Oral Answers to Questions

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to the shadow Minister, Jess Phillips.

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

In July 2021, the Government announced that a domestic homicide sentencing review will look at unfairness in the sentencing of intimate partner domestic homicides. According to Counting Dead Women, at least 105 women have since been killed. The family and friends of these women face immeasurable pain from their loss, so where is the domestic homicide sentencing review, which is now six months late? For the sake of the women who will definitely be murdered next week, may I ask why there is such a delay?

[Rachel Maclean]

The hon. Lady will know from our many debates in the House on this issue that we set out our holistic response to domestic abuse in the domestic abuse plan. If she looks at that, she will see all the work we are doing on the domestic homicide review. This matter crosses a number of Departments, and I am happy to write to her on the specific issue, but we are bearing down on people who murder their partners. That is why we introduced the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, why we are reforming the entire system and why we are putting multimillion pounds-worth of funding into tackling perpetrators, as I said to my hon. Friends the Members for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) and for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew).

Oral Answers to Questions

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I agree with the sentiments that he echoes and would be very happy to meet him to discuss the matter. There are many, many legitimate concerns about pornography and the wider harms—age access, age verification and all sorts of issues, some of which the Government are picking up right now. The online harms Bill is one area, but there are other things that we can and should be doing.

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

Since the publication of the VAWG strategy, rape charging has fallen to an all-time low, leaving more people accused of rape in communities than ever before. Operation Bluestone found that the monitoring of previous offenders was failing to use

“intelligence to establish whether suspects had been named in previous offences.”

Operation Soteria found that

“officers were not routinely monitoring known offenders of sexual crimes”,

leading to a “total lack of morale” among police. This week the inspectorate said that alleged rapists were escaping justice, citing a case in which an alleged rapist was acquitted after the police and the Crown Prosecution Service had failed to present evidence in court showing that he had allegedly raped two other people previously.

I ask the Home Secretary to set out for the House exactly where, in the strategy and in her plans, are the proper monitoring and offender management that will stop any offender, let alone the most violent and repeat rapists, because that is not even nearly happening now.

[Priti Patel]

As the hon. Lady will know, both the rape review and the criminal justice taskforce have been clear and explicit about the actions that are being taken across Government. Operation Soteria, which she mentioned, is being rolled out to 14 other police forces. It is important for us to fix these key gateways—the way in which the police investigate cases, the handovers to the Crown Prosecution Service, and how it all works throughout the criminal justice system—and that is being done as a result of the rape review and work with the Justice Secretary. [Interruption.] I hear the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) talking about “12 years”, but the rape review report was published last year. This Government are fixing many of the long-established problems in the criminal justice system that have led to some of the most appalling outcomes. We can all agree, if on nothing else, on the need to fix those appalling outcomes for rape victims.

Child Sexual Exploitation by Organised Networks

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Westminster Hall

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

Thank you, Ms McVey. It is not just a privilege to serve alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion); it is also really inspiring to work alongside her on these issues, and it is no surprise that it is her who has called today’s debate.

From point of view of the Labour party, we would want to see every single recommendation in the report implemented in full. My hon. Friend described many of these reports as being used to swat flies, which is how it feels to somebody who has been working on this for a decade. It feels like lots and lots of words have been written and literally no progress has been made. The Labour party would also support absolutely every single one of my hon. Friend’s recommendations that go further.

One of the things that is absolutely maddening about trying to interact with—I am going to say any part of the Home Office, on anything—is the issue of data, and the complete and utter lack of it. As someone who is very long in the tooth in this area—I worked with Barnardo’s and set up sexual exploitation services across the midlands over a decade ago—the thing that shocked me was the issue around disability that was found in this report: the vast number of children, especially those with autism, found by the report but not borne out by the data. There is no data on that.

We count what we care about in this country. Why on earth are we not counting? Why on earth—to the point made by the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford)—do we not have a full and complete dataset on both perpetrators and victims in this case? I cannot ring the Home Office today and say, “How many people from this area have come forward about sexual exploitation? How many of them have a disability?” I would be surprised if I could even get the gender data. What I would get is: “Oh, we don’t collect that and it’s going to take us too long.” This is an absolutely fundamental problem. It is a failing that has been raised again and again and again. I ask the Minister: please, please stand up and say that the Government commit to this—it is literally a form that the police have to fill in. It is not that onerous, and the data is so vital to our ability to tackle this.

Another area—where I am afraid to say the similarity with almost every other part of my men’s violence against women brief carries over—is the very shocking findings in the report about the

“difficulties…in identifying networks or groups of abusers,”

and the fact that police forces were “not able to provide” evidence of networks. The report states:

“The Inquiry was particularly struck by the reporting that there were no known or reported organised networks in two of the case study areas.”

We have spent so much time and we have come a long way, actually. If I were to say one thing has changed in the last 10 years, it is that we are much better at knowing that there are victims everywhere. What we have made no progress on is trying to actually monitor and manage, let alone identify, the offenders for these crimes. It is the same with rape. It is the same with domestic abuse. There is the report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services about domestic abuse. The report that is due to come out on Friday about rape will inevitably say the same thing—as if I do not already know what it is going to say, but one has to make the pretence.

This report says the same thing, which is that there is a fundamental flaw in the monitoring and managing of known and repeat offenders. In looking at serial offenders in crimes by men against women, HMICFRS found that most police force areas had not been monitoring or offender-managing the most serial and violent perpetrators at all, and that is exactly what is happening in these cases.

I say that as somebody who is currently in the middle of supporting the most difficult and complex case that I have ever seen in my life, and I have seen many cases. If the woman were standing here, she would tell us that nothing has changed in the last 10 years. Ten years ago, she was 13, and that was when she started to be abused. That is when the same gang that is currently abusing her started—10 years ago. She is now 23 years old, and I have to see her for hours every week to try to get her to the point of view of trust. It is exactly like when I met with the victims in Telford. This woman says exactly the same thing to me, and it goes exactly to the point that was made about court procedures being too slow. She says, “You can’t keep me safe if I come forward. You might lock up this one person, although you won’t even necessarily put him on remand”—absolutely not with the court process at the moment; he is less likely to be sent on remand—“but what about that one, and what about him, and what about this man, and what about the 50 men who raped me last week?” This is not the movies—there is no witness cabin that they can go to in the woods. What the women in Telford told me was, “You can’t guarantee my safety. I won’t come forward.”

