the Minister to take any steps available to her and to speak to colleagues about what more can be done to increase the availability of court transcripts to aid the recovery of victims.

16:16:00

Violence against women and girls is one of the most prevalent and pervasive human rights violations in the world. As an ongoing survivor of domestic abuse and as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on domestic abuse and violence, I know that it can affect women at all stages and in all aspects of their lives. As survivors, we are complex and multifaceted beings, and we are being let down, so I continue to advocate for the need for a multifaceted approach and a comprehensive and cross-departmental strategy that goes beyond criminal justice to social security, housing, employment, health and so on to address perpetrators and empower survivors. A whole-system approach is vital. In the time I have today, I will focus my remarks on the rights of survivors in the workplace. On Second Reading of the Employment Rights Bill, I raised the point that domestic abuse could have an impact on an individual’s working life through unexplained absences, lateness and negatively impacted performance. For one in 10 survivors, the abuse continues in the workplace, often with their partner turning up at their workplace or stalking them outside their workplace, which is something I know first-hand. The statutory guidance of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 reminds us how pivotal the role of an employer can be. Soon after the general election concluded, the APPG on domestic abuse and violence met and discussed how parliamentarians can advocate for the rights of survivors in the workplace. There are calls from organisations, campaigners and Members across the House in that regard, which I will raise now. First is the call for a right for victims of domestic abuse to take leave of absence from work and for regulations to be introduced to give effect to that right, including a minimum of 10 days of paid leave. Survivors may need to take time off work and may not be able to return to work immediately after escaping a perpetrator, for example. They may need time to seek emergency health or housing needs, attend court and so much more. I draw the House’s attention to the fact that 10 days of paid leave for domestic abuse survivors is a provision available in Northern Ireland. Paid leave measures have also been implemented in other parts of the world, such as New Zealand, the Philippines and some states in the USA. I acknowledge that a handful of organisations in the UK provide paid leave for domestic abuse survivors, but many of us believe that right should be accessible to all survivors, no matter who they work for. Many of us would also like to see protections for workers from adverse treatment if they are, or are suspected to be a person affected by domestic abuse. That surely must include protections from being dismissed to ensure a survivor’s long-term earning potential is not negatively impacted, as well as ensuring financial independence and freedom from economic abuse in many cases. My final point on employment rights and domestic abuse survivors is about the work that organisations, campaigns, such as those led by the Employers’ Initiative on Domestic Abuse, and trade unions have done to ensure that employers take all reasonable steps to prevent workers from experiencing domestic abuse. Those steps could include implementing domestic abuse policies in every workplace and ensuring that risk assessments are done for every worker who discloses domestic abuse. That would surely be a progressive next step forward in the struggle to eradicate violence against women and girls from all parts of our society. The history of challenging violence against women and girls has always had pioneering activism and fighting for social change at its heart. Because of so many survivors around the world, I would never allow my voice to be silenced. The next step is to look at how we support survivors to make sure that no one has to experience abuse in the workplace.

16:19:00

I want to make a brief contribution to this incredibly powerful debate, to draw attention to a specific and extreme form of violence against women and girls that is taking place right now across the whole of the United Kingdom: trafficking and modern slavery. Women and girls are trafficked into and around the UK, for sex and for other forms of exploitation such as labour exploitation and domestic servitude. They are among the most vulnerable people in our society. Before being elected, I worked for three years on anti-trafficking in Scotland. The stories from my time there will haunt me: women trafficked and forced into prostitution, forced by their captors to have sex with multiple men a day with the money going to their captors, and forced to participate in pornography. These are women with no social networks and no knowledge they were even in Scotland. We say, “Listen to women”. These women did not have the English language skills to say no. There are pimping websites where men would leave reviews of the women they had paid to have sex with. I will not quote them, but they are spine chilling. It was perfectly clear that these men knew that the women were trafficked, coerced and unhappy. Some comments showed that that was the point. They knew that some were girls, not women. We must do more to tackle this extreme violence against women and girls. I want to make four brief points. First, let me do something unusual and praise the previous Government. The Modern Slavery Act 2015 set up structures that were important and effective—the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley), who is in her place, was instrumental in that—but it has fallen into severe abeyance. The focus on supposed abuse of the modern slavery system has all but wrecked the good system we had. Extremely long waits for the national referral mechanism have made it essentially dysfunctional, and we no longer give women who seek help the assurance that they will not be deported or prosecuted. This is important: no woman is complicit in her own abuse. Secondly, we must support frontline organisations. The organisations that support vulnerable women operate on a shoestring budget, such as the Trafficking Awareness Raising Alliance in Scotland. We have to stop making these organisations apply for funding every year. On that note, when I was working in Scotland, across the sector, even people who were quite suspicious of the Labour party, always spoke extremely highly of the Safeguarding Minister. Thirdly, we must prevent re-trafficking. I consider it the biggest failure of the British state that women who escape their traffickers and come to the state for help later find themselves back in the hands of their traffickers. Small basic interventions and joined-up thinking would prevent that. But too often we say, “Well, you’re rescued now. Off you go and make yourself a life.” These vulnerable women fall back into the claws of their traffickers. It should shame us all. I was a bit nervous about participating in this debate because I am conscious that the fight to stop violence against women must be led by women. We do not need men pontificating about what they think should happen. But I think there is a role for men, not just because men are also trafficked in the UK but because concepts of masculinity are changing for my generation and men younger than me.

