Violence against Women and Girls: Plymouth

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2023 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I know we are quite tight for time. I want to show massive respect to the hon. Member for South West Devon (Sir Gary Streeter) and all those who he represented who are working collaboratively in Plymouth. He said that doing that was one of the commission’s recommendations. I have to say, given the kind of reports that get written, it is a delight to hear in this building of a recommendation actually being fulfilled. It was good to hear that this place needed to be involved.

There are many brilliant organisations in Plymouth, but I want to pay specific tribute to one that I mention very regularly when I talk about violence against women and girls general: Trevi House, which is one of only two places in the entire country where women can go with their children into substance misuse rehabilitation. I cannot express how important it is that that exists. Indeed, it is to our country’s shame that there are really only two, or possibly three, places in the country where that is available, because it is hugely important to preventing what the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) talked about. I know that the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) and his wife are heavily involved with Trevi; Plymouth should be really proud of that jewel in the crown.

That said, in recent years we have obviously seen some devastating cases of violence. Others have talked about the heartbreaking murder of Bobbi-Anne, whose family described her as

“a beautiful girl who lit up our lives”

and whose death meant that their

“lives will never be the same”.

The inquest into the deaths of Stephen Washington, Kate Shepherd, Maxine Davison, Lee Martyn and three-year-old Sophie Martyn continues as we speak, so it would not be right to go into that too much. However, incel ideology—which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) and others, including the hon. Member for South West Devon, who made a very strong and actually progressive case in that area—was undoubtedly involved in that particular case.

It is absolutely lovely to hear the fervour and the care that Plymouth has taken, but I am afraid to say that it will only ever be able to go so far on its own merit while it, like everywhere else in the country, relies on the infrastructure built for victims of violence—[Interruption.]

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order. There is a Division in the House, so I am suspending the sitting. There may be more than one vote. For the first vote we will suspend for a maximum of 15 minutes and then for 10 minutes thereafter, but I will continue once the mover of the motion and the two Front Benchers are here, so hon. Members should please be as quick as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Jess Phillips]

As I was saying, Plymouth, like other places in the country, relies on the national infrastructure.

I wish to ask the Government a few questions. Last year, the Government committed to making violence against women and girls a national policing priority, as the hon. Member for Redditch said, yet here we are, nine months later, and it has been reported that nothing has happened. Will the Government confirm that nine months after Ministers announced it, they have not yet made prioritising violence against women and girls a strategic policing requirement?

I could talk about what has happened in the past nine months, but I do not even need to stretch to then—I will just go back over the past few weeks. Yesterday, we heard that a man with a history of violence was able to sexually assault and murder law graduate Zara Aleena after mistakes were made by probation staff. The chief inspector of probation, Justin Russell, found that McSweeney had been wrongly assessed as medium risk by staff who were under “mounting pressure”. Mr Russell claimed:

“In this particular case we found a very heavily overloaded senior probation officer supervising a probation officer who had 50% more workload than they should have had.”

I could go on. This week, the latest domestic abuse stats from the Crown Prosecution Service show a crisis once more, I am afraid to say. From 2022, prosecutions are down 9.6%, while convictions are down 9%. Convictions in the latest quarter were just 9,587; in the same quarter in 2019, there were 12,467 convictions. That is a 23% fall. In 2019, there were 16,257 completed prosecutions; today, that figure is 12,672. That is down 22%. Those disgracefully low statistics demonstrate the Government’s failure to act, meaning that victims are kept in danger and perpetrators are left in our communities, in our homes and on our streets.

I am sure we will all have seen the media reports about the police over the past few weeks. The Met alone is investigating 1,000 domestic or sexual abuse claims involving 800 of its officers. Last year, the Centre for Women’s Justice super-complaint against the Met found significant inconsistencies in how cases of domestic abuse perpetrated by police were dealt with. The Home Office is responsible for the police. That is where the buck stops. Why are police officers accused of rape or domestic abuse not immediately suspended, as Labour is urging for? The public are astounded that this is not the case already.

Where is the promised domestic homicide sentencing review of the deaths of women, like the women killed in Plymouth? We are a year in the waiting. Where is the harms report from the family court review? Again, we are more than two years in the waiting. Where is the perpetrator strategy? Charge rates for rape have dropped to a shameful 1.5%—a drop of two thirds over the past seven years. Where is the action?