[Lucy Allan]

Is the hon. Lady aware that in Telford we have had a series of car fire-bombings related exactly to this, which have put victims in fear? I thank her for raising that point.

[Jess Phillips]

Absolutely. This is the exact same issue as in the cases that I have handled over the years. The offenders know. I have seen messages saying, “We can see you’ve been to the police station.” That should be evidence enough and yet it is not. This is the reality for victims.

I want to stress the point that was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham and others that the Minister could say she was going to go away and stop, literally today, the use of unregulated accommodation for children aged 16 and 17. It feels like we are about five years into that being requested. This situation has come about—the debate in the main Chamber is exactly the same debate as is currently going on here—entirely because of the squeeze on the availability of regulated, well-provided, decent accommodation in this space. I say as somebody who used to run that accommodation that there has been a retraction in it that has made it profitable. Imagine thinking, “I’m going to get a house full of kids who have been sexually exploited, because it’ll be a nice tidy earner.” As a taxpayer, I do not want to be paying for that. The Government should rule it out today. They should say that this will never happen again. When the Minister says that there is enough money in the system for it not to be happening, perhaps she can enlighten us as to why it is happening.

While I have this opportunity, I will just take one second to say that we have to do considerably more to stop the cliff edge that does not even happen at 18 but happens at 16, because for these children, it stays with them forever.

Stalking Advocates

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark, and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) and all the Members who have spoken.

The hardest, but most rewarding, part of my job since becoming a Member of Parliament is getting to know the families of women and girls taken by male-perpetrated violence against women. It is always a total honour to meet the families. I am always totally bowled over by their resilience and desire to change the future for the better for other women; and Gracie’s family, and the case of Gracie’s law, is absolutely no exception. Gracie’s law is never going to bring people’s families back, but there is a desire to change things so that other families will not end up with their daughters’ names being read out on a list. I have yet to read out Gracie’s name on the list—I will do it in March—but we have to all do whatever we can to make sure that that list gets shorter, not longer.

On the point made by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher)—with whom it is an honour to debate these matters—this is a totally cross-party issue. There was a time, perhaps even when I first got here, when I may have questioned some people’s views on these issues, and there was certainly a time, when I started working in violence against women and girls services, when I absolutely felt it was party political issue, whereby some political parties—not necessarily just the one that he is a member of—did not take it as seriously. I do not think for a second now that that is the case or that there is any political party in this building that does not care about this issue. I do not doubt for a second that the Minister cares very deeply about the issue, but it is my job—and will be my job for the rest of time—to point out where things are going wrong and what needs to be done about that.

Quite rightly, my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield pointed out that the case on which this petition hinges was not a domestic homicide; it was a case of an unrelated person, not an ex-partner, and—it is almost never that I think this—those cases can be even harder to prosecute and get action on, because there is now at least a base understanding in most police forces now around the idea that stalking is part of a pattern of domestic abuse. The role of stalking in domestic homicide must also be acknowledged, as well as the seriousness of the crime and what it can lead to.

Half of stalkers who make threats act on them, and some of these end in murder. Jane Monckton Smith has written extensively about what leads up to a fatal situation from stalking. Her study of 358 criminal homicides in the UK, all of which consisted of a female victim and a male perpetrator, revealed that stalking behaviour was an antecedent in 94% of all murders. So this is something very, very serious, and it is an alarm bell that should be being rung loudly, in order for us to end the most serious of crimes.

Between 2015 and 2017, a freedom of information request by news platform Vice and Paladin, the stalking charity that has already been mentioned, revealed that 60 women were murdered after they reported their partner, their ex-partner or a stalker to the police on grounds of domestic abuse and stalking. That is 60 women who had reported in just a two-year period. I stand here as a Birmingham Member, and I often outline that three women are murdered each week, on average, every year. In Birmingham, in the last nine days three women have been murdered—or killed, should I say. It just seems relentless. In those 60 cases in that two-year period, those men all had a history of harming other women, yet there was no proactive risk identification assessment or management of the perpetrators.

A previous history of stalking or abuse and a pattern of coercive control within a perpetrator’s relationship with his victim have both been identified as stages in the eight-stage domestic homicide timeline outlined by Jane Monckton Smith. In short, stalking is an identifiable precursor to killing. We must see it as a pattern of behaviour and it must be appropriately identified. An intervention can save a woman’s life, and we must ensure that reports are acted upon. The advocates that this petition calls for would undoubtedly help that.

Just last week, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) has already cited, there was the case of Yasmin Chkaifi. Without even having to go into the sub judice of Gracie’s case—I really wish this was not the case—there are hundreds of cases we can lean on to identify the same failures. In the case of Yasmin, she was stabbed to death in Maida Vale this month by Leon McCaskre. In the press it is reported that a friend of Yasmin had said that she had received text messages two years ago saying:

“He’s had cameras in my house recording me for months.”

Yasmin added:

“He’s stolen my mail, my phone, has access to all my personal data. I think he will kill me. I’ve tried everything.”

The press reports that McCaskre was wanted by the police when he killed Yasmin. The warrant saying that he should be held without bail was issued on 4 January after he failed to appear in court. McCaskre was accused of breaching an interim stalking protection order.

I will come to those orders, as they have been raised. I have worked in domestic abuse, sexual violence, stalking and human trafficking services for a good many years. We can make up as many good orders as we like, but an order is absolutely worthless unless the police act on breaches of it and unless there is a well-resourced police force that can, in that moment, go out, investigate the breach and make an arrest that leads to somebody being imprisoned—which, in the case of Yasmin, would have saved her life. In my experience, when I say, “Have you ever considered getting an order?”, this is the reaction I get: “Yeah, I’ve got about four.” I have personally got four restraining orders; I have been a victim of stalking and harassment. There are people in prison and sectioned for undertaking that abuse against me; and unsurprisingly their orders did not stop them.

