Oral Answers to Questions

Alison Taylor Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)]

2. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help tackle violence against women and girls.

[Alison Taylor (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)]

10. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help tackle violence against women and girls.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)]

The Government have set out an unprecedented mission to halve violence against women and girls within a decade, and we have already set out a number of transformative measures to overhaul the policing response to these terrible crimes. This includes announcing a £13 million investment in the new national centre for violence against women and girls and public protection, and we will publish the new violence against women and girls strategy before the summer recess.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

We are working with Cabinet Office colleagues and others across Government on the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. It is vital to ensure that any strategy includes therapeutic and other support for child victims, so that they can take action, and we can ensure justice.

[Alison Taylor]

Will the Minister please give consideration to women’s safety in and around railway stations? Will she focus on unmanned railway stations? I have many in my constituency.

[Jess Phillips]

Women travelling alone at night should not feel afraid, yet many do. We are committed to the safer streets mission, and to halving violence against women and girls in the next decade. We will continue to work closely with the rail industry, including the British Transport Police, to do that. Work being done includes a review of the secure station scheme, which ensures that train operators meet a set of standards for security at stations; and we are taking measures that support personal safety.

Church of Scotland (Lord High Commissioner) Bill

Alison Taylor Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 4th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alison Taylor (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)]

Like so many in my constituency and across Scotland, I have a lifelong association with the Church of Scotland. For so many of us in Scotland, the stories of our families are intertwined with local Church of Scotland parishes, not just through attendance at church on a Sunday, but through our marking of important life events. That link is evidenced in so many ordinary aspects of community life—at local badminton club meetings in the church hall, and at summer fêtes, jumble sales and coffee mornings.

The Church belongs to all our communities. It assists the elderly and frail in the community, supports young mothers, runs youth clubs, and makes commitments to international aid. My great aunt was an organist in the church in Bishopton, and in Paisley in my constituency. My two children were baptised in the Church of Scotland in Paisley, and my husband and I were married in Drumclog memorial kirk in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride and Strathaven (Joani Reid).

My sense of belonging to the Church of Scotland is no barrier to my appreciation of other faiths and other Christian communities. Indeed, the Church of Scotland has demonstrated a sincere commitment to ecumenical dialogue. The Catholic Church has been a willing and active participant in that effort. For more than 40 years, that has led to a shared commitment to people from all faiths and none working together, notably in food banks and many other community support services.

I know that my life is enriched by friendship with people of other faiths; the Church of Scotland has been similarly enriched. Today, for historical reasons that may seem odd to those following the debate, there is a legislative restriction on a person of the Roman Catholic faith being appointed Lord High Commissioner by the sovereign to act as an observer on the sovereign’s behalf. Such restrictions do not apply to people of others faiths, or indeed to those of no faith.

A change in the legislation is long overdue. I am pleased to support the Government in removing this unnecessary and unwelcome impediment to a Roman Catholic serving as the representative of His Majesty the King at the upcoming General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.