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

Mark Durkan Excerpts

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

[Philip Davies]

There are also funerals of men who have died. I am sure that that is just as uncomfortable an experience for their children. I am very sad that the hon. Lady does not recognise that, when a father dies, it is just as upsetting for the children as when a mother dies. I take issue with that premise.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

When the hon. Gentleman gives that crime statistic, is he trying to say that all those men have been made victims of crime because they are men? This Bill is about combating violence against women that is committed precisely because they are women and girls. That is not the case with the vast majority of crimes that he is talking about in those statistics.

[Philip Davies]

The hon. Gentleman is going down an interesting route, as he is basically saying that, no matter the injuries a person sustains in a violent attack, all we should be concerned about is the motivation. If the motivation is not what the hon. Gentleman thinks—[Interruption.] That is fair enough. It seems to me, though, that if somebody comes up to a person because they hate them and beats them to a pulp, the nuance of why they hate that person is less important than the scale of the injuries they suffer and the need for the person who perpetrated the crime to be punished. The hon. Gentleman clearly has a different opinion on that. I am more interested in the violence and the punishment of the perpetrator.