Violence against Women and Girls

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mims Davies (East Grinstead and Uckfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to be called in this important debate to speak on behalf of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition. I welcome this general debate being called by the Government on such a topical issue as we return to the Chamber in the new year. It is important that there is a significant focus on women and girls being heard in every single community. I agree with the Minister: enough is enough. That is one of the most magnificent campaigns the Home Office could have come up with, and I applaud all those who work in the Department on this important issue and who are focused on protecting women and girls in every nation, region and community.

I heard people being congratulated in business questions on their awards in the new year honours. One of those was Nicole Jacobs, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, who I had the pleasure of working with, and I know that Ministers will enjoy working with her.

Let us all agree in the Chamber this afternoon and say clearly that we do not accept any abuse directed at us as Members of Parliament, Ministers and people speaking up for women and girls, such as that we have seen in recent days. There are women and girls in our communities who want to know that we are here and are focused on keeping them safe. When it comes to domestic abuse or any kind of criminality aimed at women and girls in our community, criminality is criminality, wherever it is found. Domestic abuse, wherever it is, must continue to be tackled. It cannot remain untackled; it must always be uncovered. I welcome the measures that the Minister outlined in her speech and the strategy, in terms of education, support and the pursuit of justice, particularly in respect of deepfakes and intimate images.

I appreciate the focus on halving violence against women and girls, but that is not enough. Let us focus on pure eradication—that is one thing that those from all parts of the House can agree on. We can equally agree on how wonderful Dawn Dines is. She has led the Stamp Out Spiking campaign and brought such energy to it. In my brief time working in the Department, I wanted to see a focus on an updated spiking law, so let us celebrate with Dawn when that comes through.

We very much welcome the protection orders that have been brought forward. On behalf of my party, I want to thank and applaud all the charities, groups and networks that support survivors and victims, so that there is always someone to turn to. I would like to reiterate that: there is always someone to turn to, so please speak out. All too often, people feel that they will not be heard. Sadly, there is a leap from rhetoric to intimidation and then potentially to violence when it comes into the political arena. We need to ensure that that does not seep down into what victims feel might happen to them if they come forward and speak out.

Our men and young boys are key, as the Minister said. This is a partnership. Everything in life and in the community is a partnership. I have the honour of co-chairing the all-party parliamentary group on men and boys’ issues, and I ask the Minister to update the House on the men and boys ambassador and the ministerial work being done on this.

It is the duty of any Government to keep their citizens safe, and I am proud of the work of the outgoing Conservative Government. We did our utmost to fulfil that job. In the face of the pandemic and the war on our continent, we focused on ensuring that our constituents felt safer and that our commitment to this never wavered. Progress is best made when a Government build on the foundations of the previous one; perhaps this fixing of the foundations is one area that we can agree on. It was therefore a little bit disappointing to see in the Labour manifesto—some of us did read it—that

“For too long, violence against women and girls has been ignored.”

I do not think that is the case, but let us not have 50% of it ignored; let us have the whole lot eradicated. Let us ensure that the voices and the asks of the women and girls in our communities are listened to.

In the last 24 hours there has been a vote on victims of grooming gangs, which was very difficult. We need to set the record straight on why the Opposition are strongly focused on getting agreement that no stone should be left unturned on this issue. The previous Government accepted 18 of the 20 recommendations in the important Jay review, and it is disappointing that the legislation could not be agreed on before the change of Government, although it was put forward in the wash-up—a techie term, for people watching. Ultimately, we wanted to tackle the issue, and my party is again determined to work with the Government to get this moving.

The last Conservative Home Secretary to focus on grooming gangs was my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman), who rightly set up the taskforce that led to 500 further arrests and over 4,000 more victims protected. In all the hubbub of the last day or two, what is important is that the questions of victims and survivors are answered on the recommendations of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse.

The taskforce set up under the Conservative Government worked with 43 forces in England and Wales on supporting investigations into child sexual exploitation and grooming. It is right to give our police officers on the frontline the support they need to tackle this scandal. The Minister rightly talked about justice, but it must start with coming forward to the police. I completely agree with her: the crucial step of coming forward and saying what has happened is the bravest and hardest thing imaginable for a young child or woman who knows that the people around them should have been protecting them. We need to ensure that the police are there for them.