There are other cases. Asher Maslin stalked and murdered Hollie Gazzard. Myself and the Minister met Hollie’s family. Maslin was involved in 24 violent offences, including three against Hollie, 12 against former partners, three against his mother and four against others. There was no proactive join-up of this information nor risk management. Ian Paton strangled Kayleigh Hanks to death in July 2018. He had strangled three other people, including his ex-partner, before he killed Kayleigh. There was no risk assessment or risk management of his behaviour.

Managing repeat offenders is a real concern. Research indicates that up to 56% of those charged with stalking go on to reoffend after prosecution. We already know that it is a tiny fraction who will have been prosecuted in the first place. Perpetrators’ histories are not checked, and links are not made.

Two inspections by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary revealed deeply troubling findings. Its 2014 inspection into police responses to domestic abuse revealed no risk management of perpetrators. In 2017, “Living in Fear”, a report specifically on stalking produced by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services—HMIC’s name changed in the intervening three years, and got a lot longer—revealed a 100% failure in every police service and the Crown Prosecution Service across the six areas it inspected. Out of 112 cases, not one case was properly investigated, and no stalker was proactively risk assessed or risk managed.

The most recent HMICFRS report was similarly damning. It identified that repeat offenders in the areas of stalking, harassment, abuse and violence against women were time and again not being monitored, with no offender management and no monitoring in the community of the most serious risk of harm perpetrators. Imagine if I was talking about terrorism—imagine if there were people like that living on your street and not being monitored by any intelligence agency. The trouble is that when the newspapers report these cases, the police say, “Don’t worry, nobody else is at risk”—as if all women are not at risk from the kind of hatred that killed Gracie.

Operation Soteria has been undertaken already at Avon and Somerset police, and recently at the Met—we await the findings of that when the Home Office decides that we should have them. What was found in Avon and Somerset, and I have absolutely no doubt also in the Met, was that when people were being accused of rape, abuse and stalking on the streets, as well as in relationships, police forces were routinely not even checking the accused on the system to find out if they were a repeat offender. Imagine that: “This man raped me.” “Maybe check it on the system.” That is a fundamental failing, and I cannot look at these failings across the board for every crime that women are victims of and just fall back on the idea that it is complex. It is not that complex. It is like burglary of a house: it is not that complex. Every woman who comes forward and says, “I feel scared by this,” should be listened to.

Victims have no faith in the system, and legal advocates would without question improve that. Out of 75 victim respondents surveyed, fewer than two thirds indicated that they had reported stalking to the police in the UK, citing a lack of trust in the police and the wider criminal justice system. The Suzy Lamplugh Trust’s survey of over 1,000 officers in the UK found that only 35% of police respondents had ever received stalking-specific training and that 10% of respondents received training over five years ago, with only 3% indicating that they were very confident in their knowledge of stalking legislation, while 13% were not confident at all. Imagine that is the one who you get, who is sent out to you—the one who is not confident in stalking legislation at all. We need better training on stalking: 82% of those respondents indicated that they wanted better training and that it was needed for the police to be better equipped.

In September 2020, the University of Central Lanc—Lancashire; sorry, I am from the midlands, not the north. I know everybody thinks it is the same place, but it is not. The University of Central Lancashire published “They speak for you when you can’t speak”, an academic review of the National Stalking Advocacy Service run by the charity Paladin. That report found that the support of an independent stalking advocacy caseworker—the specific kind of advocate that we are talking about—was critical in improving the responses of criminal justice agencies. Many victims explained how grateful they were for that advocacy and support. High-risk victims of stalking confirmed that an ISAC’s support increased their understanding of the nature and impact of stalking and the associated risk. The report also said that victims reported improved emotional wellbeing and enhanced safety as a result of the ISAC support. The advocacy improves victims’ experiences. It is vital.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield mentioned the Government’s response to the petition once it received 10,000 signatures. I pay massive tribute to people such as Jackie, who are the doers of changing the law. Every single change to the law was brought about by somebody sitting in a room saying, “This isn’t good enough.” It is people such as Jackie and Gracie’s family who will change the law—I have no doubt.

The £90,000 for extra stalking advocates is absolutely to be welcomed, but it would cover only what is necessary in Birmingham. It has been said that it is a postcode lottery across the board in terms of support for victims of violence against women and girls, and it is absolutely the case that in one place, people get a great service, while in another, people get a dreadful service.

The hon. Member for Bolsover made the point that nobody is perfect. I wrote down that I must point out that that is absolutely one of the best things I have ever heard a man in this place say about violence against women and girls. As a society, we have come to terms with the idea that we all know a victim. With #MeToo and the Sarah Everard case, women have poured their hearts out, with thousands more coming forward now than ever before. Women have stood up and said, “This happens to us.” As a society, we understand now that we all know a victim of abuse—such as the hon. Member, who spoke about what happened to him in childhood. It is deeply important.

However, the bit that we have not come to as a society—and we will not stop this unless we do—is this: we all know and love a perpetrator of violence and abuse. Statistically speaking, if we all know the victims, then we know the perpetrators—unless there is one very prolific, horrible man. We have to come to terms with the idea that these people, while they do those dreadful, monstrous things, are not necessarily the monsters they are described as. The people who stalk, abuse, rape and beat women and girls walk freely among us all the time. Until we can all come to terms with that as a society, whether through education or otherwise, cases such as Gracie’s will keep happening. We have to accept that those people exist and that they need monitoring and actioning. We need to listen to the voices of victims.

What my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield said about police reform is vital. I was an independent sexual violence adviser; advocates such as ISVAs have existed for 20 years and, for a good long spell, that advocacy massively improved the conviction rate. However, we have seen those rates tumble. Advocacy in and of itself, without proper police prioritisation—which needs to come from political prioritisation—is no longer enough.

