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

Owen Thompson Excerpts

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

[Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)]

I intend to be relatively brief this morning, Mr Deputy Speaker. Let me start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) on securing this very important private Member’s Bill debate and on the consensus she has managed to build in seeking to drive this forward. We hope that by the end of today we will see the Bill moving forward to its next stage.

This issue was brought to me early in my election campaign of 2015 by a number of campaigners in Midlothian, and it was even raised as a question at one of our hustings. Luckily, I had at least a limited grasp of what the Istanbul convention was by that point, although sadly not all of those on the panel that night did. The journey we have taken even since that point and the awareness that has been raised among countless Members by the tireless campaigners already mentioned by my hon. Friend shows the real strength of feeling on this issue and a genuine change in attitude that we are starting to see coming through. But we do need to do more, which is why it is so important that this Bill makes progress today. In my constituency, Women’s Aid, East and Midlothian has been campaigning on this issue for a number of years and it has told me that it sees the ratification of the Istanbul convention as the most comprehensive strategy for addressing violence against women and girls, and therefore as an opportunity to bring unprecedented positive change for women and girls.

I think we can all agree that we need to do something—we need to do more. In my brief contribution, I want to look at some of the other issues we see around us and at the role men can play in trying to address them and change attitudes. We all want to see an end to violence against women, and we need that attitudinal change. When we see discrimination and some of the comments that are made online, all of us, but especially the men among us, have an important role to play—we need to challenge the attitudes of other men when we see that type of abuse taking place online. At this point, I must give particular praise to my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), who is doing a huge amount of work on tackling this, via a number of different avenues, including by chairing the all-party group on the white ribbon campaign. I am sure we are going to hear from him shortly, but I cannot let this sitting pass without putting on the record my feelings of support, and I am sure those of my colleagues, for the work that he is doing.

We all have such an important role to play. We have an opportunity to be leaders in our own communities, to change attitudes, to take that stand and drive change for the best. If we can influence young people today and change their attitudes before it is too late, we can really get that shift change in attitude that will eventually see us taking those steps to eradicate violence against women. There is no need for any violence against women to take place and we need to do everything we can to stamp it out at every opportunity. We must not stand by and watch, whether we are talking about violence or simply about an offensive comment online. All of us have a responsibility to make a stand and do what we can to make sure that we make these changes. A fantastic first step in doing that will be to support the Bill today.