Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Cluny (Lab)]

As the noble Baroness identifies, training is critical to the whole-society approach that the strategy sets out, and policing is a key part of that. That is why £13.1 million has been provided to set up the national centre for VAWG and public protection, which will improve policing and deal with many matters, including the one that the noble Baroness raises.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

In her Statement in the other place announcing the strategy before Christmas, the Safeguarding Minister highlighted the corrosive influence of online content that acts as a driver of violence against women and girls, stating that access by children to such harmful content should be made as difficult as possible in the UK. She is of course correct. One way of doing this would be to curb children’s access to social media. Does the Minister accept that this provides yet another reason why the Government should take action to ban social media for under-16s?

[Baroness Smith of Cluny (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising this prescient and important issue. I am pleased to report that the Government are taking action. That is why a consultation on this issue has been announced. The reason for announcing a consultation is that, on such a vital issue, we must be evidence-led. There is not a consensus on this issue. Powerful and important groups, such as the NSPCC, have voiced opinions in one direction, and we have heard strong advocation for the other side of the argument. Australia is undertaking a living experiment that we can learn from, so we will consult, we will be led by the evidence, and we will report back to this House.