Policing and Prevention of Violence against Women

Philip Davies Excerpts

Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

The right hon. Lady is absolutely right about the points that she has been raising and the measures at large. There is something about perpetrators and their serial offending that has to be addressed—there is no question about that. Of course this does link predominantly to many of the criminal justice outcomes and the wider debate that this House will be having, not just later today, but over future weeks. I will be very candid: we will look at all measures, and rightly so. We should be doing everything possible to keep women safe—and indeed everybody safe. The behaviour of serial perpetrators and offenders is deeply corrosive and damaging, and obviously it has dreadful, dreadful implications and consequences. So we will be happy to continue not just to look at these measures, but, right now, with the violence against women and girls consultation that is under way, to engage with others and follow up on these points.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con) [V]]

It is clearly unacceptable for any woman to feel unsafe walking the streets. Can I propose some practical measures that the Home Secretary might adopt? Can she introduce a fund to roll out much more CCTV around the country, which will help to make our streets safer for people and bring evidence where there is a crime committed? Can she stop taking people off the DNA database? There are huge numbers of crimes—sexual assaults, rapes and murders—where there is DNA evidence available but no match. The more people on the DNA database, the more chance of getting these people off our streets and rightly convicted. Can we increase the sentences for people convicted of sexual assaults and rapes? Can we stop the automatic early release of criminals who are still considered a threat to society? These measures would help to make our streets safer for everyone.

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments and his practical suggestions. We are doing a lot on CCTV, and we do have the Safer Streets fund, which he will be very aware of. He has raised a number of areas, and I suspect that if he were to join the Committee on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, he could absolutely contribute to that and make those points there.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Philip Davies Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading - Day 1
Monday 15th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con) [V]]

There is much in the Bill that I agree with, and much of that was set out by the Home Secretary in her opening remarks. I particularly agree with increasing the sentences for assaults on emergency workers to two years, which is an amendment I tabled back when the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 was first debated in 2018. It is always good when the Government come round to my way of thinking, so I hope as a result they will look favourably on my amendments when I table them, and we can save some time.

In the time I have, I will go through some of the things I would like to see in the Bill. As was mentioned earlier, I would like to see a specific offence for assaulting shop workers and other frontline workers. I used to work in retail, but it has been absolutely terrible to see the fact that during the pandemic, when shop workers have been going the extra mile to help us all, the number of assaults on them has doubled. We really need to do something about that, and I hope the Government will look favourably upon that proposal.

I am pleased to see some of the provisions for ending automatic early release for prisoners. I certainly support that, but I would like the Bill to go further. I would like to see the end of all automatic early release for prisoners, particularly those still considered to be a danger to the public. I would particularly like to see an end to all automatic release for those people in prison who assault our prison officers. Again, prison officers face a terrible burden in prison, with far too many assaults. If we were to say to prisoners that anybody convicted of assaulting a prison officer would lose their right to automatic release, that may well help those hard-pressed prison officers.

I would like to see the retirement age for magistrates and judges increased to 75. The Justice Secretary has said that he intends to do that, so this Bill seems a very good vehicle for that. I would like to see a sentencing escalator, whereby if people are convicted of the same offence more than once, they have to get a harsher punishment the second time than they had the first time, and a harsher punishment yet again if they commit the same offence a third time. The Government clearly accept the principle of that, because they have done exactly that with the covid fines. I hope they will allow a sentencing escalator for other criminal offences as well.

I would like to see magistrates’ sentencing power increased to 12 months, rather than six months. That needs to be done. I would like to see the word “insulting” removed from section 4 and section 4A of the Public Order Act 1986 so that someone cannot be guilty of something if they simply insult people. There are many amendments I would like to see to this Bill that time does not allow me to mention this evening. I could do with a whole day on Report all to myself.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I do not think that is entirely likely to occur.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Davies Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I appreciate that it has been a while since Labour has been in government, and Labour Members will obviously fail to realise that there is cross-Government work on the delivery of these measures. We are in a pandemic. Just to restate this to all colleagues in the House, health measures at the border have been in place since January last year. Those measures have been developed, as everyone would expect, as the situation changes; they are calibrated measures. I think it is an absolute shame to see the hon. Gentleman joining his colleagues in playing party politics with this crisis while attacking the Government, because although he originally welcomed the measures on the border that we brought in last year, he then wrote to me calling for the “blunt tool” of our border quarantine to be lifted quickly. Labour’s behaviour throughout this pandemic has shown the British public that it has no interest in being constructive or acting in the national interest, and that is exactly what we can see right now, while the Government are getting on and dealing with this hotels policy.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con) [V]]

The Government have made it clear that they want to change the law to make it easier and swifter to deport illegal immigrants, foreign national offenders and those making bogus claims for asylum. That is something that I fully support and the overwhelming majority of the country will support. Will the Home Secretary give us some idea as to when that legislation will be brought forward to Parliament, because, as far as I am concerned, the sooner, the better?

