Oral Answers to Questions
Jess Phillips Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Cat Eccles (Stourbridge) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)
The Government have set out an unprecedented mission to halve violence against women and girls within a decade. I say this on White Ribbon Day, and it is good to see everybody wearing their white ribbons. We are determined to tackle the scourge of domestic abuse in all its forms. From early 2025, Raneem’s law, which will embed domestic abuse specialist teams into 999 control rooms in order to improve the police response to domestic abuse crimes, will ensure that victims get a swift and specialist response when they call for help. We will also, finally, launch the pilot of the domestic abuse protection orders and roll them out across the country, which the previous Government failed to do three years after the fact of the law changing. So we will be providing stronger protections for survivors and ensuring that perpetrators are properly monitored and managed.
Cat Eccles
I thank the Minister for her response. My constituent Samantha Billingham is a domestic abuse survivor who now runs training sessions on coercive control. Coercive control is a thread that runs throughout all abuse, and I was shocked to hear that it does not form a core part of the training for the police, social workers or any other domestic violence training. Will the Minister meet me and Samantha to ensure that coercive control forms a key part of domestic violence training?
Jess Phillips
I have met Samantha Billingham, a local west midlands legend campaigning in this space, a number of times and I share my hon. Friend’s shock at the lack of knowledge about coercive control. All police, social workers and others in contact with victims of domestic abuse ought to be aware of coercive control and its insidious effects on the victim, and of course I would be delighted to meet her.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
There is a significant disparity in sentencing for murder based on whether a weapon was taken to the scene of a domestic crime or was already present. Sentences for murderers who used a weapon already available at the crime scene start 10 years lower than sentences for those who brought a weapon with them. Does the Minister agree that this disparity must be tackled?
Jess Phillips
I thank the hon. Lady and pay tribute to Julie Devey and Carole Gould, two of the parents who are fighting this campaign. A Ministry of Justice sentencing review is currently ongoing, and I know that Carole and Julie and Members here will want to feed into that.
Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)
Gregor Poynton (Livingston) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)
There is nothing more important for the Government than keeping our children safe. That is why I am appalled by the volume of child abuse that is proliferating online, and why we are determined to act. We are committed to robust implementation of the Online Safety Act 2023, which contains strong protections for children, but we will not hesitate to go further if tech companies fail to play their part. Our investment in the National Crime Agency, GCHQ, an undercover online network of police officers and the tackling organised exploitation programme is supporting our efforts to keep children safe online by targeting and stopping the highest harm and most technically sophisticated offenders.
Gregor Poynton
I greatly welcome the action that the Government are taking, but the fight against child sex abuse online is only as strong as its weakest link, and Facebook’s decision to allow the encrypted sharing of images makes it a very weak link indeed. Does the Minister share my anger that Facebook appears to be turning a blind eye while its platform becomes a safe haven for paedophiles?
Jess Phillips
My hon. Friend raises an extremely serious issue. I assure him that we very much share his concerns. The Home Secretary has met representatives from Meta and our officials are in regular contact. What we say in all those discussions is very simple. For years, Meta has been an industry leader when it comes to preventing and detecting child sex abuse online, and what we all want to see is it continuing to play that positive role and not—as my hon. Friend fears—going in the opposite direction.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
My constituent lost his son to suicide following exposure to an online suicide forum. He is sadly one of 88 known Britons, the youngest of whom was just 17, whose deaths have been linked to this one site. Under the Online Safety Act, the Technology Secretary has the powers to include such small but very dangerous sites under category 1—the most heavily regulated category—but Ofcom has advised him against doing so. Will the Minister press her colleagues in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to include these exceptionally dangerous sites in category 1?
Jess Phillips
I pay tribute to the hon. Member’s constituent. It is unimaginable for any parent to have to go through something like that. We at the Home Office are working incredibly closely with our DSIT colleagues as the Online Safety Act comes into force to ensure that it is as strong and robust as it can be. We are having those conversations daily.
Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)
Chris Bloore (Redditch) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)
The scale of violence against women and girls in our country is intolerable, and the Government will treat it as a national emergency. As part of this mission, we are bringing together Ministers from right across Government so that every Department does its bit, from prevention work in schools through to relentless pursuit of dangerous perpetrators. On top of that work, we have already begun strengthening the police response to domestic abuse. We will mark the next 16 days of activism with further announcements on our work to tackle spiking, stalking and other VAWG crimes.
Laura Kyrke-Smith
Charities such as Aylesbury Women’s Aid do brilliant and vital work to support survivors of domestic abuse. However, when these survivors interact with other public-facing services such as emergency or healthcare services, they are not always met with the same level of understanding. What measures is the Minister taking to ensure that survivors of domestic violence and abuse are met with a trauma-informed approach across all public services?
Jess Phillips
A massive thank you to Aylesbury Women’s Aid for the amazing work that it is clearly doing. I am afraid that my hon. Friend and victims are exactly right in their assessment. That is why we must have a completely cross-Government approach to ensuring that no matter where a victim stands up, all services take responsibility for their role in the lives of those who are suffering.
Monica Harding
As the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles) pointed out, coercive control is a criminal offence but it is often overlooked, despite research suggesting that it is the third highest risk factor in domestic homicide. In my surgeries in Esher and Walton, victims have told me that there is not a sufficient understanding of coercive control in police interviews, particularly when other crimes are being investigated. What assessments are being made of the effectiveness of the roll-out of the domestic abuse risk assessment—DARA—toolkit, which was introduced by the College of Policing in 2022?
Jess Phillips
A number of different risk assessment tools are used, whether DARA or Dash—the domestic abuse, stalking, harassment and honour-based violence risk assessment—which has a more historical grounding and is used more widely. I want the hon. Lady to know that it is impossible to read any domestic homicide review in our country for the past decade and not think that risk assessments, and how well they are used and operating, is something that we should look at.
Chris Bloore
Will the Minister join me in thanking the incredible staff at the Sandycroft centre in my constituency, who offer life-saving support for vulnerable people in times of crisis? Will she visit the centre with me to hear from CEO Lee McKenzie and the independent sexual violence advisers, who are on the frontline tackling increased violence against women and girls?
Jess Phillips
As it is very local to me, I take a particular interest in the Sandycroft centre. Such centres are invaluable to vulnerable women, and I would be delighted to visit him and Lee—it would be a 15-minute drive.
Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
Does the Minister agree that local charities like Jasmine House, which operates in my constituency, play a vital role in supporting women who have been victims of a sexual crime? But in addition to the worry of constantly trying to find funding, they are concerned about the impact that the Government’s proposed increase in employer’s national insurance will have on their ability to continue providing that help. Does the Minister agree that they should be exempt from the changes to national insurance contributions?
Jess Phillips
I pay tribute to Jasmine House. As someone who applied for funding for a similar centre, I understand exactly the funding pressures that its staff will face. What the sector really needs is stability, the assurance of more than single-year funding, which the Government are looking at, and making sure that we mitigate to ensure that there is enough.
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
Anneliese Midgley (Knowsley) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)
I have visited The First Step, and to say that it is run by brilliant Merseyside women would be an underestimation. Specialist “by and for” services play an essential role and provide tailored support to victims and survivors. We understand the challenges that the sector faces, in particular with the level of demand their services are currently facing. All decisions on funding after March 2025 are subject to the spending review process.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
Disabled women are almost three times more likely to experience domestic abuse and almost twice as likely to report sexual violence. Does the Minister agree that it is important for not only her Department but the police to work with disabled women-led organisations to understand the intersection with gender-based violence and the double whammy that affects disabled women?
Jess Phillips
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I pay tribute to Stay Safe East, one of very few specialist disability and domestic abuse charities. Without “by and for” services, we simply would not be serving most of the women in our country who need support.
Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)
A report published today shows that 60,000 hours are taken up each year investigating non-crime hate incidents. Does the Minister agree that confidence in the police could be restored if they prioritised their time and resources to investigate actual crime rather than hurt feelings?