Plymouth has shown grit and joined-up thinking. I would like to see the same from this place.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Miss Sarah Dines)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Sir Gary Streeter) for bringing forward this debate on such an important issue, for highlighting the work of the Plymouth Violence Against Women and Girls Commission and for sharing the learning of the commission, to which I pay tribute for its work. I also thank those who made considerable journeys to come here, such as Councillor Rebecca Smith and Eva Woods, who has come from Peterborough. Much work is done on a community level, and that is very much how this issue will move forward.

Work in this sphere starts at the community and is also led at a national level. There is personal responsibility, too. It is only with all the sectors working together that fundamental change will be achieved. It is not just from the centre down; the things that work work with the community and individuals grappling those issues. I pay tribute to those locally elected people and those working very hard in Plymouth, as well as the Members who have always worked very hard in this place.

I reiterate at the outset how important tackling violence against women and girls is to me and to this Government. Indeed, the Prime Minister made that clear in his new year speech this month. We need a change of culture, and that is what this Government are doing. Successive Governments have failed to grip the issue, and I am pleased that this Government are gripping it.

The David Carrick case has underscored yet again why this work is critical. It is a horrific set of circumstances. It is tragic and dreadful, but I welcome the opportunity to use it to move forward. I echo the Home Secretary’s words of tribute to victims for their extraordinary strength and courage in coming forward. We must not only deal with perpetrators but encourage victims and survivors to come forward—with an onus on the perpetrators, but listening to the victims. For the victims to have suffered as they did at the hands of a police officer is almost unthinkable, and my thoughts are with them.

I express my deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Bobbi-Anne McLeod, whose life was so tragically cut short. What happened has understandably shocked us all, but particularly those in the community of Plymouth. It is shocking to the core. Whether in Plymouth or anywhere else around the country, we must use every tool at our disposal to ensure that law-abiding people can feel safe both inside and outside the home. That is a major priority for me and the Government as a whole.

Several Members raised the Keyham shooting. The inquest into those tragic events began just last week, so it is inappropriate for me to say anything other than that my thoughts and deepest sympathies remain with everyone involved in that matter.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon for bringing forward the debate and to all those people who have worked alongside him on this quite lengthy journey. It is a good cross-party piece of work, and change in society works only if it is from the grassroots up. It is encouraging to see cross-party work at that level. The words that resonated with me were:

“We are all in this together.”

Those were well-thought words, and I thank him for them.

The Trevi organisation and First Light were also mentioned. In my previous job, I had dealings with Trevi, and I travelled down to visit the area. I have always been immensely impressed with the organisation. It is just the sort of organisation that needs support. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), speaking for the Opposition, also rightly raised it. I pay tribute to it for its work.

My hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon was absolutely right that we need cultural change. These issues are deeply rooted in our society. We also need better support. The recommendations of the commission rang very true. The work of the Safer Plymouth Partnership, Moonstone and Operation Gemstone are all important, and I pay tribute to them for their work. It is an issue for us all—that is quite right. The violence against women and girls strategy and the domestic abuse work are fundamental, and I am pleased that more than 50 organisations around the city are delivering work on the issue.

My hon. Friend asked about additional funding and concerns that small groups are finding it difficult to access funds. That is exactly why the Home Office, with a lot of careful thought, is providing for consortia applications, so that those with expertise can assist those with lesser expertise to move in the right direction to secure funding. We need cultural change, as the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) reflected.

In relation to understanding why these things happen, the Home Office has undertaken a lot of research. In relation to the amount of research generally that is engaged, I am genuinely flabbergasted at the effort, expense and thought that has gone into policy making in the Department. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch has witnessed that.

As my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon said, we need to be a clear voice talking to the deeper causes of what happened. The Online Safety Bill will be amended in the Lords to reflect even greater concerns than when it first appeared before the House of Commons Chamber. The amendment will further strengthen it. It is a seminal piece of legislation and I am proud that it is this Government that is bringing it through. I do not accept the narrative that it is in any way inadequate. Legislation in this place rightly evolves and moves forward. That is why we have the House of Lords and the amendment process.

I thank the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) for her contribution. She mentioned physical violence and coercive control, and that is at the heart of her work as chair of the APPG on perpetrators of domestic abuse. The Government are rightly shifting their focus to perpetrators, and a lot of money is being spent by the police as well as with stakeholders to ensure that work bears fruit. Historically, there has been an emphasis on the victim. We know that from offences such as rape and all forms of violence against women and girls, and against men. We want to shift the focus from victims to perpetrators. We must change societal attitudes and stop misogyny. I agree with her on that, but I do think that the Online Safety Bill is groundbreaking and will be improved.