As we continue to fail to monitor repeat offenders and to follow up on case after case where people come forward, it is no longer good enough for hon. Members to sit here and say, “We’re going to have a strategy. It’s up to police force areas what they decide to do.” With the greatest respect to Maggie Blyth—the officer put in charge of tackling violence against women and girls—when I had a meeting with her, she told me that, “I have to expect police force areas to take it on.” She has no teeth to say, “You have to do this, otherwise you’ll lose your job.” That has to come from the Home Secretary.

[Mr Perkins]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. I was reading in detail the Government’s response to the petition when it reached 10,000 signatures. It says that,

“the College of Policing provided a set of new advice products on stalking for police first responders and call handlers, and in November 2019 it released a new product for investigators.”

I have no doubt that they are very useful things. However, it needs to be compulsory and it requires real leadership from the very top of the police force that this is a priority. Instead of it being something that officers can avail themselves of, I want it to be something that every single officer is doing. I want to see the recommendations acted upon.

[Jess Phillips]

I 100% agree. I take my hon. Friend back to my terrorism analogy: imagine if we allowed the police to freestyle how they dealt with terrorism—that we did not have specific tasks that police force areas had to follow.

The same priority is never given to male violence against women. It is never, ever considered to be the most pressing issue. More than 20% of all police call-outs are cases of violence against women and girls. Do we think that those cases get 20% of the policing budget in any area? Can we all guess? I do not want to turn this into a pantomime, Sir Mark, but I think we can all guess that they do not get anywhere near that amount. The reality is that this support has to be driven with the political will shown by the 100,000 people who signed the petition. The hon. Member for Bolsover said that he was proud that this was the issue that mattered to his people. The country has spoken again and again in the last two years—more so than ever before—to say, “This issue matters to us.”

In my lifetime of working in this area, which now seems like many lifetimes, I have never known the country to push this as an issue of political will quite as much as it has in the wake of Sarah Everard’s death. These things will only change when every police force area knows that if it does not, the chief constable will be sacked. This proposal will only work if the issue is addressed when allocations of budgets come from the Government. Although I like the £151 million, the Minister and I both know—because it has been announced quite a few times over the years—that £125 million is going to refuge accommodation and has nothing to do with the police. It will go to local councils to offer refuge accommodation—not necessarily to the standard that I would like to see, but still better than nothing.

The reality is that we in this place have to say that, crime-wise, this issue is our priority and we are going to push it through to the bitter end, so that when a Prime Minister stands up and says that the single most important thing a leader can do—the first line of Government—is to ensure the safety and security of their citizens, in their head they are remembering that women and girls exist.

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

For information, the University of Central Lancashire is in Preston, in my constituency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

Specifically on that point, it is my understanding that as of June 2021 stalking protection orders were used in response to around only 2% of stalking arrests. Is the Minister expecting any factor of increase after her letter and after the police forces have said they are going to do this? Will it go from 2% to 4%? Obviously, I would like to see it go higher. Is the Home Office putting a target on police forces?

[Rachel Maclean]

Absolutely, we want to see the number go up. We will be publishing the figures as soon as we are able to.

This debate has rightly focused on the police response, not just in Gracie’s case—which I am not commenting on—but generally across the country. I want to talk about some of the things that the police have done. The hon. Lady referenced the 2017 inspection, which showed a number of failings, to put it that way, in the police response. Since then, forces have identified a number of improvements that have been taken forward, and they have published a national stalking and harassment improvement plan.

Every force must now have a single point of contact for stalking concerns. There is also a change in the Home Office’s crime counting, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Chesterfield. Each force must ensure that stalking is recorded as the main crime before anything else—for example, criminal damage. I think that it is a very helpful point.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

It is obviously not the case that we are opposing measures to improve rape prosecutions. That is why we are funding five police forces to pilot this new approach to rape investigations, and we have committed to expand this through 14 police areas. Moreover, we are providing comprehensive funding to independent sexual and domestic abuse advisers to help bring these atrocious cases to court.

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

I spent Friday morning with a young 20-year-old rape victim who is now in her fifth year awaiting a trial. I then spent the afternoon with a young woman who has been groomed and sexually exploited for a decade. She told me that on occasion she has been forced to have sex with up to 50 men a day. The police cannot guarantee her safety, in her complex case of organised crime, so she has come forward and withdrawn numerous times. Both the accused rapist in the first case and the many, multiple gang members involved in the second are walking free, able to abuse, groom and rape as many women and children as they like.

These cases are not rare; they are not unusual. Operation Soteria has already made it very clear to Ministers that there is a real need for more specialism and priority within police forces, so the Minister saying that she is going to pilot it in 14 more areas and find out the exact same thing is not going to be enough. There is a need for specialism, and a need for it now, so why are the Government not backing Labour’s calls to ensure that every police force area has a RASSO unit? Will she answer that?

[Rachel Maclean]

All of us speak to and work with victims of horrendous crimes. Ministers are constantly engaged in that kind of work. That is why we are putting more funding into the police to enable them to tackle these hideous crimes. The hon. Lady has referred to a number of specific cases. She has not been clear which police areas or local authorities are involved, but we are very happy to work with her on these specific cases. To be clear, let me say that funding for these important specialisms has been increased, and we are increasing funding to the police to the tune of £15.9 billion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank my right hon. Friend for drawing the attention of the House to that excellent programme, which highlights the important role that frontline GPs have in identifying and getting help to victims. I have been informed that he ran the London marathon to raise funds for a charity in his area. I congratulate him on all the hard work that he is doing; I am sure that those services will benefit enormously.

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

I have a point about the funding. The Randox contract that was granted without any tender is five times the amount that we spend on domestic violence refuges for the entire country—just FYI.

In September, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services published a report making clear the current failings, and pushing for the implementation of its urgent recommendations to improve our national response to violence against women and girls. On 22 September, 18 October and 8 November, I asked the Minister if and when the Government would implement the recommendations in full. I am at risk of sounding like a broken record, as I ask again now: will the Minister today commit to keeping to the very detailed action plan commanded by the inspectorate within the timescale that it states? I do not want to hear again, or in a few weeks’ time, that the Department is still looking closely at the recommendations. Will she commit to them today?

[Rachel Maclean]

If I may just make a point on funding, I am sure that the hon. Lady would welcome the fact that the Government are providing £300 million of support for victims and witness support services this year.

