Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls

Alex Davies-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

This time last year, we met in this House and talked about the outpouring and sharing of stories of violence and harassment that women and girls were experiencing across the UK. Hon. Members shared their own experiences, talked about domestic abuse and the harassment that they had faced, and raised the concerns of their constituents, many of whom had personal experiences of violence. Across the country, women and girls, and men and boys, lit candles on their doorsteps and laid flowers.

My inbox was full of emails from constituents who wanted to share their stories and thoughts on violence against women and girls. More than ever before, I saw a real outpouring locally from young people, especially young women, who wanted to do something about male violence and who sadly already had their own stories to tell. We must ensure that those women are at the heart of our policy making, because their stories matter.

Before Christmas, I spoke at a white ribbon day vigil in Pontypridd where we were joined by a group of girls from a range of high schools in the area. They told me about the harassment that they had experienced walking around town and highlighted the myriad ways that they had been harassed online. They had all been sent unwanted nude pictures, some had been pressured to take pictures of themselves only to have them shared round the school, and some had been sent abuse by strangers on social media platforms. When we talk about tackling violence against women and girls, we have to be talking about this too, which is why I will be doing everything I can in the next few months to make sure that our online space is as safe as our streets.

It is fundamentally clear that in both areas we have work to do, and part of these conversations must focus on the work we can do with perpetrators. As the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), has quite rightly said, the focus of the debate today fundamentally should be male violence. When we focus too much on “violence against women and girls”, we exclude and minimise the role of the perpetrator. Of course, the violence that women and girls experience is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men, and so is the violence that men experience.

As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on perpetrators of domestic abuse, I know that understanding and tackling male violence must be at the heart of policy to address these issues. I am grateful that organisations such as Respect, which supports the group, exist to bring these issues to the forefront. However, this is not about legislation or policing strategy; we need a complete culture change in this country if we are truly to make women and girls feel safer on our streets and keep them safe in their homes. We are done asking women and girls to take action themselves; it is time we asked men and boys to take action.

The Government have long promised to publish a domestic abuse strategy, with a much-needed pillar looking at perpetrators, but as with many things this Government promise, we are still waiting. Can the Minister therefore update the House on when exactly this much-needed strategy will be published? The UK Government and the Home Secretary have talked at length about violence against women and girls and they make promises, but what do we actually see happening? Charge rates for sexual offences and rape have fallen, yet again, to a record low of just 1.3%, and women and girls face harassment on the street trying to go about their daily lives. The police recorded a total of 845,000 domestic abuse-related crimes in 2021. How have we got to that number? In fact, almost a fifth of all crime reported to the police in the year ending March 2021 was domestic abuse, and these are just the crimes we know about.

Thankfully, in the absence of any action from the Government, we have the likes of the incredible Karen Ingala Smith and her team, who have dedicated their lives to counting the deaths of women who fall through the cracks. I have also been privileged to speak to Professor Jane Monckton-Smith and the team behind the “Hidden Homicides” podcast, who have been campaigning hard to push for greater awareness and investigation of so-called hidden or unexplained homicides. These domestic abuse-related unexplained deaths or suicides must be properly investigated by the police, and the UK Government have a responsibility to make sure this is happening.

Frankly, we simply do not see the scale of the problem of violence against women and girls reflected in the Government’s policing and funding priorities. Our police services are facing huge challenges. They have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic, dealing with enormous difficulties, and I know that the vast majority of officers are doing everything they can to tackle male violence, but they simply do not have the support that they need. The UK Government proposals lack serious funding commitments, and more than a decade of austerity followed by a pandemic has left much-needed services struggling to cope under the strain.

It is absolutely vital that the Government commit to making violence against women and girls a strategic policing priority, so that it can be given the same prominence and resource as organised crime and terrorism. I therefore urge the Minister to please listen, and to commit to meeting me and other members of the all-party group to discuss these issues further. Tackling violence against women and girls is something colleagues across the House can clearly unite behind, and it is only by co-operative working that all of us will put an end to this unnecessary violence once and for all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Maclean]

I am afraid that I do not have the capacity in this debate to go into the technicalities. I have a lot to go through. As I have said, they are legal technicalities that we are working through with our friends in the devolved Administrations, which have a different legal jurisdiction. We can discuss that at another opportunity.

I thank the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins). We debated another tragic case in his constituency, or near to it, I believe. It was an honour to meet the family, and he is absolutely right to raise awareness of the importance of stalking protection orders. That is work that I am doing through the National Police Chiefs’ Council, to ensure that it is taking up those stalking protection orders.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) asked why we are not taking femicide as seriously as terrorism. That is precisely what the strategic policing requirement sets out to do. I am afraid that I must take issue with her comments about the allocation of funding in her area going to perpetrators, not victims. Those funding matters are local decisions. The Home Office will make funding available to her locally elected Labour police and crime commissioner, so she needs to take that up with her Labour party colleagues in the area. We have put aside national funding of £300 million for victims, so I suggest that she has those conversations.

The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) talked about honour-based violence. Just last Friday we banned child marriage thanks to the incredible hard work of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham). We fund many services helping victims of that horrific crime.

The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), who was very passionate in her remarks, asked why we do not talk about this as male violence against women and girls. Many Members have responded in that way. We do not shy away from talking about this as a gendered crime. As I said, we will publish the perpetrator strategy and all the associated guidance soon.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

The Minister is being very generous with her time. Will she meet me, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on perpetrators of domestic abuse, to discuss this more fully with the wider members of the group?