Tackling Stalking

Debate between Jess Phillips and John Slinger

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips]

First of all, I must pay tribute to Rhianon. If Members of the House are not aware of her case, what she has been through is harrowing and she continues to campaign. We pay such tribute to all those who speak up to try to make things better for other women, even if in their cases that ship has sailed. That is an amazing thing.

I want to assure the right hon. Lady that there should be nothing stopping the same multi-agency situations happening in Wales any more than anywhere else where local health authorities give out funding. We will never solve the issue of violence against women and girls unless every part of Government, including at delegated, local level, takes responsibility. That is certainly a postcode lottery at the moment.

[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her statement and for discussing the broader issues with hon. Members in a Westminster Hall debate last week. Women and girls will have seen from today and previous efforts that they have a dedicated champion in the Minister.

There have been several important announcements by the Government in recent days to tackle violence against women and girls, which is obviously perpetrated mainly by men. Can the Minister set out any further details about how the Government are working across Departments to drive down those despicable crimes and embed a culture of taking action wherever we can?

[Jess Phillips]

I am mindful that sat here on the Front Bench with me now is the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Rushanara Ali). She has frequently attended meetings alongside us in the Home Office to discuss how local authorities and housing interact with the lives of victims of domestic abuse and those fleeing other forms of abuse and violence.

Government Departments working together on this issue should no longer just be about a piece of paper that gets written. There has to be firm commitment, and it has to come from the very top. In the last urgent question today, we heard about a previous Prime Minister’s commitment to tackling modern slavery, which led to a world-leading change in that space. That was because it came from the centre. I can assure my hon. Friend that, from the very centre of this Government, there is a desire to make sure that we get this into the mainstream of every Government Department—although I am struggling to make this about fish and fisheries, but I will find a way.