[Jess Phillips]

Half the amount of the Randox contract.

[Rachel Maclean]

No, that is not relevant. This is a very important subject, and victims and support services deserve to know that this Government are on their side.

Let me turn to the report referenced by the hon. Lady. This is not a broken record. These are the facts: we are responding and taking action, which is why the Home Secretary is leading on a ministerial group across Government, bringing together the whole of Government to bear down on the recommendations outlined in the report—[Interruption.] Perhaps the hon. Lady would like to listen to the Minister. We have also appointed Maggie Blyth to lead the work across the entire police force and criminal justice system that will focus on addressing violence against women and girls, which is a priority for this Government.

Nightclub Safety

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Monday 8th November 2021 Westminster Hall

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

Thank you, Mr Gray. I apologise to all assembled. I tried to leave the Chamber but was called as I was leaving—I was assured by Mr Speaker that he wanted me to speak. I have read the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) and am forever grateful to her for making them. She is a brilliant advocate of women’s rights, and it is no surprise to hear her speaking up with the petitioners in this instance.

It is also no surprise to me to see the number of Members who represent university towns, and the clear level of concern across the country about this particular issue. I do not know what the explanation is, and I very much doubt that the Minister knows what the explanation is, for this sudden moment in which the issue is reaching the headlines. It seems unusual that this situation is occurring, apart from the fact that it is not in any way unusual that women in our country have to run the gauntlet, whether at home, at work, going on a night out, walking to get anywhere, going on a bus, or—in some terrible cases—when approaching those agencies that are meant to be there to protect them.

I am afraid to say that spiking is by no means a new thing. In 2019, a BBC investigation uncovered 2,600 reports of drink spiking to police in England and Wales over the previous four years, and everybody will know that that is only a tiny fraction of what actually happened. Who knows? Every woman I know has been on a night out with a group of their friends and one of them is suddenly uncontrollable, or their legs suddenly go away from them and they are much drunker than they should be. That is not an unusual circumstance. The trouble is that when it is violence against women and girls, it does not matter that there were already 2,600 reports in 2019; we never seem to be able to quite reach a big enough number for things to actually get done.

I regularly stand in front of the House of Commons and say these things. The Office for National Statistics told us this week that reported rape had gone up by 8%, so it is now 62,000, 1.6 million women are victims of domestic abuse and, only two years ago, as I say, there were 2,600 reports of drink spiking. With this new phenomenon, this new issue, it is the introduction of the use of a needle that is frightening. The hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) quite rightly pointed out that such an action needs to carry a more severe punishment. To me, carrying into a nightclub a drug to put into somebody’s drink, or for injection—it seems harrowing, to inject somebody—is like carrying a knife, a weapon. In fact, it is not like it—it is carrying a weapon. The only aim is to harm.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and she is also right that we do not really know what is going on. I wonder whether there is a kind of dual phenomenon, whereby we have a very well-known and long-standing problem with drink spiking, which seems even to be increasing, putting vulnerable women, mainly, at risk, but I wonder whether there is something else going on, which is people being stabbed by a sharp implement—a needle-stick injury—for reasons or motivation unknown, and that becoming a copycat thing around the country. It could be that those two phenomena are going on at the same time.

The reason I raise this point—

[Jeff Smith]

My hon. Friend is right. Both these things are problems, which is why it is really important that the call from the Night Time Industries Association for an inquiry into this situation, to get to the bottom of it, should be heeded.

[Jess Phillips]

I agree, although I have to say that even that kind of spiking is not necessarily a new phenomenon. I am a little old for nightclubs now—actually, I am not—but I remember there being a similar phenomenon. The Minister, whose constituency is a near neighbour of mine—at certain points she has been a nearer neighbour as a representative in Birmingham—will remember that there was a story about a particular nightclub in Birmingham. It is no longer there, so I can name it and not bring it into any disrepute—it was called The Dome. There were all these stories about pinpricks, and I am talking 20 years ago.

I do not know whether this new form of spiking is a new phenomenon, but the thing is that we do not know. What women know, and what my hon. Friend the Member for Gower and the petition are suggesting, is that they are seeking some level of security so that they can go into a place and feel safe. We can never stop all harm; we cannot. However, I really hope to hear from the Minister some tangible asks and action about how we will make sure people can feel safe.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Does the hon. Member feel, as I do, that there might be a fatality at some point? Then we would think, why do we always wait until something really dreadful happens before we take action?

[Jess Phillips]

Every single constituency Member of Parliament who has ever tried to get any sort of road safety measure in and has been told that they have to wait until somebody dies on that street hears the call of the hon. Member for Bath. I am afraid to say that a woman is murdered every three days in the UK by violence against women and girls; if that was happening at football matches in our country, football matches would be banned. The reality is that even if somebody does die in these circumstances, I do not think that will be what suddenly changes things. I want to hear from the Minister what exactly the Government will do to make it so that women can feel safe, and that perpetrators are the ones who are scared?

[Rachael Maskell]

The reality is that this is all about an assault against a woman, and somebody invading her space. That is the issue that needs to be addressed. We know there is massive underreporting of violence against women; whatever the statistics are, the reality is probably far greater. It is about bringing about action now, whether there is one case or several thousand cases.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

The underreporting of this, and of all violence against women and girls, is well charted. We estimate that, at best, we are hearing about 20% of it. It used to be that only 8%—or even 4%—of people had come forward about rape. At the very best we are only seeing 20% of the problem, and 80% is missing from our eyes. With nightclubs, what worries me even further is that young women especially, and I remember this because I was one, will not speak up because of fear for their liberty—by which I mean the fear that their moms and dads will not let them go out again. When bad things happen when they are young, girls keep those secrets close because they are worried about their freedom.

In nightclubs, whether we like it or not, there will be people who take recreational drugs. That is just the world that we live in. The idea that people will not want to come forward because they are frightened, because they have been taking recreational drugs, is something that we have to deal with. We do not want to deal only with perfect victims. We must never fall foul, as so many of us have over many years, of only seeing victims who have a halo that allows us to see their abuses and not others.

