Preventing Violence Against Women: Role of Men

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the role of men in preventing violence against women.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Gillan.

I am proud to be an ambassador for the white ribbon campaign, which was started by men to help to end the scourge of violence against women by encouraging men to take responsibility for the issue. I am proud that this is the first debate held in Westminster looking specifically at what men can do to end violence against women. I am not proud that in the 21st century, in this highly developed country of ours, a woman suffers an incident of domestic abuse every 22 seconds.

Some 1.4 million women were abused by a partner in 2013-14, and the vast majority of those cases were not reported to the police. In addition, 28% of women report that they have suffered abuse in the home since turning 16. The horrific scale of those figures highlights the size of the problem, so I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting us the opportunity to bring this important issue to Westminster Hall. I also thank the hon. Members for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) and for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) for supporting the application.

My contribution to the debate will focus largely on male violence against women. I do not wish to imply that men are not victims of domestic violence; they are. However, the vast majority—about 80%—of domestic violence cases are perpetrated by men on women. All of us in the House should be concerned that the incidence of male victims of domestic violence in Scotland is on the rise, increasing from 11% of all victims in 2005-06 to 18% in 2014-15. Parliament may want to debate that important subject in the future, but today we are debating violence against women.

There have been significant positive legislative steps both north and south of the border, and the Scottish Government currently have an open consultation on establishing a new domestic abuse offence. It is hoped that the offence will be similar to, but wider in scope than, the new law recently enacted in England and Wales. Alongside physical abuse, the offence may include acts that are not currently viewed as criminal in the eyes of the law, including abusive behaviour that is likely to cause a victim to suffer psychological harm. That behaviour includes the deprivation of liberty and autonomy; isolating an individual from friends, family and wider society; withholding or controlling access to resources, including money; psychological control and manipulation; threats and the creation of a climate of fear, including threats towards children; and controlling or withholding access to healthcare, education or employment opportunities. The move would be welcome, and it follows on from the introduction of the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Bill and of Clare’s law, which allows people to contact the police and request information on a partner’s background if they suspect him of a history of domestic abuse.

I have been asked by some why I am so interested in the issue. The truth is that until a few months ago, I was not. I had not realised that the statistics were so shocking, and I had not even heard of the white ribbon campaign. In September last year, I was playing rugby for Parliament’s Commons and Lords team. I actually only played for three minutes before I was carted off to A&E for what was eventually diagnosed as a bruise, which is quite embarrassing in rugby. When I eventually went back to the ground, we were posing for pictures and someone put a lapel badge on me. I did not know what it was, but it was put on my shirt by a team mate. If I were allowed to say that that team mate is now sitting in the Public Gallery, I would, but I am not allowed to say that so I will not. He put the badge on me and we all smiled for the pictures, but I thought, “I’d better look this up.” I was a new MP, and the Daily Mail does not need any excuses to write stories about Scottish National party MPs so, just to make sure I researched the badge straight away and was pleased to discover the white ribbon campaign.

In further research, I discovered the shocking statistics. Like many others, I had just assumed that domestic abuse was on the decrease, but I was shocked to discover that it was not. The fact was, I had been involved in politics at an activist level for such a long time and I had played rugby—where the white ribbon campaign is fully active—for 17 or 18 years, yet I had not heard of the campaign, so I thought I would use my voice as a new MP.

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate, and I am delighted to be working with him on this important campaign. I am sorry to hear of his experience with the Commons and Lords rugby team, and I apologise for having to leave the debate early because I am going to the start of the super league season in the other code—rugby league. Does he agree that sports stars such as Ikram Butt—the Leeds, Featherstone and England rugby league star—and strong sporting heroes from all sports are ideal role models for showing that strong men are absolutely against violence against women in all its forms?

[Gavin Newlands]

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. Later in my speech, I will call on sportsmen, celebrities and MPs—men of all persuasions—to support the white ribbon campaign.

I am a father of two young girls, and I always worry about their futures—about how they will grow up and who they will settle down with when they are much, much older. As a father and as a citizen, I want to do all I can to stamp out the abhorrent use of violence and bullying that puts down and disempowers women, and I will work with anybody from any party in trying to achieve that.

In Scotland, the stark economic cost of failing to address domestic violence is said to amount to £1.6 billion. A 2009 study completed by Sylvia Walby of Lancaster University suggested that in England and Wales, domestic abuse alone costs society more than £15 billion a year in costs to services and economic output. However, regardless of the sums involved, failure to tackle domestic violence is simply not an option. The figures that I have just read out do not quantify the human and emotional cost that arises from violence against women.

