Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

I thank every Member who has spoken today; it is always good to hear passion on this subject.

I must start by saying that I welcome the fact that men’s violence against women—that is absolutely what it should be called; if we do not name it, we will not deal with it—has been added to the national policing priority. I have stood in this exact spot calling for such violence to be a serious crime and for that to happen—for over a year initially, and then since it was required last autumn by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services. I am very glad that is now going to be the case, although I look forward to having more detail on how it is going to play out.

Today’s motion

“calls on the Government to increase the number of specialist rape and serious sexual offences units, improve police training to secure better outcomes for victims, introduce effective national management and monitoring of domestic abuse and sexual offenders and urgently publish the perpetrator strategy in full.”

As is customary, I will go through some of the things said in the debate by some brilliant Members on both sides of the House, starting with the funny feeling of déjà vu of my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper)—I wrote her constituency down as I always get the names in the wrong order—having called for similar things and having stood here and said the same thing in 2014. I often say to young women who come to me and ask how to become an activist, “Practise saying the same thing over and over again, because that is basically the gig.”

For me, there is not as much of a sense of déjà vu, because at the time my right hon. Friend was referring to I was working in frontline service and had been for some time. Back then, there was some legacy, before some of the worst ravages of the cuts came in. We had specialist domestic abuse courts in operation, for instance; most of those that I worked in have now gone. I know that Government Ministers will stand here and talk about some of the funding they have been put in and, as always, say it is more funding than ever before, without ever considering that the vast majority of funding that goes to victims of domestic abuse, certainly in community-based support services and definitely in refuge-based services, does not come directly from the Government. It slightly jukes the stats to say that central Government are giving more money, because actually most of the money came from local authorities. I stand here representing the Labour Home Office team, and Home Office and Justice Ministers sit opposite us. The reality is that this is a completely cross-cutting issue across health, education and local councils, more than any other, and it is not accurate to suggest there is more funding going in now without taking into account measures such as the Supporting People funding that used to come down.

My right hon. Friend talked about what has been done not being enough—not matching the reality of what people feel on the ground. I understand it is a Government Minister’s job to stand in front of us and tell us the good things they are doing, and they do it well. Without question, every single Minister in front of me right now absolutely feels as strongly as I do about this; I have absolutely no doubt about that. I know they have to stand here and say, “We have done this and we have done that,” but out there it does not feel like anything has been done. Out there, if we speak to victims—as I am sure they do—they tell a completely different story; it feels as if it is getting worse.

My right hon. Friend talked a lot about political will and I want to share something said by Laura Bates from Everyday Sexism. She was on an event with me last week and she said that last year there were two big crises that she wished to compare. Obviously, in March we had the outpouring of the country and women coming forward again and again and saying, “This is it”, and it really felt like a moment in the country; it really felt like this is a national crisis—“You get it; it’s an epidemic.” So, a few little things were announced here and there in that period, none of which, I have to say, really came to fruition. I am not criticising that, as I did not think they were particularly good ideas. A few months later, however, it was announced that there might be a European super league—Members will have to stay with me on this one. For seven days after it was announced, a European super league floated across the consciousness of our country. God forbid, I could not say what the European super league was, and I do not know what the other leagues are; I know nothing about the leagues and I do not need to pretend. I do know which team is Aston Villa; that is literally the beginning and end of my knowledge. In that time, however, we had a moment where our Prime Minister called an emergency and said, “The culture in our country is threatened; it will undermine the very fabric of British culture to have a European super league”, regardless of the fact that I believe he may have said some different things before, but he picks and chooses. He had everybody into No. 10. The then Health Secretary said there should be a special tax to penalise those clubs planning to be involved in the super league. The Prime Minister said, “I’m going to put a legislative bomb up this; we will get emergency legislation on the Floor of this House.”

Oh, to be the European super league! What I would not give to be the European super league. Where is the legislative bomb for the epidemic of violence against women and girls? Where is it? Where is the new tax—the new tax being proposed to penalise those football clubs for their bad behaviour? Where is my new tax? Where is it? Where is the same gumption? Where is the Prime Minister, stopping everything and calling everybody in? It does not happen and that is why we get frustrated. The Minister can say it does happen, but out there it does not feel anything like that.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, and many other Members talked about the need for escalation of this issue and the problems when escalation of the problem is not being dealt with, which I will come on to specifically with regard to our call for perpetrator strategies. Many Members mentioned the lack of a current perpetrator strategy. I realise we are awaiting it; however, these things often get delayed and I would appreciate the Minister saying when it might come.

My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) spoke passionately about the issue of complex needs, which often gets forgotten. I was never in favour of the Government removing domestic abuse from the violence against women and girls strategy. The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) talked about the attrition rate in court, and what rarely gets discussed is that the reason there is a huge attrition rate in court for rape and a lack of charging is that those rapes are happening in people’s relationships. When we talk about rape convictions we often think of them in terms of stranger rape or people being raped in nightclubs, but the vast majority are in people’s relationships. What happens is that there is a jockeying in a courtroom or at charges: “Look, I reckon we can get him on this charge, but he’s not going to wear being called a sex offender, so how about we take through this charge and not that one?” I have seen that hundreds of times, such as at charge: “Well, it will be very hard to get a rape charge, but we will be able to get him on a summary offence of this or that,” and the victim’s response is just, “Okay.” The reality of the removal of the two strategies is in what my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East was talking about. These are people with complex needs. There are cases of substance misuse, domestic abuse, mental health and the prostitution of women, but they do not affect separate women. In most cases—in the domestic abuse and rape cases—it is the same woman, and we have not done anywhere near enough to make that part of the strategy. Actually, as I and everybody in the sector said at the time, separating the strategies was potentially not wise, and I would very much say that that needs to be discussed again.

