Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Ratification of Convention) Bill

John Glen Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 16th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for highlighting that, and I will come on to that. As she rightly said, and as I tried to illustrate at the start of my contribution, there are two separate elements to this Bill, and I want to do justice to both of them if I may.

To be honest, I cannot believe that this needs saying, but it is so discriminatory and sexist to say that we should be focusing only on violence against women. If this was the other way around, there would be an absolute outcry from people in this House, and rightly so. I do not take the view that violence against women and girls is somehow worse than violence against men and boys. As far as I am concerned, all violence is unacceptable, and all violence against the person should be punished by law. Both men and women are victims and both are perpetrators of these crimes. I believe in true equality, and want people to be treated equally whether they are a victim or a perpetrator of crime.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a characteristically passionate speech, but does he not want to acknowledge that, over the past 20 years, half of the victims of murder who were women were killed by family members, and only 6% of males who have been murdered were killed by family members? That is quite a significant discrepancy and it needs to be acknowledged in this House.

[Philip Davies]

I will come on to the discrepancy between the levels of violence against men and women in due course, because it is worth highlighting.

I believe in true equality and want people to be treated equally. At the moment, whether people like it or not, men are treated more harshly than women in the criminal justice system—that is certainly the case when it comes to sentencing. I know that that is an inconvenient truth for many people, but it is the truth nevertheless. On top of that—this is where it relates to my hon. Friend’s point—all the evidence shows that men are more likely to be a victim of violent crime than women in this country.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

First, I wish to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) for bringing this private Member’s Bill to the House. For me, tackling violence against women and girls is not a party political issue; it is a matter of basic humanity that unites us all across this House. We have all heard the statistics: one in three women globally is subjected to physical or sexual violence. It is appalling that 20 years after the UN declared violence against women and girls a global pandemic, almost half the women who were homicide victims around the world were killed by intimate partners or family members—just 6% of men suffered the same fate. Earlier this month, the femicide census powerfully set out how 936 women in this country have been killed by men in England and Wales in the past six years—that is three women every week for six years. We owe it to those 936 women to do all we can to tackle violence against women, whether it occurs in our constituency, our county, our country or in the wider world.

I was asked to attend this debate by several constituents, including Kirstie Stage who is in her lower sixth year at a school just outside my constituency. She said to me that

“our failure to ratify the Istanbul convention, which we helped to draft, is embarrassing.”

We all appreciate the fact that legal complexities take time to unpick. I am glad that the Minister has been able to clarify what progress has been made and to indicate a pathway on how the remaining issues will be resolved.

I thought long and hard before making a contribution today, because we have heard some very powerful speeches in recent weeks from people with direct personal experience who are now front-line campaigners. It is important that MPs such as me—white middle-class males—also contribute. Violence against women and girls is an issue that we should all take very seriously, and it is important to our constituents that we do so. It should not be just left to females and campaigners to make the case, because these crimes are largely committed by men, and we as men must challenge those men. This is not just a women’s issue or a gender issue, but a human dignity issue that should exercise all our society.

As constituency MPs, we all see the human impact of domestic violence—how it ruins families, leads to long-term health problems and leaves lasting emotional impacts. We also see the importance of local front-line services in providing safe spaces where women can start to rebuild their lives. I pay tribute to the Salisbury women’s refuge and all its staff for the outstanding work they have done over the past 32 years.

When I visited last July I was reminded that refuges are unique services. When other support is not accessible or appropriate in a crisis of such sensitivity, they provide a much-needed safe breathing space. In the Salisbury refuge, staff work around the clock, 365 days a year, to help women, and often their small children, to live independently and to access the support they need. It is more than just a safe building; it provides counselling and emotional support. It also provides budgeting assistance and access to educational programmes. As the manager, Sue Cox, said on our local radio Spire FM, it is about making sure that

“by the time they leave, everything’s on top form.”

Such services are truly vital, and it is therefore extremely welcome that the Government have pledged £80 million in funding to protect them and that the Minister has pledged to ensure that this resourcing remains under review. I hope that, if necessary, further resources will be provided in the future.

Protecting victims is a key plank of the Istanbul convention and includes accessible shelters, 24/7 telephone helplines and crisis centres. Not every country has the same infrastructure and wealth of non-governmental organisation expertise that we do. In many places, such things remain aspirational. When we ratify the convention, we will be sending a clear signal that we want to see those services extended, so that they can work effectively not just in our constituencies but everywhere around the world.

As the Bill rightly notes, this is not an issue that can be resolved by one individual agency. The convention calls for

“concerted action by many different actors”,

and for the Government to ensure that we have

“comprehensive and co-ordinated policies involving government agencies, NGOs as well as national, regional and local parliaments.”

