UK: Violence Against Women and Girls

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Drake for tabling this debate; I wish her well and hope that she is soon back with us. I thank my noble friend Lady Warwick for introducing it. So much has been said that I will not be able to add much, other than on alcohol and domestic violence, as noble Lords might expect.

All the statistics indicate that violence against women has been increasing since about 2008 or 2009, particularly domestic violence. In many areas, that is linked in part to alcohol, which has not been raised so far. It is high time that we had a look at the rules that my Government, the Labour Government, introduced in the 2003 Act, which greatly liberalised freedom to purchase and access to alcohol. A re-examination of what has been happening with pricing and freedom to access alcohol is long overdue, as well as of the consequential difficulties that have arisen from cheap booze being freely available and so easily accessible. In turn, it has the effect of many men attacking women, which has continued to increase in recent years. Covid made matters even worse in that respect, so I hope the Minister might be prepared to comment on how the Government feel about the impact of alcohol and drugs on women.

Secondly, on pornography, unfortunately, I did not participate in the Online Safety Bill debates, but I have been watching carefully and I am pleased with how things are going. However, we still have not gone anything like far enough. Interestingly, the British Board of Film Classification tells us that it would never permit the stuff it sees to be shown in films. It is freely and widely available, and increasingly so across the whole of the online system. We need a broader societal debate about pornography and its impact across the board, particularly on younger children, and we need it soon if we are to believe the Met Police, which is very concerned about how the metaverse will develop. When that technology becomes more freely and cheaply available, we will see extraordinary things that will have an impact on the whole of society, particularly children. The metaverse has not been disused today, and I wonder whether the Minister can explain to us the Government’s views on it and how it may impact violence between men and women. Indeed, there is increasing violence between men and men, which is an issue that has not been raised today.

I hope the Minister will be able to give a general response to those three points.