Oral Answers to Questions

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Thursday 14th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

The hon. Lady makes the point that domestic violence is under-reported, and we accept that that is a problem, although reporting has increased. Indeed, the number of convictions has increased. She also made the point that there had been cuts in police services. The Chancellor made it clear in his autumn statement, however, that because the economy was performing better than had been the case before, we could afford not to cut police funding over the course of this Parliament. Again, I make the point that Labour can oppose every single cut and every single change that we make to try to bring the public finances under control, but if we do not take those decisions, I am afraid that we will run into a crisis. That was what the 2015 general election was fought on, and the result was very clear.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

7. What steps she is taking to tackle misogynist bullying on social media.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

14. What steps she is taking to tackle misogynist bullying on social media.

[The Minister for Women and Equalities (Nicky Morgan)]

Bullying of any kind, whether online or offline, is absolutely unacceptable. There is also no place for misogyny or trolling in our society. My Department has set up the Stop Online Abuse website to provide women and LGBT adults with practical advice on how to recognise abuse, including on social media. I also want to echo the welcome for the report from the Women and Equalities Select Committee on transgender equality, which was published today. It makes specific recommendations for addressing online safety and the treatment of transgender people, which we will take very seriously.

[Liz McInnes]

What conversations has the Minister had with social media providers about misogynistic online abuse, and will she make a statement?

[Nicky Morgan]

I and other Ministers, including my hon. Friend the Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy speak to social media providers all the time about these issues. I welcome the recent statement from a Twitter director saying that it thought it was doing better on dealing with trolls, but I think it recognised that it needed to do more.

I hope that the hon. Lady will also recognise that there are issues closer to home. She will remember the statement made by her own party leader at her party’s conference last autumn, when he had to appeal to activists. He said:

“I say to all activists, whether Labour or not, cut out the personal attacks, the cyber bullying and especially the misogynistic abuse online”.

I hope that the hon. Lady will tackle her own party in regard to this issue.