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend makes some very good, strong and important points that, absolutely, the British public support the removal of foreign national offenders, those who come to our country to cause harm, and also those who are, quite frankly, making asylum claims that are not legitimate. We intend to introduce legislation later this year. I have spoken frequently about the need for a firm but fair asylum system, with fairness to target those who genuinely need our help. I have already spoken about one new safe and legal route that this Government have supported. Absolutely, fairness is needed, and firmness is needed to stop abuse of our system and to make sure that we remove those who come to our country to create harm and participate in criminality. I should remind my hon. Friend—he will know this—that Labour has been campaigning against that over the past 12 months.

Scheduled Mass Deportation: Jamaica

Philip Davies Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

As the hon. Lady will know, only people who have been sentenced to a custodial sentence of a year or more are eligible, so, clearly, minor driving offences are outside the scope of that. It applies only to people who have been sentenced to a year or more in prison. She knows that very well because she voted for the Act of Parliament in 2007 that instituted these measures.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

The fact that it is in any way controversial to deport foreign nationals who commit serious offences and are persistent offenders shows just what a farce the Labour party has become in recent years—Lord knows what the public must think of this exchange. May I say to the Minister that the overwhelming majority of my constituents will absolutely support what he is doing? Actually, they would want him to ignore the siren voices from the party opposite, and make it easier to deport foreign nationals who commit offences—perhaps to take in those who commit any offence at all, not just those who have to serve more than a year in prison.

[Chris Philp]

I am very grateful for the support emanating from the people of Shipley. I think the public will be astonished to see Labour MPs standing up on the side of dangerous criminals instead of on the side of victims and, even more importantly, people who might be victims in the future. On improving the legal system so that we can more readily deport people who are dangerous—dangerous criminals and others—we do, as I say, want to legislate to improve the system. It does not really work at the moment as it should, and my hon. Friend will have plenty of opportunities to support legislation with that purpose in mind next year.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Philip Davies Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 6th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Robinson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that. I agree with him in part, but I will say this about the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson): I have never found her contribution on issues such as this to be provocative, offensive or sensationalist in the way she presents them, although I do not agree with many of them. She presents them in a very cogent and sensitive way, albeit I doubt we will ever agree on the issue at hand.

I look forward to the contribution from the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce). I have said before that she embarks on herculean efforts when it comes the defence of life and of the rights of the unborn child. The three amendments she proposes to new clause 28 highlight its frailties. In amendments (a), (b) and (c), she highlights that it makes no reference to the nine-week, six-day time limit associated with the coronavirus provision of telemedicine abortion and no reference to whether new clause 28 applies to medical terminations or surgical terminations. As with the contribution from the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North, the new clause also makes no reference to the impact on victims of domestic abuse at home and the benefit of leaving that home and entering a clinical setting or engaging with the clinician, to highlight not just the pregnancy that they are struggling with, but the issues of abuse that they are struggling with. No reference is made to the 7% of women within our country who procure abortions not because they want them, but as a result of coercive control; there is no reference to the 7% of women who are forced to proceed and procure an abortion because of domestic abuse. In fairness, the hon. Lady was not in a position to outline the frailties associated with her new clause 28. I am grateful that, given the contributions I have heard so far, I do not think the House will be minded to support it. I will be very clear in my position that I can see no circumstances in which I could support it at all.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I have tabled 26 amendments, so I have about 10 seconds per amendment. I wish to put on record my thanks to the Minister for her consideration of my amendments. We may not have ended up in total agreement on them, but I appreciate the time she has spent engaging with me on them. They are simply about trying to make sure we protect all victims of domestic abuse. I have had many, many conversations with men and women on this subject, where they have agreed wholeheartedly with what I am trying to achieve. Most people understand that both men and women can be and are victims of domestic abuse, and both men and women can be and are perpetrators of domestic abuse. There are those who seek to claim that domestic violence is a gendered crime—in other words, that it is a crime done by men to women. Not only does this insult the male victims of domestic violence and ignore gay and lesbian victims of domestic abuse, but it is utter rubbish. For example, according to the official figures, a woman in a lesbian relationship is one and a half times more likely to be a victim of domestic abuse from her partner than a woman in a heterosexual relationship.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Miller]