At the very heart of it, this debate revolves around the premise and reality of equality. Some argue that we live in an equal society, that men and women are treated equally and that young girls are provided with the same opportunities as their male counterparts. Those people are sadly wrong. We are not living in an equal society, and still today, in the 21st century, too many men think they are in a position to overpower women and treat them as they see fit.

In England and Wales, abusive partners cost the lives of two women every week. Back home, Police Scotland spends 20% of its operational time dealing with instances of domestic violence. Domestic rape almost doubled in 2013-14, with an increase of 81%. Politicians are known to bandy about figures and statistics, and I do not intend to use too many more, but these are not just numbers; they are horrific and often life-changing experiences suffered by women across the country. The statistics show that we do not live in an equal society. They indicate that for too many women, this is still a broken society. With one voice, this Parliament should say, “Enough is enough.”

If there were any doubt that this debate is needed, by chance it falls in the week in which we have witnessed an angry outcry across the UK about the ridiculous and attention-seeking pro-rape blogger Roosh V. This small, pathetic excuse of a man has some of the most abhorrent views that I have come across, and is endangering the lives of women to further his own career. The views he expresses highlight the long journey that we still have to travel to ensure real, not perceived, equality for women.

A lot of good work is being done to tackle the effects of domestic violence and to enable authorities to charge and convict offenders. Efforts to prevent it from occurring in the first place have also increased. Both the UK and Scottish Governments are committed to eradicating domestic violence from our society and have adopted preventive strategies in combating it.

In 2010, the coalition Government launched their strategy entitled “A Call to End Violence against Women and Girls”, which committed to challenging the attitudes and behaviours that cause many women and girls to live in fear. The strategy is aimed at providing the authorities with the tools that they need to bring perpetrators to justice. The desire behind it is to adopt a partnership approach to preventing violence from happening in the first place. That is the correct approach to take—working across organisational boundaries to achieve a common goal. We need to intervene early, preventing violent acts against women from becoming the norm and working with all bodies to help eradicate domestic violence from our society. I will come back to the subject of prevention work.

The UK Government are providing funding to local groups that perform services that help to tackle violence against women. However, earlier this week Women’s Aid informed me that the current crisis funding for women’s refuges in England will come to an end on 31 March. The Minister sidestepped this question in the Chamber this morning, but when she responds, will she commit to a long-term, sustainable funding solution for women’s refuges?

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech. He talks about cuts to services. Does he agree that the Government are often clever in defraying those cuts on to local government? In my borough, Southall Black Sisters does very good work for black and minority ethnic communities on issues such as forced marriage, female genital mutilation and the impact of religion and culture. The organisation is being stifled at the moment because the grant to Ealing Council has been cut drastically, which is affecting its ability to deliver those services.

[Gavin Newlands]

Absolutely. It is often the people who need such services the most who suffer as a result of cuts. I will return to funding, but the hon. Lady’s remarks are welcome.

I welcome the fact that the Scottish Government share the approach of seeking to intervene early and to work with others to help create a society in which women and girls are free from abuse. The “Equally Safe” strategy, launched in partnership with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, is aimed at preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls, and creating a strong and flourishing Scotland where all individuals are equally safe and respected. One positive aspect of the strategy is that it not only sets out to prevent violence against women from ever occurring, but seeks to address the daily inequalities and injustice that women face.

The Scottish Government have supported the strategy with sizeable financial support. In March 2015 the First Minister announced that £20 million would be invested in a range of measures to address all forms of violence against women and girls, in addition to the £11.8 million provided as part of the Scottish Government’s equality budget for 2015-16. More than £2 million of that funding has been allocated to prosecutors and the courts service to ensure that cases involving abuse are heard more quickly. Some £1.8 million has been awarded to Rape Crisis Scotland over the next three years to allow it to expand its advocacy services across the country, including by having rape crisis services in Orkney and Shetland for the first time. Less than a week ago, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Communities and Pensioners’ Rights, Alex Neil, announced a further £0.5 million to help build stronger and more resilient women’s support groups across Scotland by helping to improve their infrastructure.

That investment by the Scottish Government amounts to a 62% increase on the previous Administration. Last week, during a hearing organised by the all-party parliamentary group on domestic violence, many groups raised concerns about funding for the services that they provide. Can the Minister assure those groups that not only will their funding not be cut but that they might see similar uplifts to the ones their Scottish counterparts have received?

