Tackling Stalking

Debate between Jess Phillips and Jonathan Davies

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips]

I thank the hon. Member for her question. First, let me pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), who is my equivalent in the Ministry of Justice, which leads on the family courts. All I can say about the family courts, which came up in the very first mission board with regard to violence against women and girls, is that we will not solve the issues of domestic abuse or child abuse in our country—we will not go anywhere near to solving them—unless we look at those family courts.

[Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister’s statement. In 2021, a young woman was killed by her stalker in Derbyshire—I will not mention her by name in this House because, given the urgent nature of this statement, I have not had the opportunity to reach out to her family. It was found that she had reported the stalker to the police. The inquest found a number of missed opportunities to take action against that person. Is it is possible to have a means of capturing when things have gone wrong—in public bodies or in the police—and embedding that as a means of driving improvement elsewhere? Furthermore, online providers and social media companies are failing in this space. Will she use her weight to tell them to get their house in order, and if they do not, can we legislate for it?

[Jess Phillips]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I give him credit for the sensitivity that he showed in dealing with that case in his constituency. It is very important that we always seek the consent of a victim or a victim’s family. That does not always happen in this place.

On his first point, I am not sure about the case that he cites, but the I am happy to talk to him about it. In the case of a death of an intimate partner or a previous intimate partner, there would normally be a domestic homicide review, but that would not necessarily happen in the case of a murder by a stranger, where stalking was involved, although it could. This is about how we deal with the findings of a domestic homicide review or a serious case review. Like many people, I am a bit sick of hearing the words “lessons will be learned” over and again, and then find that the same lesson has to be learned by the same local area just three years later. How we use the findings of those reviews to change things is definitely something that we will focus on. I will use all of my weight—however diminished it might be—to ensure that our online tech companies are on board with the safeguarding that we require.