Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison Taylor and Jess Phillips

Wednesday 7th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[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.