Director of Labour Market Enforcement: Interim Annual Strategy 2024-25
Jess Phillips Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)
Alongside the Minister with responsibility for employment rights, competition and markets, my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders), I am today publishing the labour market enforcement annual strategy for 2024-25, submitted by the Director of Labour Market Enforcement, Margaret Beels OBE. The strategy will be available on gov.uk.
The director’s role was created by the Immigration Act 2016 to bring better focus and strategic co-ordination to the enforcement of labour market legislation by the three enforcement bodies which are responsible for state enforcement of specific employment rights:
The Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate;
His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs national minimum and living wage enforcement team; and
The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority.
Under section 2 of the Act, the director is required to prepare an annual labour market enforcement strategy that assesses the scale and nature of non-compliance in the labour market, and sets priorities for future enforcement by the three enforcement bodies and the allocation of resources needed to deliver those priorities. The annual strategy, once approved, is laid before Parliament. The director is a statutory office-holder independent from Government, but accountable to the Secretary of State for Business and Trade and the Home Secretary.
In line with the obligations under the Act, Margaret Beels submitted this strategy for 2024-25 on 25 March 2024—it has since been revised and resubmitted to the new administration. This strategy continues on from the 2023-24 strategy by using the same four themes to provide an assessment of the scale and nature of non-compliance, and notes sectors where the risk level has changed. The strategy sets out the DLME’s desire to achieve improved cohesion and join-up between the DLME and the three state enforcement bodies through non-legislative measures, including suggestions of where the enforcement bodies and sponsor departments should be focusing their efforts.
The Government’s view is that the enforcement bodies have been funded sufficiently to deliver the activities set out in the strategy. The DLME carried out stakeholder engagement for the 2024-25 strategy with a call for evidence. In previous years, the Government published a response to the strategy setting out the approach we will take to the recommendations. Following their submission, the enforcement bodies have had an opportunity to review the recommendations, and we have sought agreement on the recommendations ahead of publication of the strategy.
As part of the Government’s commitment and in line with the ambition set out in Make Work Pay, the Fair Work Agency will bring together existing state enforcement functions and incorporate a wider range of employment rights. The DLME, as do we, consider the recommendations to still be appropriate to not only co-ordinate the enforcement of labour market legislation currently, but to help pave the way for the FWA by continuing to support the close collaboration of the enforcement bodies.
I thank the DLME for her strategy and encourage her to continue to work closely with stakeholders and the enforcement bodies.
[HCWS219]
Oral Answers to Questions
Jess Phillips Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)
Restoring confidence in policing is one of the core aims of the Government’s safer streets mission. That means ensuring robust responses to the crimes that devastate lives and corrode our communities. We are also committed to improving police standards, and will announce steps to strengthen the police misconduct and vetting system shortly.
Matt Western
It is almost two years since Warwickshire police issued a community protection notice against Warwickshire hunt. Eight months later, it was mysteriously replaced by a secret protocol. The police and crime commissioner, who receives financial support from the Countryside Alliance, claims that he knew nothing of the protocol. The chief constable refused to give me a copy and now she has resigned, claiming retirement. Trust in the PCC and the leadership of Warwickshire police has been seriously damaged. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the need for a truly independent inquiry, as opposed to the sham one being undertaken by the PCC?
Jess Phillips
I thank my hon. Friend and as a local to Warwickshire I take a keen interest in those matters myself. Of course, I will meet him, along with the Minister for Policing, Fire and Crime Prevention, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson). It is vital that the public can trust that those who police us, and who are in charge of our police, are held to account as everybody else should be.
Jayne Kirkham
Despite town and city councils in Cornwall employing street rangers and antisocial behaviour officers and having ShopWatch radios funded from their precept or business improvement districts, shop managers still struggle with shoplifting and ASB. The record under our Conservative PCC on answering and responding to 101 calls is poor, and those crimes are chronically under-reported. Shop workers feel powerless and there is a desperate need for more neighbourhood police. Can the Minister explain how trust in police and the rule of law will be restored to retail staff and shop managers?