As a vital next step, let us all agree to collect the data on ethnicity. Let us not shy away from this. Let us get it and share it. This is at the heart of the matter. People feel that political correctness should not hold us back. To protect all victims from sexual abuse and abhorrent crimes, no stone should be unturned. This is further and wider than what IICSA investigated, which is why my party believes that a further-reaching inquiry is urgently needed. There was nothing in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) said, nobody in the Chamber should feel that they cannot raise on the Floor of the House, without fear or favour, something that is happening in their constituency. That is what we come here to do.

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

No one should ever feel afraid of raising any issue in this Chamber with me or anybody else. To reiterate, the ethnicity data is collected. It was published for the first time in November, and I am not entirely sure why the Opposition keep insisting that it has not been published. To be honest, the data that had started to be collected under their Government is not good enough, and we will be working to improve it, but ethnicity data is collected and published.

[Mims Davies]

I thank the hon. Lady for coming to the Dispatch Box to give that undertaking to the House. Our friend Sajid Javid and others were keen to ensure that that was out there. I am sure that will reassure the House.

--- Later in debate ---

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

As a Minister, I get given a speech that I am told to read out, but the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) reminded me who I am today, so I am going to give an impassioned speech. The first person I will respond to is the Minister, the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies). [Hon. Members: “Shadow Minister!] Sorry, the shadow Minister. No, she is not actually the shadow Minister; the shadow Minister with this brief is not here. The shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp)—he certainly got on the bandwagon—is not here. The shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), is not here. The Conservatives had to have the same person starting and finishing the debate.

Do you know what? I will give credit to the last Conservative Government for the work that they did. I worked with many Members on the Opposition Benches to carry out lots of that work, but what happened was that loads of brilliant words were written on goatskin and rolled up somewhere in this building. Really good legislation was passed, including the Modern Slavery Act 2015, and the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which I remember being a Bill, because I worked on it—not that I am jumping on a bandwagon, too. What did not happen was actual, fundamental change on the ground.

Being in this debate has been a little bit like being at my own memorial. My husband said that my house looks like a funeral parlour. The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) said she was pleased to see that my gumption has not gone away; I am indeed very much not dead.

I have had lots and lots of correspondence from grooming victims—some I have known for years, and some got in touch with me freshly to ask for help with their case, which of course we will provide—and lots of child abuse survivors. I will read out something that a child abuse victim sent me in the last few days:

“I’m a victim and survivor, and I gave evidence to the IICSA inquiry. I am angry at the lack of response.”

He goes on to say:

“We haven’t resourced the police, the courts, victim support, therapies, schools, councils, and I am angry that men, by and large, have turned this into a political football.”

Lots of good words have been written on goatskin in this place. The hon. Member for Richmond Park said that cuts have meant that panic alarms have not been put in place and so forth. My hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) mentioned some of the cuts in her area; lots of people mentioned the issue. Do you know what has actually happened? It is harder than it has ever been for a grooming victim to get a house in this country—a place of safety where she can get away from the grooming, whether it be for sexual exploitation or county lines criminal grooming, in which we see terrible cases of knife crime. We could have amended the Domestic Abuse Act to give domestic abuse victims priority need. I pushed the amendment myself. Cracking! But it would have put them on a seven-year-long priority need waiting list.

As for the Conservatives’ record on the courts and the criminal justice system, lots of Members have graciously talked about SDS40 today. The shadow Minister mentioned it at the beginning of the debate. All I can say is that we—many of the people sat behind me, as well as the victims Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), and the Home Secretary—worked tirelessly to make sure that this time, when it had to be done because of the terrible failures of the last 14 years, we put some exemptions into the system. I do not remember that happening before.

As the victims Minister mentioned, the absolute degradation of our justice system over the last 14 years has left rape victims waiting seven years. People can jump on the bandwagon, and can speak in this building on the subject—I welcome every single word that has been said—but it is action that is needed. “We accepted 18 of the recommendations.” Cracking! I have “accepted” that I am a size 10, but it is not fact. Accepting something does not make it so; it does not change things in people’s actual lives. That is my response to the first speech.

The Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen), mentioned Gisèle Pelicot. Many Members mentioned issues affecting women around the world, and we do not serve women in this country if we ignore the plight of women around the world. Gisèle Pelicot deserves to be the person of the year, or the century. What a woman! We have all watched what she has done with absolute pride.