Earlier in my contribution, I referred to Man Culture. If I can be of any assistance at all in the hon. Gentleman’s quest to find some examples, another organisation I would be delighted to recommend to him is Beyond Equality. If there is anything I can do, I would be happy to do that.

I very much welcome the hon. Lady’s contribution, because it will be for both genders to step up. We can see concepts of masculinity transforming before our eyes, exacerbated by the internet but also by political interventions. It is incumbent upon us—the younger generation of men—to stand up and face that head on. Trafficking is one of the most extreme kinds of violence against women. It is happening all over the UK right now. We can do more to stop it, and we must.

We now have a three-minute limit.

16:24:00

In my very short time in this place, I have always been conscious of the history of this Chamber and the speeches that have been made in the years and decades previously. However, this debate is the first time I have spoken where I have been aware that whatever I say will be dwarfed by what has been said in speeches previously by every Member who has spoken. The right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley) was absolutely right: this is the House at its absolute best. It is a privilege to speak in this debate. I will speak a little bit about some campaigners in my constituency. First and foremost, I will mention the families of Holly Newton and Joanne Tulip, and in particular Joanne’s mother, Doreen Soulsby, who has been a diligent and doughty campaigner for more than a quarter of a century. I also pay tribute to the work of Northumberland Domestic Abuse Services; in my first month after being elected, I was extremely honoured to be asked to become one of its patrons. I celebrate the work that Sharon Brown and her incredible team do in providing support to some of the most vulnerable people in England’s most sparsely populated county. One thing I would like to do as a result of this debate is to invite the two Ministers on the Front Bench, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), and the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), to come up to Hexham to see the work being done by NDAS. I would be absolutely honoured to welcome them and to celebrate the work Sharon and her team have been doing. Since April 2024 alone, NDAS has been into 23 schools across Northumberland and worked with almost 2,000 children on the perils of domestic abuse. Ultimately, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh (Chris Murray) was just saying, it can be tough to figure out our place in this debate as men. It needs to be led by women. However, if we do not stand up and speak, we are complicit in contributing to that culture of silence. I have only a minute left, so I will not detain the House’s attention for too long. I am aware that in this debate, as in so many others, we stand on the shoulders of giants. I was very pleased to be sent an email by my office manager during this debate from a constituent of mine, saying to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley just how supportive she is, and how supportive constituents across all our constituencies are, of her tireless dedication to women across the country and to safeguarding them.

