Jim Shannon
Main Page: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)Department Debates - View all Jim Shannon's debates with the Home Office
(1 year, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Miss Dines
The Government are doing that at the moment. The “Enough” campaign has had quite a high profile on social media, with a great deal of take-up. The work of tackling violence against women and girls is very serious. In July 2021, we published our new cross-Government programme on the tackling violence against women and girls strategy. That includes the tackling domestic abuse plan published in March 2022. As a result of that there will be specific pieces of work on education and, I hope, training within the police, but education of the population has been brought forward. I know, from discussing this with young men across the country, that they have taken up the “Enough” programme and campaigned on it really seriously. The message is hitting through, but it is just the start. I want to do more.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
May I associate myself and my party with what has been said. My thoughts and prayers are with Raneem, her mother and her family. The 999 calls in relation to the Solihull murders are indeed harrowing and frustrating. Raneem, 22, stated, “When I call 999, they cannot come quickly enough.” She rang 999 six times in the hours before she was killed. Does the Minister agree that the murders of Raneem and her mother were entirely preventable? Those calls should have been red-flagged. There were six 999 phone calls, but there was no answer. The police should have taken quicker action to ensure that the two victims were kept safe from the dangerous man and the abuse that he inflicted on them. We must do better. We can do better.
Miss Dines
What is worrying about this case is that there were obvious markers—not just one or two but many. I know that that is something that West Midlands police are working hard on. Nobody could fail to be moved by those 999 calls, which were on all the TV channels—the soft voice of somebody who was about to be murdered, but who was ignored. That must never happen again. The fact that a person speaks softly, calmly, or in a way that the police are not used to, should not be a barrier to listening to the words that they are saying.