I am listening to my hon. Friend very carefully and I have read through his amendments very carefully, but I am not clear which aspect of the Bill he is disagreeing with, because this Bill of course covers every victim of domestic violence. What changes does he want to the Bill?

[Philip Davies]

My right hon. Friend makes a fair point, but unfortunately the Bill is not actually quite as it seems. There are references saying that the Government should take note of, and services should be provided on the basis of, the fact that women are more likely to be a victim than a man, but it should be irrelevant. It does not matter whether the victim is a male or a female—it is completely irrelevant—and we should take out any of those kinds of reference. The Bill should be gender neutral. That is the point I am trying to make.

In the rest of the time allowed, I want particularly to focus on my amendment 24, which is about classing parental alienation and when a parent deliberately prevents the other parent from having contact with their child or children for no good reason as domestic abuse. There are thousands—hundreds of thousands—of mums and dads, as well as grandmas and grandads, who do not have any relationship with their children at all, simply because one parent has deliberately and for no good reason turned their child against the other parent. I think they will find it quite extraordinary that all the main political parties are trying to block parental alienation being in the Bill as the criminal offence of domestic abuse. Parliament is failing those people, but I will keep speaking up for them. This is simply cruel—not just for the parent, and the grandparents, deprived of access, but for the children. It should be quite clearly classed as domestic abuse if this is done without any good reason at all.

I am very grateful to the Minister for including parental alienation and preventing contact with children as examples of domestic abuse in the recently released draft of the statutory guidance that goes alongside this Bill. I would have liked to see this in the Bill itself, but I believe that this is a momentous development, as it means that when considering domestic abuse, parental alienation and preventing contact are now specific examples that the Government have highlighted in their guidance. Such individuals, including those men and women who have written to me about their distressing personal experiences and who are clearly suffering now, have a message from the Government that what they are experiencing is clearly abuse. I very much hope that this will be of significant comfort to those who currently feel completely helpless in these situations.

Of my other amendments, I want to highlight one in particular in the time I have left. It is about lie detector tests, which have not come up in the rest of the debate. My amendment 26 would remove the use of lie detector tests. I am on the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, and we did an inquiry into “The Jeremy Kyle Show”. Many people in this House revile Jeremy Kyle because he used lie detector tests on his programme, and people pointed out that they are not reliable and that they come up with dodgy results. It seems extraordinary that the same people who pointed out that it was outrageous for Jeremy Kyle to use lie detector tests in an entertainment programme because they were not reliable would support using them in something as serious as this, when clearly the tests are just as unreliable as in his case. I would like to see the evidence that says that these tests are accurate and justifies their use, which, by the way, will presumably exonerate Jeremy Kyle; otherwise, we should not touch them with a bargepole. I look forward to hearing the Government’s evidence to support the use of lie detector tests. However, the main important message from me is that parental alienation is and should be domestic abuse.

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

It is not particularly a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who talks about the alienation of fathers and grandparents when the family court has given and continues to give parental rights to men who have perpetrated violent crimes against their children. I find it absolutely disgusting.

The ongoing covid pandemic has shone a light on the paucity of services available to victims of domestic violence. Since 2010, funding for services has been decimated, as has been shown time and again, with mainly women and children finding themselves homeless and unsupported after falling victim to domestic abuse. That is why the Bill is welcome, even though it has been a long time coming. The Bill, at its heart, must be about providing services to people who have become victims of abuse by their partner, regardless of their gender. We know that it is mainly women who suffer from domestic abuse, be it physical violence, threatening behaviour or coercive control. The consequence of that could be an unwanted pregnancy.