Jess Phillips
As the Home Secretary laid out, extra neighbourhood policing is important not just because we need more police on our streets, but because when our constituents—shop workers and those who own businesses—call the police, if they get no response confidence drops. The neighbourhood police that there will be across the country, including in Cornwall, will help with confidence, not just with crime.
Siân Berry
I thank the Minister for her answers. We have seen a toxic culture in some police services, including WhatsApp messages that are racist, homophobic and sexist, displaying deep prejudice. Will she clarify when the multiple recommendations from the Home Office review into the process of police officer dismissals will be actioned, including changing the law so that those who fail re-vetting can be more simply dismissed?
Jess Phillips
I could not agree more that we need to strengthen this area, with women especially feeling less confidence over the last few years. We will announce in due course—I promise the hon. Lady that we are working on this at pace—how we are going to ensure that police conduct and vetting systems are fit for purpose, to bring back some of the trust that has been lost.
Mr Adnan Hussain (Blackburn) (Ind)
Although I welcome the Home Secretary’s response on antisocial behaviour involving e-scooters and bikes, I wish to reiterate the concerns of my residents in Blackburn. Will she consider not only additional powers for the police but civil powers for local authorities to combat hotspot areas before somebody is seriously hurt?
Jess Phillips
As the Home Secretary outlined on neighbourhood policing, we will bring in respect orders to ensure that antisocial behaviour in particular areas is targeted in a way that it simply has not been in recent years.
Mr James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
The operational independence of the police goes to the heart of public confidence in policing. As Foreign Secretary, I saw where political interference in policing is rife, and that is not a direction that the UK should travel in, so does the Home Secretary believe that it is right for Ministers to overrule the threat assessment of the police and security services, does she believe that some free concert tickets are the appropriate price for scrapping police independence, and after the appalling results of recent negotiations with the British Medical Association, the RMT and Mauritius, has she considered recruiting Taylor Swift’s mum as a Government negotiator?
Jess Phillips
As it falls to me to answer this, let me say that the right hon. Gentleman knows fine well that operational decisions for policing fall to the police, in this situation and in every other. I would certainly welcome it if Taylor Swift’s mother stood for the leadership of the Conservative party; she would really offer something that is not currently available. The substantive question was about confidence. The confidence of women in policing, and its ability to keep women in our country secure, dived under the previous Government, so confidence definitely needs to be restored.
Mr Cleverly
When I was Home Secretary, on numerous occasions I had to deal with foreign VIPs demanding, or requesting, a level of protection that we did not feel was appropriate. Does the Home Secretary recognise the difficult position that she has put her own Foreign Secretary in when such future requests come in and they have to be denied, as those individuals will pray in aid the protection package put in place for a rockstar?
Jess Phillips
I remind the right hon. Gentleman and the House that concerts were cancelled in Vienna because of a terror threat that the CIA identified could harm tens of thousands of people. I sat in this very Chamber last week in front of Figen Murray—the mother of Martyn, who was killed at an event in Manchester. The idea that we should not take that security seriously is, I am afraid, something that I simply do not agree with.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)
Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)
We are absolutely looking at how we can strengthen stalking protection orders. We will look at our stalking laws in the round, but also at how policing handles all cases of violence against women and girls and at the training that will be needed.
Jacob Collier (Burton and Uttoxeter) (Lab)
Gregor Poynton (Livingston) (Lab)
The Home Secretary may be aware of the data that the Internet Watch Foundation released last week on the increasing amount of AI-generated child sexual abuse content available to everyone on the internet, finding that it has increased in the last six months alone. That is clearly illegal, so what are the UK Government doing to stamp down on that horrific crime?
Jess Phillips
Let me make it clear that the new Government intend very swiftly to set up new taskforces to ensure that across Departments—in this case, with our counterparts in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology—we do everything we can to end the scourge of online child abuse, and child abuse not online.
Commercial Sexual Exploitation
Jess Phillips Excerpts(1 year, 8 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) for securing this debate, which, as she pointed out, is my first as a Home Office Minister—although definitely not my first on this subject, by any stretch of the imagination. From the outset, let me say that it is a privilege to have been asked by the Prime Minister to serve, and to work on some of the issues to which I have devoted much of my life both inside and outside this building.
