Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

May I say that there has been progress since the hon. Lady has been in her place? I very much hope that she welcomes the progress that we have made. Importantly, there is now a statutory requirement and, what is more, there is specific training to help to roll it out. We take her point that it has to be done in a way that is appropriate and sensitive but also effective, so we get the messages through to children at the right stage and the right time in their lives.

There is one way in which every single person in this Chamber can help and do something today. When hon. Members leave the Chamber, will they please share the “Enough” campaign across their many social media networks? Not only are we bombarding social media, but over the weeks to come we will have adverts cropping up across our towns and cities on buses, billboards, television and so on. This is how, individually, we can make a real difference today.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I am sure we can agree with all the sentiments that the Minister has expressed. There is one other thing that we could do, which is naming this for what it is: not just violence against women and girls, but male violence against women and girls. If we start talking about it and naming it correctly, that will be a very big help.

[Victoria Atkins]

Male colleagues are in attendance today, although perhaps not quite as fully as in previous debates, but in fairness male colleagues across the House have accepted their role and are very much working with us to tackle this. I have one slight caveat, though: when we talk about sexual violence, we know that it disproportionately affects women and girls, but I want us to acknowledge that men can be victims of sexual violence as well. We will be addressing that in our male victims paper in due course, but it is very important that we are clear about the causes and themes that run through this behaviour.

The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford rightly challenges us to share what we have done so far. I agree that we want to look over not just the next decade, but the past few months and what we have done. We have funded local projects and initiatives across England and Wales, totalling more than £27 million, to improve the safety of women in public places, particularly as we come out of covid restrictions on social distancing and so on.

Through round 3 of the safer streets fund, we are providing more than £650,000 to the west midlands to provide interventions, such as the bespoke VAWG public spaces-tailored programme offered to all schools in conjunction with the mentors in violence prevention programme and the violence reduction unit place-based pilot, to address harmful sexualised attitudes in boys. In West Yorkshire, we are providing more than £650,000 to implement interventions such as Student Safe Spot, safe routes and sexual assault referral centre walkthroughs.

Further to the point that the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) made, relationships, sex and health education became statutory in schools from September. We are putting support in place to improve the quality of teaching so that we support children and young people through school.

The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) talked about online crimes. The Online Safety Bill is coming to the House shortly. Precisely because we wanted help, assistance and input from Members of both Houses, and indeed from charities and campaigners, we opened the Bill up to pre-legislative scrutiny. We are going through that scrutiny at the moment and are very respectful of the Joint Committee’s efforts to draw our attention to parts of it. We are working with determination to make the online world as safe as we possibly can.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I am pleased to have this opportunity to debate male violence against women and girls.

My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) spoke about the online space, and I flag the work of the all-party parliamentary group on commercial sexual exploitation. We have taken extensive evidence on the prevalence of violent online pornography, which is ubiquitous and has, for some time, fuelled the epidemic of violence against women and girls.

Ministers have heard me talk about this many times, and I plea for them to look again at non-contact sexual offending and how it is a red flag for the possible escalation of offending behaviour into something far more serious. They will know of the case in my constituency where a man prowled the streets for months, flashing and taking part in acts of voyeurism. It was not reported, and he later got bolder and raped and murdered a student at Hull University, throwing her body into the river. I hope Ministers will look again at low-level offending.

The Government’s ending violence against women and girls strategy for 2016 to 2020 was clear about the outcomes they wanted to achieve by 2020, namely increases in reporting, police referrals, prosecutions and convictions for violence against women and girls, matched by a reduction in the prevalence of all forms of violence against women and girls, but sadly it appears that the opposite has happened. The volumes of police referrals, charges, prosecutions and convictions for offences of violence against women have plummeted since 2016-17, particularly for rape and serious sexual offences. Recent figures from the Crown Prosecution Service show that 1,557 rape-flagged cases proceeded to the prosecution stage in 2021, down from 5,190 in 2016-17.

I welcome the rape review, but I remain a little confused about which Minister is actually responsible for driving it.

[Victoria Atkins]

rose—

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Rachel Maclean)]

rose—

[Dame Diana Johnson]

Two hands are up on the Front Bench.

[Victoria Atkins]

It is me.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I am very glad to hear that because, of course, the Minister for Crime and Policing is also named as having responsibility for the rape review. There is a bit of confusion. As the Minister of State, Home Department, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), will know, the Home Affairs Committee has carried out an inquiry on rape investigations and convictions, and we will shortly publish a report.

[Victoria Atkins]

Precisely because this is cross-Government work, of course other Ministers are involved. We are bringing in everybody who needs to be in the room, but the Deputy Prime Minister and I are the leads. We own it, and we are monitoring it very closely and very frequently.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

That helps. The issue I have is that, unless one person is driving it through, things often do not happen. If the Minister is responsible, that is good to hear.

We are still waiting on some of the Government’s commitments on tackling violence against women and girls. Although there has been some progress, as the Minister pointed out—and I particularly welcome Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth’s appointment as the national policing lead on tackling violence against women and girls—many campaigners have said that a number of central pledges in the most recent tackling violence against women and girls strategy, launched in July 2021, have not yet been implemented. For example, no timescale has been provided for the Home Office’s work on potential gaps in the law on public sexual harassment and how a specific offence might address them. A final version of the statutory guidance on the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 has also still not been published.

The tackling violence against women and girls strategy stated that the complementary domestic abuse strategy would be published in 2021, but it has been delayed. The perpetrators strategy, to which the Minister referred, is due by the end of April. When the Home Secretary recently appeared before the Home Affairs Committee, she did not give a date for publication and, concerningly, she did not say that it would be published in time. I know the Minister said the strategy will be published in the coming months, but there is a duty on the Home Secretary to publish a perpetrators strategy within 12 months of Royal Assent of the Domestic Abuse Act, which was given on 29 April 2021. This is urgent, and I hope we will see the strategy in time. The domestic abuse organisation SafeLives has highlighted the fact that less than 1% of perpetrators receive any form of intervention to help address their behaviour, which is why the perpetrators strategy is vital.

The support for migrant victims of domestic abuse pilot is due to end on 31 March 2022, and the external evaluation is not expected to finish until the end of August. The domestic abuse commissioner has raised concerns that the Home Office has not outlined what interim support will be made available after the pilot concludes, with survivors facing uncertainty and, potentially, a lack of support before a long-term decision is made. In its report on domestic abuse in 2018, the previous Home Affairs Committee stated:

“Victims of abuse with uncertain immigration status are particularly vulnerable because they can have difficulties in accessing financial support and refuge and other support services, so they have few options for escaping from abuse.”

I am concerned by the number of gaps and delays in the implementation of the male violence against women and girls strategy. This is now an endemic problem. The Minister said there is a cross-departmental approach, yet the Government seem to be struggling to enact reforms in one Department alone. I urge them to speed up the implementation of their commitments on this sadly growing issue as a matter of urgency.