Like me, the hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Alex Brewer) came to this place from the sector; it makes me very happy every time that happens. She talked about the femicide data and the sticky nature of the list of names that I read out in this place every year—my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) said that it is also read out in Harlow.

The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) talked about a case in her constituency that will go on this year’s list, which has not yet been read out. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington), similarly, mentioned the murders on Christmas day in her constituency. I am not willing to keep that list long.

The Government have talked about the metrics by which we will measure change. Of course, I want to get rid of domestic violence and violence against women and girls completely, and I love the suggestion that halving it is unambitious, but I do not remember a previous target. There was no target. Femicide will absolutely be part of the targets. The murder of women by men will absolutely be something that we target and measure, because we count what we care about in this country.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) said, focusing on perpetrators is vital. We are working with the police to develop a national framework, using data-driven tools and algorithms, to track and target high-harm offenders. For too long, we have looked only at victims. It is about time we really started to target offenders.

I will calm myself down for a moment. The right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley) said that when she stands up in the House to scrutinise our work—she did not say “criticise,” but that was the intimation—it should be taken in good faith, just as she always showed good faith when under scrutiny from me and my sisters. That is absolutely how the scrutiny will be received. She has a record to be proud of on both modern slavery and domestic abuse. She took a cross-Government approach to her work on violence against women and girls, and that iteration of the strategy was considerably better, and attempted to do much more, than the one that came later. I promise that my door will always be open to her.

The right hon. Lady talked about welcoming Raneem’s law. That legislation is inspired by a woman close to my heart who comes from Solihull—the neighbouring constituency, close to where I live—whose sister was murdered. When they rang 999, they got no response, so we will embed advice on risk assessments in 999 control rooms, not just make sure that there is somebody there who cares. The measures will ensure that there is real speciality in teams, so that victims are referred to appropriate services, not just given the emergency response that they need. We will seek to put dedicated domestic abuse teams in every police force in the country.

A number of Members talked about domestic abuse protection orders in their areas; I see the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) in his place. Domestic abuse protection orders are a good example of walking the walk, rather than talking the talk. The legislation was passed four years ago, but absolutely nothing was done. Then we took office, and set up schemes that are delivering arrests and custody for people who breach the orders. I suggested to the Home Secretary that we might ring a bell for every arrest we get during the pilot. It is all well and good writing words on goatskin, but they do not put people behind bars, or ensure that victims do not ever have to enter a courtroom to get somebody behind bars. That is the outcome we were all striving for, and that is what we have delivered.

When I became a Minister, I felt I may have left a Jess-shaped hole to be filled by somebody who would always hold to account the person standing at the Dispatch Box. I cannot think of anybody better to fill that Jess-shaped hole than my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft. She talked about funding; I want her to never stop moaning about that. Apart from the funding from Refuge, it is not okay that grants for the work she talked about come solely from the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, which are represented on the Front Bench by Ministers. It is not okay that health services across the country do not fundamentally take on this work.

We are grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch (Katrina Murray) for her beautiful and impassioned speech, but it is not okay that looking at welfare is not a fundamental part of the duty of jobcentres in every part of the country. As many hon. Members have said, domestic abuse affects so many areas of the life of those affected, and just 10% of women affected get a criminal justice response. As my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum), who is a brilliant advocate on this issue, said, working across Government is the only way to tackle violence against women and girls, and that is exactly what we will do.

I am running out of time. Before the hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) took her seat, her predecessor, Sir Gary Streeter, came to me and said, “You will love the woman who I think will replace me—she’s an absolute cracker.” He was not wrong. She talked about a terrible incident in her area, and she led a local response—essentially, an inquiry—that led to recommendations that changed things on the ground. Well done on that, because that is what works.

I want to make special mention of the deft manner in which my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh) spoke, and I also want to mention Sara Rowbotham, the whistleblower in the Rochdale case. Hon. Members do not need to look in Hansard to see if I have referred to this case before; I wrote a book six years ago about Sara Rowbotham being a whistleblower in Rochdale. She is one of the bravest and best people I have ever worked with. As for the Johnny-come-lately shadow Justice Secretary, I look forward to reading the book he is writing on the subject.

I am about to run out of time. I just want to say a massive thank you to everybody who spoke; I am sorry I have not been able to mention them all. I cannot stress enough that the thing that matters is making something actually happen. As for waving flags, that time is over.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of tackling violence against women and girls.