We have an enormous task on our hands. Debates such as this underline why it is so critical that we make real progress in protecting women—and in this instance, men as well, and all people—from harm. We know that sexual exploitation disproportionately affects women and girls. As I said, it affects men as well, although those who are buying sex tend always to come from the same group.
It is time that we treat tackling violence against women and girls as the national emergency that it is. New Government policies will be announced in due course, but I want to restate that I believe passionately that change in this area is needed and, until it is achieved, we must not rest. On hearing accounts such as those we have heard tonight from my hon. Friend, I am not sure how we could come to any other conclusion. I will continue to work closely with charities and non-governmental organisations—I have met almost all those mentioned by my hon. Friend—to support services in advancing their efforts to protect survivors and hold perpetrators to account.
Turning to the specific points of the debate, this Government will use every lever available to stop commercial sexual exploitation, and all kinds of sexual exploitation. We are committed to tackling the harms that it brings. The most vulnerable in our society deserve nothing less. When looking at commercial sexual exploitation, it is undeniable that we have to consider carefully those who are exploited under the guise of completely legitimate prostitution. That is often the argument that comes back, but not one that we should recognise.
We are only a couple of weeks into the new Government, so I hope that Members will understand that I am not in a position today to make commitments on specific policies. However, I want to make it clear to my hon. Friend and all Members that they will be coming, and she has my word that I expect change in this space. Currently, the acts of buying and selling sex are not in themselves illegal in England and Wales. However, some activities that can be associated with prostitution are offences, including activities linked to exploitation, which she talked about.
The Sexual Offences Act 2003 makes it illegal to pay for the sexual services of a prostitute subjected to force, threats or any other form of coercion or deception. This is a strict liability offence, meaning that it is not a valid defence that the defendant did not know that the person was being exploited or had been subject to force or coercion. As my hon. Friend pointed out, I have very grave concerns about how well this works in practice—I am happy to say from here that it does not. Like so many convictions that we seek for crimes of violence against women and girls, the numbers are woeful.
We want to understand the scale of the issue and how best to respond to it. The Home Office is currently providing £1.36 million of funding to Changing Lives—I declare that I was the chair of the Changing Lives adult sexual exploitation partnership, though I am no longer—to address the current gaps in evidence of the levels and types of online abuse and exploitation, to help us better understand the pathways that are needed to improve support. This is important work and I thank the amazing Changing Lives for undertaking it. We are also providing £378,000 of funding over two years to Trevi Women, which provides trauma-informed support to women survivors wishing to exit on-street prostitution.
We are aware of the different legislative approaches to prostitution, such as those implemented in Northern Ireland and different parts of Europe. There is a wide range of potential legislative approaches. Further work is needed to understand the options we will have as a Government. I will work with the NGOs and charities to explore those options, ensuring that the protection of women and girls from exploitation is at the forefront of our approach.
The trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation is a horrific crime, and we are determined to safeguard victims and to bring ruthless perpetrators of this crime to justice. That means ensuring that the police relentlessly pursue perpetrators who pose the greatest risk to women and girls, using all the tools at our disposal to protect victims and get dangerous perpetrators off our streets.
As I am sure hon. Members are aware, sexual exploitation is a significant part of the trafficking space in this country. We will build on the Online Safety Act 2023 to ensure that online companies fulfil their duty to eradicate this exploitation from their sites. There is much work to do in this particular space, as has been highlighted by my hon. Friend. I have had many cases where this has not been handled well at all. Indeed, there are images of me on pornographic websites that I cannot get taken down.
We will use every lever to halve violence against women and girls in the next decade in the Home Office and across the whole of Government, with policing and other experts. The demand for commercial sexual services fuels the exploitation of women who are forced or coerced into prostitution. The use of commercial sexual services should not be normalised. We will look across Government to use all the levers available to change attitudes in the longer term, reducing demand for commercial sexual services and protecting women from exploitation.
We hope to see huge advances on the issue of sex for rent. I tip my hat to the now Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hove and Portslade (Peter Kyle)—