Violence against Women and Girls: Plymouth

Alex Davies-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2023 Westminster Hall

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

It is, as ever, a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. It is important for me to speak in a debate about an issue that impacts communities across the UK. It is not isolated to Plymouth or Pontypridd but impacts us all. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South West Devon (Sir Gary Streeter), and I congratulate him on securing this important and timely debate. Having spoken to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), I know that violence against women and girls is a very active issue in Plymouth specifically, so it is important that we have time to debate the issue in detail.

I will keep my comments brief and fairly general, in the knowledge that much of what I say sadly applies, as I have said, to cities, towns and communities throughout the country and across the world, and is not limited to Plymouth. We all know that violence against women and girls can take many different forms, which can include, but are certainly not limited to, physical aggression, coercive control or harassment. In recent years, we have been reminded of the stark realities of what it is like to be a young woman in modern Britain. The stats speak for themselves: in 2019, the number of female homicide victims in England and Wales reached its highest levels since 2006—up 10% on the previous year.

But violence against women and girls is not just about murders or homicides; there are many more issues at play that have led us to the point where male violence against women and girls—as the hon. Member for South West Devon said, let us call it what it is—is too often treated as a societal issue that is a given rather than one that can actively be prevented. For example, there are significant issues with our criminal justice system, which has historically failed women and girls, as the Government have known for many years. I need only point colleagues to the brilliant Baroness Kennedy, who forensically examined the issue of discrimination in her incredible series of books “Eve Was Framed” and “Eve Was Shamed”.

Of course, many of the real problems around violence that women and girls experience every day on our streets, at home, online, at work and even in our schools never even make it to the police—let alone the court system. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on perpetrators of domestic abuse, it is clear to me that we need a long-term, whole-system response to ending violence against women that needs to provide justice and protection to survivors, deliver effective prevention, and tackle the societal attitudes, inequality and discrimination that underpin the abuse faced by women and girls.

That brings me to what I consider one of the most significant issues that underpins violence against women and girls more generally: misogyny. Colleagues may be aware that last week I had an Adjournment debate on the worrying rise of misogyny that many teachers are reporting among pupils in our schools. I think we all recognise that much of the misogyny is not new; perhaps there is scope for a separate debate on the history of sexism and misogyny, but that is certainly a matter for many other days.

Colleagues across the House have already made reference to, and must acknowledge, the role that social media plays in spreading misogyny online for all to see. I echo the comments of the hon. Member for South West Devon about the prominent so-called influencer Andrew Tate. I have made my position on him very clear in previous comments. Having done so, I have now received a barrage of misogynistic, aggressive and sexist messages across a variety of platforms, but that will not deter me. In my role as shadow Minister for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, we have recently concluded the Third Reading of the Online Safety Bill, which is a very important piece of legislation. Sadly, I, like the End Violence Against Women Coalition and Glitch the charity, believe that in its current form the Bill will fail to properly protect women and girls online. The systems and business models of many platforms often actively promote such controversial content, which gains significant views and therefore boosts their advertising revenue, but when it comes to keeping people safe now and in future generations, there must be a balance.

Something that I found particularly stark—I am sure this is the case in Plymouth and across the country—is the sheer number of young people I speak to when visiting schools in my constituency who aspire to be like those social media influencers. It is for that reason that we should not underestimate their influence on young people. As we know, the links between misogyny and more traditional forms of violence against women and girls are all too easy to see.

Ultimately, the Government have work to do to reassure young people, their parents, teachers and other trusted professionals that they are taking the issue seriously. While I proudly sat on the Domestic Abuse Public Bill Committee alongside the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), it feels as though that piece of legislation is failing to capture the broad range of harms, both obvious and more discreet, that are specific to women and girls. Part of the Government’s approach must be to consider the power and influence that the online sphere can have on the victims’ ability to seek help and in preventing perpetrators from being exposed to damaging material online, or directly fed it through dangerous algorithms. I would welcome the Minister’s thoughts on that point. I hope she will feed back my comments to her colleagues in other Departments. Only with a cross-departmental approach will we truly go some way to tackle violence against women and girls at its root.