16:27:00

Other Members have said what an honour it is to speak in this debate, with such expertise from so many; I have been struck by not just the passion, but the compassion from Members across this Chamber. I am pleased to rise and speak in this debate. Others have mentioned the great work this Labour Government are already doing to reduce and halve violence against women and girls, so, given the time limitations, I will not recount that. I acknowledge that one in four women in the UK will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime. In Merseyside last year, nearly 20% of all crimes were related to domestic abuse. I do not think, therefore, we can underestimate the impact of our getting this right. Economic abuse involves an abuser restricting a victim-survivor’s ability to acquire, use and maintain money. It is an insidious form of abuse that means survivors—overwhelmingly women—remain with abusers because they do not have the money or resources to flee. The charity Surviving Economic Abuse, which I have mentioned in this House before, has found that almost 1 million women were prevented from leaving because of this form of abuse—1 million women. Even if a victim-survivor does manage to leave, economic abuse often continues: wrecked credit scores prevent them from accessing the most basic items, such as a mobile phone; joint mortgages tie a survivor to their abuser so they can continue malicious control; perpetrators sometimes cruelly withhold maintenance payments for children or deliberately make unreliable payments, leaving survivors unable to afford the basic needs of them or their children. The Government are serious about changing the story and ensuring that levels of violence against women and girls fall. To do this, they must put economic abuse at the heart of their work. It is the key to breaking the cycle and to helping survivors to rebuild their lives. I heard many harrowing stories during my campaigning of inspiring women facing the most sickening abuse. I pay enormous tribute to one survivor who came forward with her experience—I cannot tell the House the whole story—with Citizens Advice Wirral, which helps such people rebuild their lives. As has been mentioned, support is available from so many people who are doing excellent work. The stories that we have heard show just how important it is that we work in partnership in our communities and in this place to deliver for survivors. In my final moments, I pay tribute to the survivors. Their work and their bravery has pushed Governments of all colours and financial institutions to improve the lives of survivors. They inspire me, and I will continue to work in this place to eradicate economic abuse.

16:30:00

I thank the Minister for her opening speech. Equally, as hon. Members across the House have done, I thank the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), for her continued championing of this hugely important issue. I will take a moment to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch (Katrina Murray) for their incredible strength in telling us their personal stories. I am genuinely ashamed to live in a society where some people see it as acceptable to go up to a woman and tell her that they want to rape her. I find that disgusting. The sad reality is, many of us are not surprised by that. Women I know have experienced online abuse where exactly that sort of language has been used towards them. It is not acceptable. It is disgusting. I am ashamed that we live in a society where that happens. I want to take a moment—I have only got a moment—to thank two local champions in my constituency who have done so much to raise this important issue time and again: Councillor Lanie Shears and Councillor Kay Morrison. Every year on White Ribbon Day, Kay organises a vigil in Harlow town centre where she and other community champions read out the name of every single woman and girl who has been killed by a man in the previous 12 months. That takes 20 minutes. Last year, they raised a motion on Harlow council calling on all councillors, council leaders and civic leaders to lead by example in their strategic leadership, in changing cultures, in raising awareness and in engaging with men and boys, because, as the Minister said at the start of the debate, everybody needs to play their part to get this right. I really recommend that everybody does the White Ribbon training, which gives practical advice on how we can support women. But this issue is about more than that. It does not start with attacks on women or rape or murder. It starts with comments in the workplace—misogyny and banter. That is what needs to change. We have to change the culture. We have to educate men and boys. We have to say, “Enough is enough.”

I call the shadow Minister.