I have spoken about prevention and about adopting a joined-up approach to addressing the issue, and I have said that eight out of 10 cases of domestic violence are committed by men on women. That basic premise is what led me to secure this debate. For the past few months I have been proud to be an ambassador for the white ribbon campaign, a worldwide organisation with active groups both north and south of the border. The campaign concentrates on working with men to speak out and challenge male violence against women. It urges men and boys to wear a white ribbon and sign a personal pledge never to commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women. Some 25,000 men have signed up to that pledge, and last year I tabled an early-day motion calling on all Members to support the work of the white ribbon campaign. I make that call again today and urge all MPs to sign the pledge, but this is not just about increasing the number of pledges; it is about creating positive male role models.

Other MPs have been long-standing supporters of the white ribbon campaign, including the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland), who tabled an early-day motion in November welcoming its 10th anniversary. As MPs, we need to show leadership on this issue. As public figures and representatives, we have a duty to lead by example. Not only should we sign the pledge ourselves, but we should recruit others to the cause. I urge all MPs to go back to their constituency and draw up a list of 20 male figures who are influencers in their local community. They could be faith leaders, community activists, business owners, teachers, sportsmen or celebrities. Target those individuals and urge them to support the white ribbon campaign and to pledge to challenge violence against women in whatever form it takes.

Unfortunately, unlike in Australia, Ireland and Scotland, where central Governments have helped to fund the white ribbon campaign, the UK body receives no state funding. The Government might be interested in learning more about the white ribbon campaign’s work, and I invite the Minister to meet me and representatives of the campaign to learn more about its campaigns and to look at ways in which the UK Government might be able to support that work.

Other organisations are working with young boys to prevent violence against women. That is the key battleground in prevention, and one project that I want to spend time talking about involves going into schools and working with pupils on the issue of violence against women. It might shock Members—it certainly shocked me—to learn that police figures suggest that between 2012 and 2015, more than 5,500 sexual offences were recorded in schools, including 600 rapes. That is an appalling state of affairs and underlines the point that much more preventive action is required.

We need to understand the reasons why a young boy grows up to commit such violent acts. I believe that no one is born a violent person, but along the way something happens that makes them become a violent individual. Working with schools is one way that we can help to address that issue. In 2012, the End Violence Against Women coalition published a schools guide to address violence against women and girls, which includes a factsheet setting out the different forms of abuse that women and girls disproportionately experience. The guide helps parents, students and local women’s groups to work with their schools to promote girls’ safety. The coalition also accepts that we need to intervene early to prevent violence against women from ever occurring and, in addition to producing its schools guide, it has called on the Government to commit to long-term investment in public campaigns to change harmful attitudes and behaviours; and to ensure that all survivors of abuse have specialist support, whether or not they report it.

The End Violence Against Women coalition’s young people’s service focuses on interventions with young people who use violence and abuse in close relationships. That work targets young people aged between 10 and 25 years old and focuses on relationship abuse, parent violence and abusive behaviour within the family. That is an important area of work as it helps to change young people’s attitudes and behaviours and create more positive relationships between young men and their peers.

Some fantastic work is being done in schools by teachers and by groups such as Respect, which goes into schools to intervene when there are signs of abusive behaviour. However, a lot of that necessary work is interventional in nature. We should be looking to use the expertise of groups such as Women’s Aid, the white ribbon campaign and others by letting them go into our schools early and often to speak to young children about relationships, respect and domestic violence. There is evidence to suggest that boys’ attitudes harden when they reach their teenage years, so to get through to them, engagement needs to be either early in high school or later on in primary school, or in my opinion, both.

Will the Minister expand on some of the other work going on in schools that is aimed at preventing violence against women? That is an important area, as we want our boys to treat girls with respect and as equals from a young age. Can she assure us that she will consider implementing a formal national programme of engagement, rather than the current fractured localised work? I would also like her to respond to the calls from Women’s Aid and others for the Government to make sex and relationships education and personal, social, health and economic education a statutory part of the national curriculum. That would help to ensure that all boys and girls had the opportunity to learn about healthy, mutually respectful communication and the meaning of consent, and to be encouraged to develop broader, more flexible gender roles.