This Government introduced the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which the hon. Lady mentioned. I do not accept that it has failed to catch online harms. There will be a focus on using industry to assist in this policy area.

My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) made a valuable contribution. The death of Bobbi-Anne McLeod was fundamental in bringing about local change. I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s interventions; he mentioned the local police and crime commissioner, Alison Hernandez, and the work that she does. The work done in the south-west on Operation Soteria has been groundbreaking. All these things come together. There will be a moment when there will be change and I think Plymouth is fundamental to that change.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) reminded us of the dreadful situation in a part of our country and a part of the Union, Northern Ireland, and the very sad case of the lady who was attacked when pregnant, resulting in her death and the death of her unborn child. That is tragic. That is why we need a strong process in relation to violence against women and girls.

I do not need to go back to the great work that my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch did when she was in the job that I now have. She raised some important questions and wanted answers to them. In relation to the register, we are looking at the options. In relation to the specialist orders—the domestic abuse protection orders—we are continuing to work very hard in policy development. I have witnessed that for myself. We are finalising pilot sites, so there is progress in this policy area.

In relation to prevention, my hon. Friend is bang on—to use a colloquialism. The new statutory guidance on relationships, sex and health education is being changed and improved, and my personal view is that there needs to be better training and better education. If we want to change things, we have to get people while they are young, thinking about life and growing up, so I would like to see more work in that space. That is being done with the guidance to be taught in schools.

On transport champions, which several Members mentioned, I recently had the opportunity to speak to the British Transport police. We have appointed transport champions, who have given a set of recommendations that the Government are considering.

[Jess Phillips]

As the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) asked, what is happening with the strategic policing requirement? I note that the Minister has not answered that question, which both I and the hon. Member for Redditch asked.

[Miss Dines]

That is being actively worked on. Violence against women and girls will be added in due course, and if I have anything to do with it, it will be sooner rather than later. It was on my list of questions to get to.

I want to try to mention everyone, because everyone who has contributed to the debate has worked hard in the subject area and I want to acknowledge them all. When there is cross-party work, things really work.

Why do young men become radicalised? I suggest that one of the items in that complex picture is the platform that the internet has given young men to express their feelings without having to go out to meet people. There are lots of psychological reasons for that, and research is being commissioned.

I mentioned the strategic policing requirement, in respect of which a lot of work is being done. The police have to be part of this story, so I am pleased with the work of Maggie Blyth in progressing us forward. My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow), and Eva Woods as the Member of Youth Parliament for Peterborough, are very much an illustration of how this work can multiply across the whole nation. The Government can do their best to steer changes and pass laws, but fundamental change comes from individuals and communities. I am proud of the work that my hon. Friend is doing in Peterborough.

The Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, has worked very hard on this issue. She rightly talked about the work of Trevi House and said that it is lovely to hear what Plymouth is doing, and I could not agree more. Statistics for convictions are simply not good enough. Successive Governments have had difficulties, and I support the work of the deputy Prime Minister and the Home Secretary to create movement in this policy area. The increase in police officers is a start, but we need the whole culture to change.

I would say much more if I had time, but let me say that the Government do not lack any commitment on this issue. We are committed to tackling violence against women and girls—and boys—which is why we published the cross-Government strategy on tackling violence against women and girls in 2021. It must not be forgotten that £230 million is being spent on the tackling domestic abuse plan, which we published last year. That is groundbreaking, and more than any previous Government have spent. We have made significant progress in pushing out a variety of ways to spend that money. Just one example is the “Enough” communications campaign. It was groundbreaking: almost half a million people engaged with it. It shows a need for change, and that change will happen.

To sum up, much work is being done in Plymouth. The Government are supporting that work by awarding significant amounts of money to the Devon and Cornwall police and crime commissioner. Through the police uplift programme, Devon and Cornwall police have an additional 313 officers. The University of Plymouth has been awarded £670,000 for direct work to make the streets safe. There are now local CCTV vans. There is local educational provision and training, and there is the “safe spaces Plymouth” initiative. I could say much more if I had time. In general, the Government and I are committed. I thank every person who contributed to the debate.