International Women’s Day

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Friday 10th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the privilege of being able to speak in this debate. I express my gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, for the way she introduced the debate and, in particular, for her concluding remark that much remains still to be done, as we have heard from so many speakers. I also extend a warm welcome to the noble Baroness, Lady Lampard, and congratulations on an outstanding maiden speech. I think we have an association, as I am interested in addictions and the noble Baroness’s work with GambleAware. Perhaps we can speak about the assistance we give to people, as an increasing number are having problems with gambling addiction.

I am a vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on 12-step recovery from addictions, and that led me, prompted by my noble friend Lady Donaghy, to try to get in in on her Oral Question on Wednesday. I will repeat her Question for the benefit of the government Front Bench:

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to improve women’s safety (1) from domestic violence, and (2) in the streets.”—[Official Report, 8/3/23; col 795.]


A number of the questions asked in that short debate were not answered.

I have worked on domestic violence, particularly in relation to alcohol and drugs, and in fairness to the Government, I am pleased to say we are seeing some progress being made on drugs. A very good drugs strategy has been drawn up, and I thank the Government for that. In due course it will, I hope, ease some of the pressures arising from domestic violence. I pay tribute to Dame Carol Black, who has led the work and the research and produced a wonderful report. I hope the Government will be willing to encourage and support Dame Carol Black in doing similar work on alcohol. They had a good strategy in 2012 under David Cameron; regrettably, it was not followed through. There remains a lot of work to be done on alcohol and its effect on women and girls, particularly those living on the streets, so we could do with a strategy.

Life for women has improved in many areas, as my noble friend Lord Monks, demonstrated, but in other areas we are still struggling and I regret to say that in some, we are going backwards. An example is pornography, which is a growth industry on a tremendous scale. We are seeking to address it through the Online Safety Bill but, regrettably, the Government’s attempts are falling well short of what is required. I welcome what we are doing to try to prevent children accessing online pornography, but clearly, the availability of pornographic content that depicts violence and abuse is not just a matter of child protection. I bring to the House’s attention the report by the APPG on Commercial Sexual Exploitation, which is well worth reading to discover the all-pervading extent of pornography. As the pornography industry grows, its impact on the whole of society increases.

We do not debate this enough. We do not stand up and say that a halt must be called or at least an attempt made to reverse the direction we are going in. Next week, some of us will be sampling the metaverse opportunities that are now developing, where you put a headset on. As I understand it—with others, I will experience it next week—what is happening there is really quite frightening. We now have censorship, in the lightest possible way, applied in the film industry and with DVDs, but there is no such approach adopted with regard to the material we have online. It is time to review that, to seek a change and to try to find legislation. We need to do that because I suspect that what will come with metaverse digital technology developments will be even more difficult to contain and regulate than what we have experienced in the past. In turn, there will be consequences which will, in particular, affect women and girls.

I hope that the Minister will say that the Government share the views I am expressing about pornography and its growth. What are they doing about it and what will they do to try to reverse the trend?