The Government have made progress and have done reasonably well in some areas, but they need a helpful shove in others. If we are to achieve the success that we all want in ending violence against women, we need an effective justice system that truly understands the issue and punishes those who commit such atrocious acts. That includes working with those who are serving time in the justice system as a result of committing violent acts against women.

Respect works with perpetrators of domestic violence, and as well as running an advice service for male victims of domestic violence, it runs a series of specialist domestic violence prevention services. Those services focus on changing perpetrators’ behaviour and managing their risk, and the safety of victims, including children, is at their heart. Such services help to prevent repeat cases of domestic violence and help us gain knowledge of why people resort to violence in the first place.

A four-year study conducted in the United States evaluating a similar service to Respect’s specialist domestic violence services showed a clear de-escalation of re-assault and other forms of abuse over time, with the vast majority of men reaching sustained non-violence. The services that Respect provides are extremely important, and I urge the Government to work with it, because we need to do more work with perpetrators. We need to help change their behaviour to prevent repeated abuse and to gain knowledge of the causes of domestic violence. All perpetrators of domestic abuse should be encouraged to enter rehabilitation programmes during and after their incarceration.

My final point is about the ratification, or lack thereof, of the Istanbul convention. The Government signed that document on 8 June 2012. Three and a half years is a long time to delay ratifying something to which they have already agreed. This morning, the Minister reassured us that the convention will be ratified once the one remaining issue with the devolved Administrations is resolved. What is that issue, and is she in a position to give Members an indication of when it will be resolved so that ratification can take place? The convention is important as it argues that no single agency or institution can address violence against women alone. The legally binding framework stresses the need for partnership working, intervening early and having a series of integrated policies that stretch across all Government Departments and across sectors. Ratifying the convention will send a clear and strong message about the UK Government’s commitment to eradicating violence against women from our society.

Tackling and defeating violence against women is one of the rare issues that unifies this Parliament. However, we should not allow that consensus to foster complacency. There are still too many women who are afraid of doing or saying anything at home in fear of violent repercussions. There are still too many young teenage girls in abusive relationships who are too afraid to get out of them. There are still too many children who go to bed at night and cannot sleep because they hear the violence that is poisoning their home. I for one have had enough. I pledge never to commit, condone or remain silent about men’s violence against women in all its forms. Today, as Members of this House, we must resolve that we can, should and must do more combat the abhorrent violence inflicted on women in homes across our constituencies and across the UK. It is an inexcusable shame and a national scandal that these violent acts persist in our society. We have a duty to fight back and eradicate this scourge once and for all.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Newlands]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I thank the Minister for her thorough response, but there were a few holes in it, which I will come back to at the end of my contribution.

I thank all hon. Members who have contributed today, and I thank the white ribbon campaign for attending the debate. It has been a good debate that has included many varied points. To highlight the breadth of the debate, I will touch on a few of the contributions that were made. The hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) made strong points about local authorities and the power of sport in getting the message across to young men. My hon. Friend—I will call her that—the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) spoke about her undying love for all men, perhaps bar the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). She also gave us a powerful account of her own experiences and those of others, reminding us of how far we have to go.

My hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) made a powerful point about subconscious misogyny and whether violence against women is nature or nurture, and my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) spoke of abuse as a fundamental abuse of human rights, and of the good work of her local council.

The hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) gave her own deeply personal story, giving us a different cultural perspective by talking about misogyny and abuse in the black and minority ethnic community. My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) paid tribute to Women’s Aid for its work and shared his concerns about our relationship with countries such as Saudi Arabia, whose record on gender equality is atrocious.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) spoke about the importance of education and the powerful Women’s Aid report, “Nineteen Child Homicides”, and highlighted the fact that the issue exists just as prominently in the LGBTI community. The shadow Minister reminded us that the UN views tackling violence against women as a priority and listed a number of detestable posts by Roosh V, who has been renamed in Scotland as Sssh V.

The Minister, in her lengthy response, spoke about the “what’s hers is his” nature of tax collection as recently as 1990. She spoke about promoting the white ribbon campaign but stopped short of promising any funding. Will she look at that again, and will she meet me to talk about a national prevention strategy in every school? She spoke about the Istanbul convention, which the Scottish Government are keen for the Westminster Government to get on with ratifying.

On refuges, nobody said that they are the only answer, but I ask the Minister to give the groups involved some certainty. The funding ends on 31 March, and they would like to know whether they will have any funding thereafter. It is clear that, despite some small differences, we can and will move forward together to end violence against women.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the role of men in preventing violence against women.