Nightclub Safety

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Tonia Antoniazzi

Monday 8th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

My hon. Friend has made absolutely wonderful and excellent points. This should be data driven, and the universities must be working in concert. There has to be consistency across the whole United Kingdom. There need to be guidelines. That is why this petition calls on the Government to take control of the situation.

Let me go back to think about how Hannah felt. This young woman, a year out of university, feels so motivated to make a difference, and she is in Edinburgh, just going about her everyday life. We have to take notice. This issue is happening everywhere. I will go back to talk about Hannah’s social media posts. What happened when she reported some of the comments? What support was she getting from Instagram? Absolutely nothing. It said that it would not take action against those posting the comments, so in the end she had to delete them. It became a really difficult thing for one person, one young woman, to have to deal with. I say to those social media platforms that are unwilling to act: get your house in order; you may be able to change your company name, but we still know who you are, and we will be taking action to make sure that you clean up the cesspit that social media can be.

Clubs themselves also have to take responsibility. When Hannah went on one radio show to talk about this issue, a nightclub owner was arguing that the rise in reported drink-spiking incidents was because students going out were not used to drinking so much after being stuck indoors because of covid and were reporting it as spiking. Fortunately, that attitude seems to be limited to a few uncaring club owners. In fact, Mike Kill, chairman of the Night Time Industries Association, has called on the Government to hold an inquiry into spiking. The association would like a review of the way in which spiking is classified and recorded, meaning that it could look at solutions based on the full facts. It has also highlighted a scheme put in place by Devon and Cornwall police that provided on-site testing as soon as there was a report of spiking. That meant a uniform approach to reporting, assessment and evidence gathering, which increased confidence and reduced fear of crime among customers. Will the Minister today agree to meet me and the Night Time Industries Association to discuss the scheme trialled in Devon and Cornwall and see how we can roll this out across the country? Where there are patterns of this behaviour that can be identified, it is much easier for effective policies to be put in place, and this could be put in place quickly.

I thank Hannah for talking to me about how she and her friends felt. I really appreciate her efforts on this issue and hope that we can get some concrete commitments from the Minister today.

The last 18 months have been particularly hard on women. I am thinking of Sarah Everard, Nicole Smallman, Bibaa Henry and Sabina Nessa and of those women who were locked down with their abusers. The subject of today’s debate is just part of a wider picture for women all over the United Kingdom. Violence towards women and girls is an epidemic of epic proportions, and the Government must act now to stem it.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

The issue that we are addressing today was raised with me, before the recent media attention, by school students at King Edward VII School in Sheffield. The prevalence that they describe, in terms of their experience, is distressing. I have also had reports of incidents at house parties. Does my hon. Friend agree that the issue does not simply end with nightclubs but is about a wider spectrum of behaviour? There have been some good campaigns. My own student union in Sheffield has a good initiative and some nightclubs are working well, but, as she has said, but there has not been a comprehensive approach, which is what we need to address this.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government need to work with the police and other authorities to treat the issue more seriously and view it in the wider context of violence against women and girls? Does she also agree that the strategy needs to challenge the whole spectrum of behaviour, which starts with casual harassment and ends with sexual violence?