Throughout lockdown, access to telemedicine has meant that illegal and highly unsafe abortion has almost completely disappeared across Great Britain. That is why I fully support new clause 28, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), which would ensure that women in abusive relationships can access care in a way that would not put them in danger. Abortion is essential healthcare, and many women in abusive relationships would seek to end a pregnancy without their partner’s knowledge. The current law puts those women in danger. That situation cannot continue. I welcome that the Minister mentioned a public consultation. The new clause would not change the underlying law on abortion. It would not change the time limit or the many healthcare laws and regulations that govern abortion. It would simply enable the most vulnerable women to access the care they need without the threat of prosecution.

Prosecutions must be brought where a defence of rough sex is invoked. There can never be consent where someone dies—never. I commend the work of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) on this matter. Protection for women killed by men who claim that consent was granted is surely one of the most basic rights. We should pass into law measures that make it clear that that will not be tolerated. Speaking out on one’s experience of domestic violence is a very brave thing to do. A fear of reprisal stops many from speaking out. That is why I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield), who found it too difficult to come to the Chamber to speak this evening.

Many of the measures in the Bill are welcome, but there is such a hill to climb. We need to keep on protecting victims and their children. That is not just victims of domestic abuse. We must ensure that we provide a safe and fair family court system and that our justice system protects those who have been subjected to sexual assault. The overhaul of the family court for domestic abuse victims will transform so many lives, many of whom I have represented. I welcome the Government’s commitment to amending the Bill so that victims of domestic abuse will be automatically eligible for special measures in the family court.

I have been dealing with a young woman who was groomed and raped at age 15 by a man many years her senior. Her case was not taken seriously, and even though the perpetrator admitted what he had done in a police interview, it was not taken any further. Now, a few years on, this man has been sentenced to prison and is on the sex offenders’ register, but my constituent has suffered the most appalling neglect and lack of support in bringing the case, so much so that she feels worse for doing it. No victim of any crime should ever be made to feel such regret. This is not an isolated incident; we have all dealt with cases where women have not been believed and where children have been endangered. Without proper funding, services cannot be provided to people who need them. Without funding, people fall through the cracks, and for far too long too many have fallen through these cracks and been let down. We cannot let that continue. I think we all, on both sides of the House, agree on that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Davies Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

Obviously the Grenfell inquiry is due to publish shortly, and we will all have to learn lessons from its conclusions. The hon. Lady is right to point towards prevention as a key part of the mission of the fire service, and one in which there has been enormous success in the past decade or more in driving down the number of fires attended to, in particular, and incidents across the board more generally. We have secured an extremely good financial settlement for the fire service across the country this year, and I have urged fire chiefs, not least in the light of the first set of inspections for some time, to invest in prevention.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I certainly support the Government in recruiting an extra 20,000 police officers, but may I ask the Minister to look again at the resources for the fire service? In West Yorkshire, and I suspect in other parts of the country, they are extremely stretched at the moment. The number of people on a fire engine is going down to try to mask over those stretched resources. Will he look at that again, because the fire service needs extra resources, just as the police do?

[Kit Malthouse]

I would expect nothing less than a challenge from the champion of Shipley on my portfolio, just as he has challenged me in my previous portfolios. I would be more than happy to look at particular problems in his local fire service if he believes there are any, but we have recently instituted and had the results of the first inspection regime of fire and rescue services for some time. It has been reassuring in parts, but it does point towards particular areas we need to address. As I say, we had a good settlement from the Treasury this year from the financial point of view, and it will be for local fire and rescue chiefs to decide how they invest that extra money.

Emergency Summit on Knife Crime

Philip Davies Excerpts

Friday 22nd March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I am so grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. Her experience in the magistrates court will help, I hope, to give her comfort as to how these orders are drafted. These are civil orders, deliberately so, because we do not want to criminalise these young people. Young people are being intervened on when there is intelligence or information from anyone—it could be anyone in the community—who is worried that they are involved in these gangs. This is about putting in place a structure around these children to help steer them away from criminality. Youth offending teams will, of course, be absolutely critical to that, and we will be working through it when it comes to the statutory guidance on how these orders should be used.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

The official figures show that there has been a collapse in the number of stop and searches in recent years. It cannot be a coincidence that that has coincided with a huge surge in knife crimes and people being killed through knife crimes. Will the Minister give me some assurance that we will go back to trusting police officers to get on and do their job in the way that they know best without them fearing some kind of politically correct witch-hunt if they decide to stop and search someone they think is worth stopping and searching? We must trust police officers to do the job to keep us safe, because they know better than anybody in this House what needs to be done.