16:33:00

With the leave of the House, I am grateful to respond to the debate on behalf of His Majesty’s official Opposition. The spirit of the debate has been strident. We have not always been wholly in agreement, but where we have disagreed, we have done so with respect and kindness, which is exactly how I approach this issue. I know that the Ministers opposite me do exactly the same. It is not easy to move from being a campaigner to a Minister. As MPs, we are campaigners for our own constituencies; that unites us all. I am grateful for the range of contributions made by all hon. Members. It is right that we did not shy away from what needed saying, and I will take a moment to cover a few matters that came up. I must reiterate that in our 14 years in government, a huge amount of work was done in this area. None of it is easy, and none of it is done on its own. I am grateful for the work done by my right hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), in her role as Minister for Women and in the Home Office; by the former Safeguarding Minister, Laura Farris; by my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Dame Priti Patel), in all her time in government; and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley). As I said earlier, this is about building on the foundations established by many women and much partnership work across constituencies and sectors. I think of the work of Maggie Blyth, who stepped up as the national police lead in the wake of the brutal murder of Sarah Everard, following on from the work of the Casey review, listening to women’s testimony and working on that basis of it. I think of Festus and his time as Bedfordshire’s police and crime commissioner; I remember joining him to learn how mobile phone technology from the Home Office could be downloaded within 24 hours to help women and girls get the justice that they need. Operation Soteria adopted a transformative approach to tackling rape and other sexual offences: it was a game changer for women in policing, and had the impact that was needed on investigations and prosecutions. It is right that the cross-Government tackling violence against women strategy of 2021 built on the work of those who came before. We have heard about the national communications campaign and the Enough campaign. We know of the work to criminalise virginity testing, the work that we did to change the taxi licensing regime, the £1.5 million a year spent on specialist support services dealing with revenge porn, and, of course, the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which I mentioned earlier. Let me now turn to some of the contributions that we have heard today. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) rightly talked about halting violence against women and girls, and also said that she felt somewhat sorry for me, which I appreciate. However, I must reiterate that the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which we debated yesterday, contains no additional work in this realm. These debates are important, and the Minister knows that. We need to do more than engage in general debates in the pursuit of justice. I welcome the work that was outlined by the Safeguarding Minister earlier, and we in the Opposition will certainly focus on the full eradication of deepfakes. As we heard from the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft), victims can never easily move on from the violence perpetrated against women and girls. Offenders may forget the details after their rehabilitation, but we and our constituents know that the victims will never forget. My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) pointed out the juxtaposition between what is done by the political party called Reform and its belief that other parties do not turn over the stones. What he said was right: no barrier should be unbroken when it comes to talking about what happens to women and girls. Where political differences exist, we can say in unity that we in the House must continue to enable women and girls to feel safe. We must agree that people can turn their lives around only by telling the full truth, which is how victims and survivors can feel that true justice has taken place. I welcome the cross-Government approach described by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor), and her focus on the subject of coercive control. Nothing will get done about that without cross-Government working, and I was very much part of that as a Minister. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) viewed male violence against women and girls through a public health lens, and said that a community partnership was vital. She also spoke about the dedicated work that needs to be done to protect single-sex spaces. Whether it is done in the NHS, by the police or through charities, we need a full picture, and guidance, showing what women and girls and expect, so that male violence against them is dealt with and people feel safe through that public health lens and, more important, in those spaces. The hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood), who is no longer in her place, spoke movingly, poignantly and bravely about the fact that the victims and perpetrators are the people we know and love. It was staggering to hear her say that women still feel like they literally have to fight for their lives. She spoke about rape threat culture, and said she was worried that her speech looked like a self-indulgent rant. Speaking up is never a self-indulgent rant. Dealing with the toxicity, bringing the power of women into the debate and calling people out is exactly the bravery it takes, and I pay tribute to her on behalf of my party. The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum), who is a very brave lady, spoke about the importance of employment and how it can bring someone into the next stage of their life. I pay tribute to somebody I worked with stridently at the DWP who worked on the employers domestic abuse covenant, which can help get people into work and on to the next steps of life. I hope she will lean into that. My hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) spoke about the change in the perception of what love is and the fact that, through social media aggression, violence in a loving relationship is apparently becoming a norm. She talked about the normalisation of abuse in relationships, how it is confusing for our young men and boys to know what love is, and the link between porn culture and desensitisation. She was right to talk about degrading acts that are not acts of love—they are acts of aggression and violence—and to say that we need to help young men and boys not to get caught up in that culture. That leads me on to my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands, who spoke about AI and tech, about helping men to find the solution, how we deal with these challenges and how our way of life is being undermined, which is very concerning. Despite the coercive control laws, the multi-agency working and the VAWG strategies of 2016 and 2021 and the one coming from this Labour Government, there is a change in the challenges of female genital mutilation, modern slavery, grooming and domestic abuse—and I reiterate that it is not domestic abuse; it is criminality in the home. It is not acceptable, and we must always treat it accordingly and root it out. Whether it is the updated internet safety strategy or other work, all of society needs to get behind the challenge that tech and AI will present. I thank the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen), for the focus that she is bringing to this issue, including on the importance of good male role models and the work on deepfakes. I turn to grooming gangs. The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), intervened on me at 1.18 pm to say that the ethnicity data on grooming gangs is collected and published. Will she and her team place a copy in the Library or share it directly with my office, so that we can be clear what data is currently available and where it is linked to? For clarity, we want police-recorded grooming gang ethnicity data, not self-reported CSE data. This links to the previous Government’s announcement of April 2023. This proper data was welcomed by Professor Jay, and it is very important. This is not about politics; it is about clarity and not letting this issue lie. The IICSA report looked at six towns our of what is now reported to be 50, so victims’ voices have simply not all been examined. I want to turn to bandwagoning. The hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh) rightly spoke about listening to the voices of the victims. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien), the shadow Education Minister, said that we are not going to let this lie when it comes to grooming, because we must not screen out women’s and girls’ voices. If we agree with the bandwagon, apparently it is fine, but if we do not agree with the bandwagon, apparently it is “politicising” to call something out. Many of us are here focusing on and dealing with causes because we are on the bandwagon—we believe it. It is what has brought us to frontline politics. We will never let it go. Bandwagoning can also come with purpose and real change. If we are going to not just halve violence against women and girls but eradicate it, let us not be afraid to deal with bandwagons.