With regard to what the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst said on disclosure, of course we recognise that evidence must be gathered, but searching somebody’s phone should not take a year. The rape review says that by the end of this Parliament—who knows when that will be, but I am hoping that it will be sooner rather than later—it will be down to one day. So we will have to wait two years for that. But why on earth do people raped by a stranger have to give up their phones? When I have suffered from a crime, I have never been asked to give my phone in. No one says, “Your car was nicked? Give us your phone.” That does not happen, yet it does for stranger rape cases—I have seen many cases like that. How can that be?

I am proud to work alongside the hon. Member for Newbury (Laura Farris). Everything that she said in her three points was exactly right. We should all listen to everything that she said. I genuinely feel the spirit of cross-party working on this issue.

My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) made it clear what it feels like for victims when they are failed. Actually, we hear that quite a lot. What we do not hear is the brilliant thing she said about how perpetrators are probably just planning when they will do their DIY. Ministers stand in front of us and say that the very good campaign that they have launched has shown that perpetrators will not be tolerated—[Interruption.] Okay, the Minister says that she launched it only yesterday. However, while she said it will show perpetrators how their actions will not be tolerated, every single man bar one who rapes somebody tomorrow will walk out of a police station with nothing having happened to them. That is what shows rape being tolerated—that is what victims say to me—and that happens far too often, again and again. That has to change.

We do not have a functioning criminal justice system, and as the Victims’ Commissioner said, that has allowed for the decriminalisation of rape. A system where one in six female rape victims feel completely unable even to report a rape to the police is not a functioning system that does not tolerate harm.

In recent weeks, I have been meeting survivors of domestic abuse as part of the Labour green paper process. The conversations have been heartbreaking and infuriating as well as inspiring. Resilience in the face of such horror drives many of us in the Chamber, but the one point repeatedly raised was how abusive the criminal justice process was from the first interaction with the police through to the courts. The level of abuse that we currently tolerate deserves a legislative bomb.

Many people have called for a perpetrator strategy to be brought forward. This morning, along with my brilliant hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), I was on a call with Nicole Jacobs, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, who said that at the moment she could not speak to the operational issues with monitoring repeat offenders. Every single report, whether through Operation Soteria, Operation Bluestone or Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services, says that the most violent abusers and offenders—those who offend again and again—are not being monitored or managed. If they were, that would have stopped every single case raised today of a woman who ended up dead. But there is nothing in what the Government announced yesterday and there is no perpetrator strategy in front of us. There is nothing that says how we will stop that and monitor those people as we would monitor terrorists or those suspected of terrorism.

That is why Labour’s motion calls for the most basic level of training. I should not have to ask for every police force area to have a rape and serious sexual offences unit—that is not a legislative bomb; it is barely a banger. I should not have to ask for specialist training for police forces. The public probably think they already get it, but by and large they do not. [Interruption.] The Minister can nod, but they don’t. All the data and all my experience say that they don’t. We also should not have to ask for violent perpetrators to be monitored so we know where they are and can stop them killing. The Labour party is asking here today for very low-level things that everybody thinks should be happening already. What I really want is a legislative bomb.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Maclean]

I am happy to respond that as soon as the reports reached us—that very day—the Home Secretary called in the police—[Interruption.] I cannot respond to the right hon. Lady’s comments from a sedentary position. I am answering the question she has put to me. As soon we were aware of the new issue of needle spiking, we commissioned the police to come to the Home Secretary and set out what they would do. All the work has followed on from that.

I want to make a few concluding remarks. Many Members have challenged the Government on why we did not do things earlier, and why we have not fixed things. If a silver bullet could fix all of this, I think we would have used it by now, believe you me. We have already taken action across a significant number of priorities, many of which were mentioned by my hon. Friends. We have been open and honest that it will take time, because we are dealing with a number of complexities. However, the work is backed by a significant funding settlement, not only through the victims funding I have already referred to, but through the funding the Home Office is putting into multiple support lines, helplines, charities, non-governmental organisations, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and many others who are working across the whole system to help us improve our results.

I do not think I have heard any Opposition Member mention the significant funding we have put in through the safety of women at night funding and the safer streets funding, which is operational in Birmingham and the west midlands—I just want to say that to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips).

[Jess Phillips]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rachel Maclean]

I will in a second, when I have actually completed my remarks. The hon. Lady has talked a lot about the systemic issues. Why are not we tackling misogynistic attitudes among young boys? That is what the work is doing. Why are not we tackling keeping women safe at night? That is what the work is doing, with additional patrols on the streets of Birmingham and other urban centres. We have safe student support zones and we have street pastors doing vital work out in the night-time economy as a visible presence on the streets. I will give way.

[Jess Phillips]

I can only apologise to the Minister that I did not act grateful enough for the money that has gone towards trying to keep women in Birmingham safer. I am not here to doff my cap to the Ministers; I am here to fight for the rights of women and girls. I will continue to do that, with every single bit of my tone just exactly as it is.

[Rachel Maclean]

Thank you.

I want to address one of the substantive points in the debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, but may I just check that I have a couple of minutes to do so?