Violence against Women and Girls

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Yes, of course there are schools that are doing this well. The problem is that we do not have a comprehensive system—I will go into the details later—that guarantees excellent sex and relationships education. It is unsafe not to have such a system in schools, and that is my argument.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I am trying to make progress, but I will give way.

[Mrs Moon]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for being so patient, because I know she wants to make progress. The Office for National Statistics estimates that more than 500,000 people will be victims of sexual crimes in an average year, with only up to 10,000 prosecutions. Does that not show that there needs to be wider education so that people can protect themselves, as the state, through the police force, is clearly failing to protect them?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Let us be honest: the police response to this issue has improved over the past decade. It is better than it used to be, but it is not good enough. My hon. Friend is right that the police usually detect only about 2% or 3% of crimes and that there are even fewer prosecutions. The situation, therefore, is not completely unusual. The best response to crime is to prevent it in the first place. My argument is that taking on the challenge of teaching against violence is one way of preventing it.

I am an MP now, but I used to be an educator. I used to teach children in the last years of primary school and then I taught adults to be teachers. I know that good-quality education can transform lives, but I also know that, too often, this subject is an afterthought in too many schools. Let us look at the issue from first principles: is it necessary to act; will the motion’s proposed action make a difference; and what will happen if it does not?

The British crime survey shows that one in 14 women and one in 20 men interviewed in 2011-12 had experienced domestic abuse by a partner or family member in the past year. According to the same interviews, nearly one in three women and almost one in five men said that they had experienced such abuse since the age of 16. A freedom of information request made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) suggested that a third of 999 calls about domestic violence are from people who have been previous victims. Every week, two women are murdered in domestic violence murders. Around the world, women aged 15 to 44 are more likely to die or be disabled because of violence than as a result of cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war combined.

This is an issue in schools. A YouGov poll found that nearly one in three 16 to 18-year-old girls has experienced groping or unwanted sexual touching. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children found that a third of girls aged 13 to 17 in relationships had experienced physical or sexual violence, with 12% of them reporting rape. We know how often girls who are victims of rape do not report it, because they are not taught in schools about relationships and the importance of consent. The interim findings of the exploitation inquiry undertaken by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner and the university of Bedfordshire uncovered worrying trends of increased sexual exploitation of young people by their peers. Violence and sexual aggression in relationships has become too common for British young people. To overcome that, they need to be able to make positive choices for their own future.

The work on young people’s understanding is really important. This crime is almost unlike any other, because the victim tends to feel responsible or, indeed, is sometimes deemed responsible by society as a result of their actions. We do not tell burglary victims, “It’s your fault, because you haven’t got a burglar alarm,” yet society too often tells victims of rape and sexual violence, “It’s your fault. You were drunk and wearing sexually provocative clothing.” Those attitudes are absorbed by young women so that they think it is their fault.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

It is traditional on these occasions for me to be a lone voice—in fact, that is customary in most debates. I intend to continue that tradition today.

Of course, we are all united in our opposition to any violence against women and girls. I would be astounded if any of us were not. I pride myself on being renowned as one of the most hard-line Members when it comes to matters of law and order and sentencing. I always find it rather strange that those who speak passionately about how we should have zero tolerance of any violence against people, which I agree with, are often the same people who then argue that the perpetrators of violence should do anything but be sent to prison. As I made clear in an intervention, we are in the ridiculous situation whereby, of people convicted of violence against the person in this country, only 35% of men and, shockingly, only 17% of women are sent to prison. If we really want to send out a message of zero tolerance towards violence against people, the first thing we ought to do is press for much tougher sentences for people guilty of it. That would be a better way of deterring crime than the education route that the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) thinks will solve these problems.

[Mrs Moon]

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that we should never try to prevent crime, that we should never intervene and try to educate and divert people from crime, and that we should always wait until they commit a crime and then lock them up for as long as possible? Is that not nonsense?

[Philip Davies]

The hon. Lady seems to forget that for many people, respite from violence comes when the perpetrator of that violence is sent to prison. That is one of our best deterrents against violence. When people are prosecuted and not sent to prison, the violence continues. Sending people to prison is one of the best things we can do. It seems that Opposition Members are less keen on a zero tolerance approach to violence than their rhetoric suggests.

Given the title of the motion, we could be forgiven for thinking that the only—or main—victims of violent crime are women and girls, and that it does not apply to men or boys. In a debate that I secured in Westminster Hall last year on female offenders, I pointed out to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Mrs Grant) that the reality of these matters sometimes differs from the rhetoric. After the debate I asked her in a parliamentary question whether she accepted that the figures I had quoted were correct. I received a reply which seemed to indicate that she did believe those figures were correct, and given that they are the Ministry of Justice’s own figures, I will continue to use them.