It is important to consider how we can work across constituency boundaries at a national level. Since 2010, this Government have made preventing violence against women and girls and supporting survivors a key priority. I pay tribute to our Prime Minister for her commitment to keeping this issue at the top of the agenda and to ensuring that the national strategy did not fall by the wayside.

I welcome the significant new legislation that has been introduced to tackle stalking, forced marriage, female genital mutilation and revenge pornography. Crucially, a new domestic abuse offence ensures that coercive or controlling behaviour can be punished appropriately. The speed at which these changes have been made demonstrates the Government’s serious commitment to ensuring that professionals have all the right tools at their disposal. This is reinforced by the fact that in 2014-15 we saw total prosecutions for violence against women and girls offences reach the highest levels ever recorded. However, sometimes the legal tools are not enough. National action is also needed to address the root causes of inequality and discrimination and to support programmes that prevent domestic violence from happening in the first place. As the Prime Minister wrote in the foreword to the Government strategy,

“From health providers, to law enforcement, to employers and friends and family we all need to play our part.”

Every interaction must be treated as an opportunity to intervene. The femicide report talks about a girl who was just 17 years old telling her family she knew that one day her ex-partner would kill her, and he did. As MPs, we have to ask how such critical failures can occur, and what more we can do to stop them in future. That will require not only a shift in attitudes, but an understanding of the value of preventive and educational programmes.

In my county, the Swindon and Wiltshire police and crime commissioner, Angus Macpherson, recognised the value of such approaches through innovation funding. Splitz is one such charity that was commissioned in Wiltshire. It used a grant of £35,000 to develop a project working directly with young people on what a respectful relationship was. At the start of the project, about 60% of young people recognised the different forms of domestic violence, which increased to 93% at the end of the project. If just 10% of the audience of those workshops were better able to identify the signs of abusive relationships early on, financial savings could be in excess of £5.6 million, to say nothing of the human and emotional cost to victims and families that would be avoided. I hope that the Government’s new £15 million three-year transformation fund will recognise the long-term benefit and value of such and similar preventive measures.

As I have said, the Istanbul convention is about more than just the UK, and part of what we are here to debate today is the global dimension of violence against women and girls. On average, just over a third of women worldwide have experienced physical or sexual violence at some point in their lives. In some countries, this figure increases to 70%. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of suffering around this issue. The world is now more uncertain, with constantly changing threats, and we so often feel powerless to alleviate the devastating impact of war and internal conflict that we have seen all too recently in places such as Aleppo. It is therefore heartening to be reminded that the UK has played such a leading role in promoting international action to tackle violence against women and girls wherever it occurs. We can take heart from the progress that has been made in recent years and the Government’s efforts to move this issue up the international agenda.

For instance, the momentum generated by the 2014 girl summit demonstrates how significant UK leadership can be in prompting change. Over 490 signatories were secured for the girl summit charter on ending female genital mutilation and child, early and forced marriage. Following the summit, 18 Governments in Africa, the middle east and south Asia have made commitments to end these practices. National summits in Brazil, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nepal and Zambia show the model was successful in spurring national politicians and civil society to action. It is important that we continue to support these initiatives to ensure that commitments made on paper are translated into practical action on the ground.

I wish to highlight two other areas where the UK is pioneering new approaches and leading the way globally. The first is in tackling human trafficking. Adult women account for almost half of all human trafficking victims globally, and women and girls together account for about 70%. The Modern Slavery Act 2015 has made the UK a global leader, and we must now use that position to work internationally to achieve the UN target to eradicate this practice by 2030.

Preventing sexual violence in conflict is the second area where the UK has made substantial progress. Following the global summit held in London in June 2014, the UK has committed over £30 million to support projects in Bosnia, Iraq, Kosovo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and others. The UK’s team of experts have been deployed more than 80 times overseas, where they provide training on how to document and prosecute crimes of sexual violence, how to support survivors and how to protect civilians from human rights violations.

The Department for International Development has galvanised the international community and provided significant financial resources to tackle violence against women and girls. It now has 23 major programmes with a total budget of £184 million. The Independent Commission for Aid Impact reviewed this work earlier this year and, I am pleased to say, gave it its highest rating—something we should all be extremely proud of in this House.

As a man, I might say that I wished to speak today because I am a husband, a brother and a father, but I wish to contribute simply as a human being, moved to speak by the existence of this abhorrent practice, which shames our common humanity. These are global problems that will need different international solutions in different jurisdictions.

I pay tribute to the Government and their predecessor for the decisive leadership they have shown on many of these matters. It is important that we continue to build on their landmark achievements. The Istanbul convention offers us a clear opportunity to demonstrate once again our commitment to upholding the rights of women and girls, in this country and way beyond our borders. I am confident the Government recognise this opportunity and will act as soon as possible.

I commend the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan once again for her leadership in bringing this Bill before the House today, and I will be supporting it in the future.