[Lilian Greenwood]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech, as she always does on this subject. Does she share my concern that one reason why women may not come forward, and why we do not have evidence about whether there is a link between these sharp-object incidents and toxicology, is because when women do seek help in instances of spiking they are sometimes not believed, dismissed as being drunk and, I am told, they are not seen quickly when they attend A&E? Does she agree that this response is discouraging women from coming forward and preventing us from getting the evidence that we need to better understand this latest problem?

[Jess Phillips]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and our hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) pointed out very clearly that one of his constituents had that exact experience. My hon. Friend the Member for Gower talked about good services and best practice in Devon and Cornwall; some best practice in hospitals in Manchester was also highlighted by hon. Members. But that simply cannot be the case everywhere. As with all violence against women and girls, those presenting at A&E will be made to feel brilliant in some places—amazing and believed, and there will be specialist workers there—and in other places that will absolutely not be the case. But the single most important thing that the Government have to tackle is not how victims interact with the system. We have spent so many years trying to improve the experience of people who end up in this situation, which is noble—I will not stop trying to do that, and I am sure nobody else in the House will either. However, the fundamental point is that we have to end the perpetration. We have to make perpetrators feel as frightened of being caught with this type of thing in a nightclub as being caught with a knife. A rape victim once said to me, “If I had a stab wound, I wouldn’t have to prove that I’d been stabbed—everybody would be able to see that—but because I’ve been raped, I have to prove it. I have to prove it to you.”

We have heard many brilliant examples from Swansea and elsewhere of women speaking up with one voice. I have spoken to women about the issue, such as a local councillor in Oxfordshire who has been dealing with around 20 cases. She is working with 25 young student freshers who have been spiked in recent months, who were all deeply reluctant to report it to the police, saying that they did not want the hassle or were worried they would not be taken seriously. Statistics are starting to flood in from big and small organisations, and I am sure we can all see it on Instagram. I came across a Birmingham women’s safety initiative group that had done a survey of 100 Birmingham respondents, and more than 95% said they felt unsafe in their local area.

As always, I stand with each and every one of these women. There are things we can do now and I would like to hear what the Government will do to make sure that they happen. Venues must be clearly led to do far more robust security and search protocols, improve training for staff and have high-quality and well-positioned CCTV. The Minister might know that I am not always a fan of the sticking plaster of CCTV, because I would like someone to be stopped from hurting me, rather than it being possible to find my body. However, I have seen CCTV work well in clubs when something is found which shows that women were not drunk or stupid or lying or attention seeking.

I have a slight concern about searches in nightclubs, relating to the protocols for testing and securing staff who work on the doors of nightclubs. There has been a series of newspaper articles in recent weeks about the vetting of people who work on the doors of our nightclubs. There is a live debate among Members of Parliament about having our own security and how we vet the people doing that. I am afraid to say that, in lots of circumstances, journalists found what a lack of vetting had not: door staff who had been convicted of sexual assaults. I have to say, remembering what it was like to be searched going in and out of clubs, that it can often feel like a sexual assault to lots of women. We need to make sure that there are women on hand to ensure that those searches are done properly and appropriately. I certainly would only ever want to be searched by a woman.

It is very important that we do not treat this as just another issue where not much can be done. The Government need to start telling us exactly how they are going to deal with perpetrators of violence against women and girls. They are currently resisting, stating for the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that they will make it a serious crime, and that local authority areas have to—not can choose to, if they like, which is the sort of standing we give violence against women and girls—have a violence against women and girls prevention plan, as they would for crimes such as county lines. They have to have a public health approach to that locally. In this instance, the Government could be working with licensing; it would be incredibly helpful to have a protective duty.

I would hope to see the Government committing, finally, to make violence against women and girls a serious crime with a serious crime prevention duty. Mainly, I hope that they will take the advice of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services. The former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), did lots of good work in this area, but the inspectorate’s very long name is not something I will ever thank her for. It is a ridiculously long name. Her Majesty’s inspectorate has clearly set out a timeline and a timeframe for exactly how police forces could be working to tackle perpetration and build up trust in victims to come forward. The Government are, for some reason, still resisting saying how they are going to do this.

I will sit down now so that the Minister can speak, but I want to finish by saying that my parliamentary assistant, as I was preparing for the debate, told me this morning that at the weekend her and her mates had had to compare the features of their new safety keyrings, which included whistles, seatbelt cutters and rape alarms, just so that they could go on a night out. It is no longer on the young people and women in this country to make themselves feel safer. It is on the Government now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Maclean]

I am coming to that, and I very much hope to satisfy the hon. Lady. It is important that I make it clear that premises such as nightclubs have a responsibility, which I will set out, if she will bear with me.

Premises that have a high volume of customers are required to assess what steps they think are needed for the venue, but we are not solely reliant on venues taking action themselves. The law already allows relevant conditions to be imposed. The Licensing Act 2003, which governs the control and issuance of licences to sell alcohol, allows local licensing authorities to take a tailored approach to granting premises licences in order to uphold the four licensing objectives. The most relevant is of course the objective to prevent crime and disorder. It is important to state that the Act applies only to premises in England and Wales, as licensing is devolved in Scotland. I note that the petitioner is from Scotland, so I definitely encourage her to have similar conversations with her local authorities. I very much hope that they will consider those issues.

In order to reduce crime, licensing authorities can impose conditions on any business that wants to sell alcohol, which can include requiring the presence of suitably trained and accredited door staff or CCTV. A licensing authority can also require a licence holder to introduce entry searches as a condition of a premises licence.

We have a rich and diverse night-time economy across the country, catering to many different communities: big cities with a large student population—many Members have referred to their local universities—towns with a high proportion of families and holiday visitors, and rural areas with local pubs. We have venues and villages, and everything in between. It is a fundamental and important premise that, with very few exceptions, decisions on which licences to grant, and on how premises should be managed, take into account local issues, demographics and circumstances. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to licensed premises. We do not wish to see mandated national conditions, which could be disproportionate and burdensome to some venues. Even among nightclubs, there is a huge diversity of premises, so what is required for one will not work for another.