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Stop and search is a vital tool in the police’s armoury in keeping people safe on our streets. We want to give confidence to our officers that they have this power and that they can use it in accordance with the law. Interestingly, the rate of arrests arising out of stop and searches has increased in recent years with this intelligence-focused approach, but it remains a vital tool and the police have our absolute confidence should they choose to use it within the law.

International Men’s Day

Philip Davies Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered International Men’s Day.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I start by thanking the many colleagues from all parties in the House who supported the application for this debate, and the Backbench Business Committee for finding the time for it as close to International Men’s Day as possible.

I am sorry that the debate is not in the main Chamber and that we have been put back into Westminster Hall, but that is certainly not the fault of the Backbench Business Committee, which tried to make it happen in the main Chamber. The debate was actually allocated time in the main Chamber, but unfortunately the Government did not allocate the time for the Backbench Business Committee to hold it. I certainly do not blame the Backbench Business Committee; I am actually very grateful to it for finding an alternative date, namely today.

I also thank once again all the many people who have been in touch with me to tell me their story or to put forward their organisation’s point of view. I am very grateful to them all for taking the time.

International Men’s Day was actually on 19 November, and for most people I should imagine that it was a case of blinking and missing it. That is why I feel that this debate is important. International Men’s Day does not receive anything like the coverage that International Women’s Day does. As I have said in previous debates, the aims of International Men’s Day are admirable. Its objectives are:

“To promote positive male role models…To celebrate men’s positive contributions…To focus on men’s health and wellbeing…To highlight discrimination against men”—

that includes highlighting the inequalities that men and boys face—

“To improve gender relations and promote gender equality”

and finally

“To create a safer, better world”

for everyone. It is worth reiterating those aims, as they provide a focus for what International Men’s Day is trying to achieve.

There is so much that I could say today that it is very hard to know where to start. As I have said before, there are many areas where I think the plight of men is ignored or minimised, and many areas where men are certainly treated differently from women. I will concentrate on the things that I feel need to be pointed out, which others will perhaps not mention today. That way, we can ensure that we cover a wide range of subjects in the debate.

I start with the issue of domestic violence. I will keep mentioning the unrecognised male victims of domestic violence in this type of debate, especially as the issue can—tragically—sometimes lead to suicide, which, as has been said during these debates many times, disproportionately affects men.

One message I have received that links these things together was from someone who said they had been suicidal in the past. They wrote to me and said:

“Thank you so very much for all that you have done for equality by calling attention to Men’s rights issues. I have only recently…discovered the men’s rights campaign after seeing a 2011 episode of the US Talk show, ‘The Talk’, in which a majority female panel and audience mercilessly jested at the idea of a brutally violent sex crime in the news, purely because it had been committed against a man.

To see how that, and other things, was acceptable made me want to give up.

Earlier this year I was suicidal. I’ve contemplated it several times before, but have never come so close.

Without exaggeration of ego, I can tell you that you have saved my life.”

An episode of “The Jeremy Kyle Show”, which was along the same lines as the TV show that I have just mentioned, was recently brought to my attention. A woman was explaining that her partner had gone to the bathroom and she discovered that he was cheating on her. She said that when he came out of the bathroom, she hit him in the face. The audience laughed, then clapped and then whooped with delight. That is the reaction of the public to domestic violence against a man. If attitudes need to change, then it is these attitudes that should be at the top of the list. Can people imagine what the reaction would have been if that had been a man admitting to hitting a woman in the face?

Yet that was not an isolated incident. There are many examples of these attitudes to male victims of domestic violence, which to me is like everyday sexism towards men. The crime survey conducted by the Office for National Statistics showed that in the year ending March 2017 more women than men thought it was acceptable to hit or slap a partner if they had been having an affair or cheated. That paints an uncomfortable picture for those who want to portray domestic violence as purely a male problem. Is it any wonder that men are less likely to come forward to be counted and report abuse, especially if that is the social reaction to such violence?

One man who contacted me said:

“My mental ill health started affecting me as far back as 2010 when I was in a relationship with an abusive ex-girlfriend. I was frequently hit, had my bank account drained of money and was often locked in a bedroom with no way of getting out. I got out of the relationship, but it did have a dramatic effect on my own mental health and wellbeing.”