16:44:00

As a Minister, I get given a speech that I am told to read out, but the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) reminded me who I am today, so I am going to give an impassioned speech. The first person I will respond to is the Minister, the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies). [Hon. Members: “Shadow Minister!] Sorry, the shadow Minister. No, she is not actually the shadow Minister; the shadow Minister with this brief is not here. The shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp)—he certainly got on the bandwagon—is not here. The shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), is not here. The Conservatives had to have the same person starting and finishing the debate. Do you know what? I will give credit to the last Conservative Government for the work that they did. I worked with many Members on the Opposition Benches to carry out lots of that work, but what happened was that loads of brilliant words were written on goatskin and rolled up somewhere in this building. Really good legislation was passed, including the Modern Slavery Act 2015, and the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which I remember being a Bill, because I worked on it—not that I am jumping on a bandwagon, too. What did not happen was actual, fundamental change on the ground. Being in this debate has been a little bit like being at my own memorial. My husband said that my house looks like a funeral parlour. The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) said she was pleased to see that my gumption has not gone away; I am indeed very much not dead. I have had lots and lots of correspondence from grooming victims—some I have known for years, and some got in touch with me freshly to ask for help with their case, which of course we will provide—and lots of child abuse survivors. I will read out something that a child abuse victim sent me in the last few days: “I’m a victim and survivor, and I gave evidence to the IICSA inquiry. I am angry at the lack of response.” He goes on to say: “We haven’t resourced the police, the courts, victim support, therapies, schools, councils, and I am angry that men, by and large, have turned this into a political football.” Lots of good words have been written on goatskin in this place. The hon. Member for Richmond Park said that cuts have meant that panic alarms have not been put in place and so forth. My hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) mentioned some of the cuts in her area; lots of people mentioned the issue. Do you know what has actually happened? It is harder than it has ever been for a grooming victim to get a house in this country—a place of safety where she can get away from the grooming, whether it be for sexual exploitation or county lines criminal grooming, in which we see terrible cases of knife crime. We could have amended the Domestic Abuse Act to give domestic abuse victims priority need. I pushed the amendment myself. Cracking! But it would have put them on a seven-year-long priority need waiting list. As for the Conservatives’ record on the courts and the criminal justice system, lots of Members have graciously talked about SDS40 today. The shadow Minister mentioned it at the beginning of the debate. All I can say is that we—many of the people sat behind me, as well as the victims Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), and the Home Secretary—worked tirelessly to make sure that this time, when it had to be done because of the terrible failures of the last 14 years, we put some exemptions into the system. I do not remember that happening before. As the victims Minister mentioned, the absolute degradation of our justice system over the last 14 years has left rape victims waiting seven years. People can jump on the bandwagon, and can speak in this building on the subject—I welcome every single word that has been said—but it is action that is needed. “We accepted 18 of the recommendations.” Cracking! I have “accepted” that I am a size 10, but it is not fact. Accepting something does not make it so; it does not change things in people’s actual lives. That is my response to the first speech. The Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen), mentioned Gisèle Pelicot. Many Members mentioned issues affecting women around the world, and we do not serve women in this country if we ignore the plight of women around the world. Gisèle Pelicot deserves to be the person of the year, or the century. What a woman! We have all watched what she has done with absolute pride. Like me, the hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Alex Brewer) came to this place from the sector; it makes me very happy every time that happens. She talked about the femicide data and the sticky nature of the list of names that I read out in this place every year—my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) said that it is also read out in Harlow. The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) talked about a case in her constituency that will go on this year’s list, which has not yet been read out. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington), similarly, mentioned the murders on Christmas day in her constituency. I am not willing to keep that list long. The Government have talked about the metrics by which we will measure change. Of course, I want to get rid of domestic violence and violence against women and girls completely, and I love the suggestion that halving it is unambitious, but I do not remember a previous target. There was no target. Femicide will absolutely be part of the targets. The murder of women by men will absolutely be something that we target and measure, because we count what we care about in this country. As my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) said, focusing on perpetrators is vital. We are working with the police to develop a national framework, using data-driven tools and algorithms, to track and target high-harm offenders. For too long, we have looked only at victims. It is about time we really started to target offenders. I will calm myself down for a moment. The right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley) said that when she stands up in the House to scrutinise our work—she did not say “criticise,” but that was the intimation—it should be taken in good faith, just as she always showed good faith when under scrutiny from me and my sisters. That is absolutely how the scrutiny will be received. She has a record to be proud of on both modern slavery and domestic abuse. She took a cross-Government approach to her work on violence against women and girls, and that iteration of the strategy was considerably better, and attempted to do much more, than the one that came later. I promise that my door will always be open to her. The right hon. Lady talked about welcoming Raneem’s law. That legislation is inspired by a woman close to my heart who comes from Solihull—the neighbouring constituency, close to where I live—whose sister was murdered. When they rang 999, they got no response, so we will embed advice on risk assessments in 999 control rooms, not just make sure that there is somebody there who cares. The measures will ensure that there is real speciality in teams, so that victims are referred to appropriate services, not just given the emergency response that they need. We will seek to put dedicated domestic abuse teams in every police force in the country. A number of Members talked about domestic abuse protection orders in their areas; I see the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) in his place. Domestic abuse protection orders are a good example of walking the walk, rather than talking the talk. The legislation was passed four years ago, but absolutely nothing was done. Then we took office, and set up schemes that are delivering arrests and custody for people who breach the orders. I suggested to the Home Secretary that we might ring a bell for every arrest we get during the pilot. It is all well and good writing words on goatskin, but they do not put people behind bars, or ensure that victims do not ever have to enter a courtroom to get somebody behind bars. That is the outcome we were all striving for, and that is what we have delivered. When I became a Minister, I felt I may have left a Jess-shaped hole to be filled by somebody who would always hold to account the person standing at the Dispatch Box. I cannot think of anybody better to fill that Jess-shaped hole than my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft. She talked about funding; I want her to never stop moaning about that. Apart from the funding from Refuge, it is not okay that grants for the work she talked about come solely from the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, which are represented on the Front Bench by Ministers. It is not okay that health services across the country do not fundamentally take on this work. We are grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch (Katrina Murray) for her beautiful and impassioned speech, but it is not okay that looking at welfare is not a fundamental part of the duty of jobcentres in every part of the country. As many hon. Members have said, domestic abuse affects so many areas of the life of those affected, and just 10% of women affected get a criminal justice response. As my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum), who is a brilliant advocate on this issue, said, working across Government is the only way to tackle violence against women and girls, and that is exactly what we will do. I am running out of time. Before the hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) took her seat, her predecessor, Sir Gary Streeter, came to me and said, “You will love the woman who I think will replace me—she’s an absolute cracker.” He was not wrong. She talked about a terrible incident in her area, and she led a local response—essentially, an inquiry—that led to recommendations that changed things on the ground. Well done on that, because that is what works. I want to make special mention of the deft manner in which my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh) spoke, and I also want to mention Sara Rowbotham, the whistleblower in the Rochdale case. Hon. Members do not need to look in Hansard to see if I have referred to this case before; I wrote a book six years ago about Sara Rowbotham being a whistleblower in Rochdale. She is one of the bravest and best people I have ever worked with. As for the Johnny-come-lately shadow Justice Secretary, I look forward to reading the book he is writing on the subject. I am about to run out of time. I just want to say a massive thank you to everybody who spoke; I am sorry I have not been able to mention them all. I cannot stress enough that the thing that matters is making something actually happen. As for waving flags, that time is over. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the matter of tackling violence against women and girls.