[Jess Phillips]

Will the Minister give way?

[Rachel Maclean]

I will allow the hon. Lady to intervene, but I also need to allow some time for the hon. Member for Gower to sum up.

[Jess Phillips]

How many licensing committees does the Minister think have their eye on violence against women and girls across the country and will be paying attention to this issue?

[Rachel Maclean]

I can assure the hon. Lady that we insist on it and require them to do so, and it is part of their statutory duty. They are of course accountable to their populations, and they are staffed by locally and demographically accountable members of their council.

I want to make the House aware that the police already have considerable powers to take action where they think there is a problem. They can call for a review of a premises licence and work with the management and licensing authority. Local mechanisms can introduce searches where they are needed more quickly than waiting for a national mandate to be brought into effect. Licensing laws allow longer-term measures as well, to improve management of the night-time economy. For example, the night-time levy, with which some Members may be familiar, enables local authorities to collect a financial contribution from businesses. Some of the initiatives are really helpful and have been used to fund additional police officers, community protection officers and local projects, such as club hosts and taxi marshals, all of which can help keep people safe.

The Act also allows the licensing authority to carry out a cumulative impact assessment, to help it to limit the number of types of licence applications granted in areas where there is no evidence to show that the number or density of licensed premises in the area is having a cumulative impact and leading to problems that could undermine the licensing objectives.

As I have said, the night-time economy is varied and diverse, and covers many types of areas. Alongside the specific measures I have outlined, there are other things that local areas can and should be doing. I have been impressed by some of the initiatives I have seen around the country. Some areas have introduced safe spaces, where a combination of medical assistance, supervised recovery and other support services are provided to intoxicated, injured or vulnerable individuals.

In another area, I saw a scheme where door staff convert into street marshals at the end of the night, across the whole city centre. I pay tribute to other organisations, such as Street Pastors, who provide invaluable assistance. Members have highlighted good work going on in their local forces and in some of their local universities. In addition, initiatives such as Ask for Angela, X Marks the Spot, Safe Havens and Good Night Out provide opportunities, help and support to everyone who is concerned for their safety.

Many Members talked about the wider and broader issues of violence against women and girls, which I come to now. We published our new cross-Government tackling violence against women and girls strategy this summer, to help to ensure that women and girls are safe everywhere. I fully agree with all the comments that have been made by hon. Members that this is not about blaming women, or requesting or expecting women to change their behaviour. It is about tackling the root cause of the violence.

I recognise what my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe said about this not being about all men perpetrating these crimes, but about recognising that in the majority of the spiking incidents the victims that we know about are young women. It is at the forefront of the Government’s mind and our priority is to tackle the perpetrators and prevent this from happening.

On the specific work we have already funded, we are delivering a pilot £5 million safety of women at night fund, focused on preventing violence against women and girls in public spaces at night, particularly in the night-time economy. That is in addition to the £25 million safer streets fund, which focuses on improving public safety, with an emphasis on the safety of women and girls, and their feelings of safety in public spaces.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley referred to doorkeepers and their qualifications, which is an important issue. I have met the Security Industry Authority and I assure her that it is cognisant of the issue. It is working to ensure that qualifications for door supervisors and security guards include specific content relating to violence against women and girls. It is now working at pace to remind the industry and those operatives of their role and responsibility to keep people safe, with a focus on women’s safety. In our violence against women and girls strategy, we have committed to further work to see what more we can do to strengthen those safeguards.

I want to conclude my remarks and allow time for the hon. Member for Gower to respond. Violence against women and girls is abhorrent. As I have set out, the Government are taking wide-ranging action to prevent these crimes, support victims and pursue perpetrators. I congratulate the hon. Member for Gower on her speech. I fully agree that some of the issues that she highlighted around our sexist and victim-blaming culture are wrong and need to stop. We in the Government are completely behind that. The measures that I have set out, and more, are the measures that we will be using to bear down on this abhorrent behaviour. We are putting the full force of the Government behind tackling the issue, because we want women and girls to feel safe when they are going out at night.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that public confidence in the policing response is vital to tackling violence against women and girls. I am determined, as is the Home Secretary, to do all we can to combat these sickening crimes. We are committed to ensuring that policing is subject to stringent levels of transparency and accountability. Misconduct hearings are chaired independently of forces by legally qualified chairs. Sometimes those hearings must be held in private, for several legitimate reasons. We will be looking at the matter further to ensure that the system is accountable to the public.

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

Obviously, all of us on the Opposition Benches wish to be associated with the words of the Home Secretary, and send our love and best regards to Sir David’s family. He was kind and good, but for me, above all else, he was funny and he did not take himself too seriously.

As for James, as the Immigration Minister he was incredibly approachable and kind; he was a good and thorough Minister.

I wish also briefly to say from Members on the Labour Benches, who know how it feels to have someone fall, that our love—through you, Mr Speaker—is with all the friends and colleagues of those who have died.

I simply rise to ask the Minister whether her Department has decided whether it is going to implement all the recommendations and the timeframe laid out in last month’s report of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, in order to improve our national response to violence against women and girls. In September, the Minister told the House:

“The Home Secretary has committed to considering the report’s full recommendations and will update Parliament when she has done so.”—[Official Report, 22 September 2021; Vol. 701, c. 287.]

An update on that position would be welcomed.

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the hon. Lady for her words just now.

Clearly the report that the hon. Lady mentions is a very important one, and the Home Secretary and Home Office are considering it in detail. We have already put in place a number of important actions, including appointing Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth to her new role and chairing a new taskforce to drive cross-Government action. The Home Secretary has also announced an independent inquiry into the issues surrounding Wayne Couzens and the wider culture in policing.

Violence Against Women and Girls: Police Response

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We come now to the shadow Minister, Jess Phillips.

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I welcome the new Minister to her place.

The report from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services highlights the continued staggering failures by the Government to protect women and girls adequately. We should not make any bones about what it actually says. Since Sarah Everard was killed, a further 78 women have been killed by men, and I am sure that we would all wish to send our support to the family of Sabina Nessa this week.

The report tells the Government that there cannot be anything less than sweeping and fundamental changes across the board. There have been many reports, statistics and cases this year. After each one there has been an opportunity for concrete action, but each time we simply get a piecemeal response—a little review here, a pilot project there. Tackling misogyny and violence is on all of us, but primarily it is on the Minister. It is the Government’s job to keep people safe. The report is clear. In the words of Her Majesty’s inspectorate, these problems have arisen because of

“the continuing effects of austerity on policing and partner-agency budgets.”

The Labour party continues to call for a comprehensive violence against women and girls Bill. We also support all the recommendations in Zoë Billingham’s report. Will the Minister today commit to keeping to the very detailed action plan commanded by the report within the timeline it states? I will, of course, be checking. Will the Minister now take seriously our calls for the proper supervision and management of repeat offenders? Again, I quote from the report:

“there is no consistent and dedicated model in place for managing domestic abuse offenders”.

No model in place, Mr Speaker. I could actually scream. How can there be no model in place to deal with violent criminals? We have repeatedly asked for one. When can we expect it?

Will the Minister tell this House—I have asked this from this Dispatch Box before—when the Government will finally categorise violence against women and girls as a serious crime, just as they do with terrorism and serious youth violence? When I asked this question recently of the Minister for Crime and Policing, the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), who is in his place, he said that local areas can do it if they want. That is exactly the kind of half-hearted effort that leads to patchy approaches that this report decries. It is not an acceptable response. Will they finally act? They have a chance to do it in the House of Lords in these weeks around us.

The safety and security of women is not some side-line, add-on issue; it is essential to a functioning society. It can no longer be a weight borne by women everywhere. Every day wasted waiting for the Home Secretary to decide if she wants to undertake the recommendations is another rape, another murder and another beating.

[Rachel Maclean]

I am delighted to answer questions put to me by the hon. Lady and I look forward to many more opportunities to do so, but I must start by robustly rejecting her central accusation, which I think is that the Government have done nothing. May I remind her that the Government commissioned the report precisely because this is a priority for this Government? This Government have delivered a number of measures to keep women safer, whether they are legislative measures, funding to essential services to support women, toughening up laws or passing laws to keep more perpetrators behind bars.

Let me point to a couple of key parts of the strategy. We have appointed someone with a lifetime of experience to work with us; following the report published only last week, I am looking forward to working closely with Zoë Billingham. I will take forward what she comes out with very seriously to ensure that the police drive forward her recommendations.

Make no mistake: this issue is a central priority for me. I have been in my role for three days, but the hon. Lady will know that it is a priority for me and for the Home Office as a whole.

Strategy for Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

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

The first responsibility of any Government is the safety and security of their citizens. Today, rape prosecutions are at a record low, domestic abuse in this country is soaring and charging is falling. Sexual abuse in school is being normalised, according to the recent Ofsted inspections. Ending violence against women and girls is a cross-party issue. On both sides of this House, there is a profound concern and desire for an ambitious strategy that will deliver. The strategy today is not ambitious enough.

There are things to welcome. A policing lead on violence against women is certainly one of them, but we already have one for domestic abuse, one for rape and sex offences, another for historical sexual abuse and one for child sex abuse, so why will this one succeed where others have struggled without the resources to tackle the issue properly?

It is good to see that calls for a public awareness campaign aimed at men to stop the perpetration of misogyny have been answered. A rape helpline looks good when it is written on a piece of paper, but can the Minister answer this: will it be for recent sex offences, or will it be open to all historical cases too? Is there a guarantee that the helpline will have a local specialist agency to refer to that can pick up the case straight away? Currently, in a number of rape cases I am handling, victims are on very long waiting lists—some waiting for 18 months for any sort of a service. Can people just keep calling the line until a service is available? It is simply not enough.

There is so much missing in what the strategy sets out today, and time will only allow me to highlight a few things. I welcome the offer to look at the possibility of reviewing some non-disclosure agreements at universities and the preventive duty on employers is something we have campaigned for, along with unions and women across the country, for years. Why, then, is there nothing about non-disclosure agreements in workplaces, when women are still being abused and silenced completely legally in our country?

Where in the strategy is there anything to help adult women suffering sexual exploitation? During the pandemic, I sat with a 23-year-old woman as she bled on the floor in front of me, following a battering by her controlling gang, miscarrying the child she had conceived of rape. She was scared of the police and needed urgent, yet unavailable, housing. Why in this strategy have we left the gap that means there is no national strategy for sexual exploitation of adult women? Where is this woman in this strategy? Why is there no national strategy for or inclusion in this strategy of adult victims of sexual exploitation? Their only slight mention is that the Government are going to ask porn sites to voluntarily do better on exploitation. I am sure the porn sites are all going to do the right thing!

Where is the much-needed public sexual harassment law? The Government have said that they think offences exist already. Well, tell that to the two thirds of young women who tell us they are suffering this abuse every day. We need root-and-branch reforms not only across the criminal justice sector, but in health, in housing, in social security and online. We need to make sure that women and girls, wherever they are and whatever they are doing, are safe.

Instead, we have some transport champions, who already seem to have pretty busy jobs—especially if you are a west midlands MP, you would think they did—as well as an app gathering data that local authorities will not be resourced for responding to or compelled to respond to, and absolutely no long-term funding for any of the invaluable specialist services that the Government are relying on to deliver most of this strategy. The VAWG strategy expects services to be able to deliver without any serious funding to deliver it. What is clear is that, on every single step of their journey, women and girls are being failed, and today it feels as if the Government do not have enough of a plan to manage that.

The Labour party has worked up a Green Paper for ending violence against women and girls. We have set out, among many other things, toughening sentences for rape, stalking and domestic murder, and reviewing sentences for all domestic abuse. We have set about introducing a survivor support package to improve victims’ experiences in the courts, including fast-tracking rape and sexual violence cases, end-to-end legal help for victims and better training for professionals to give people the help they need. We also suggest, as quickly as possible, the creation of new offences for street harassment.

I once again offer to work with the Minister to help make this strategy into something that women and girls in our country need. I hope she takes me up on it.