Later on, he was assisted by the Richmond Fellowship, which I believe is a national mental health charity, and he actually ended up working for it. He says:

“Without the support of Richmond Fellowship and Cambridge 105 Radio, I wouldn’t be here now sharing this story.”

This is just one example of a man suffering domestic abuse. On the positive side, it also shows that there are people and organisations out there that can and do help.

Nothing highlights more starkly the apparent lack of concern for male victims of domestic abuse than the Equal Treatment Bench Book, which is used in the courts—by magistrates, for example. It should be renamed, given that its section on domestic abuse has nothing “equal” about it at all. It refers to the number of women killed each week by a current or former partner, without making any mention at all of the men murdered or abused by their current or former partners. It also says:

“There are a number of significant reasons why women do not leave dangerous partners, including safety”.

What about men? That is a Ministry of Justice publication, for goodness’ sake. I fail to see how publications such as this help magistrates to abide by their sworn oath that they will

“do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or ill will.”

Interestingly, within further breakdowns of domestic abuse figures there are some noteworthy facts that an Equal Treatment Bench Book should perhaps have taken into consideration. For example, according to the crime survey by the ONS for the year ending March 2017, the number of black African men who have suffered domestic abuse is more than double the number of black African women who have suffered such abuse, at a rate of 8.7 per 100 for such men compared with 4.2 per 100 for such women. In the white Irish category, men are four and a half times more likely to be victims of domestic abuse than women, at a rate of 8.2 per 100 of the population for such men compared with 1.8 for such women. There is so much more that could be said about the Equal Treatment Bench Book, but I will resist the temptation to go down that route today.

I move on to the issue of women and men in prison. I have covered this problem in the justice system on many occasions and highlighted the clear bias in favour of women at every stage, yet there are still people who do not want to see any women at all being sent to prison. Setting aside the fact that it is very hard for a woman actually to get sent to prison in the first place, those so-called equality supporters are just showing their true colours. It would almost be easy to confine their comments to the loony bin of thinking if it was not for the unbelievable fact that the Ministry of Justice appears somehow to have been hypnotised by these idiotic suggestions.

The Government’s recently launched strategy on female offenders is completely wrong-headed. One of the justifications for its lily-livered approach to female offenders was said to be that female prisoners were often victims of domestic violence. Having recently tabled parliamentary questions, I can confirm something that people might not expect: there are two and a half times more men than women in prison who have suffered domestic abuse. That is the fact of the matter. In the latest figures, which relate to 30 June 2017, the Ministry of Justice says that 1,626 female prisoners had been the victim of domestic abuse. On the same day, there were 4,146 male prisoners in the same position. Again, that might be an inconvenient truth to the Ministry of Justice, but it is the reality, based on the Ministry’s own statistics.

In another irony, the same parliamentary questions revealed that nearly one in five female prisoners—18%—is a perpetrator of domestic violence. You couldn’t make it up: the Ministry of Justice’s strategy is based in part on women being the victims of domestic abuse, yet the beneficiaries of the policy could well have committed domestic abuse themselves.

All these noises about female offenders, saying how a different approach is needed to deal with women, are supposed to be in the name of equality, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is one of the most blatantly sexist, discriminatory things that is happening under our very noses. I should say, before the Ministry of Justice suggest it, that the solution is not letting out male prisoners and rehabilitating them in the community as well, to make it a level playing field. All those people are criminals, and the solution is to make sure that we keep them in prison.

I also want to touch on male circumcision: male genital mutilation. According to a barrister’s opinion, carrying out circumcision on males when there is no medical need—non-therapeutic circumcision—is a crime under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, being at least actual bodily harm if not grievous bodily harm. In 1983, Lord Hailsham, the then Lord Chancellor, said of female genital mutilation:

“in the case of a minor under the age of 16, there is no possibility that consent is any defence at all. A minor under the age of 16 is not able to consent to the commission upon her of a criminal assault. Neither parental consent nor the consent of the minor would be any defence at all, and if the parents did such a thing, or instigated such a thing or participated in such a thing, it would only render them liable to criminal penalties, too.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 April 1983; Vol. 441, c. 677.]

When I put it to the Government in 2016 that female genital mutilation was already illegal before specific laws on the subject were introduced, they agreed that it was. When I then put to them the position regarding boys, they took a different line. They quoted Sir James Munby, who was the president of the Family Division of the High Court, in a case of January 2015:

“Whereas it can never be reasonable parenting to inflict any form of FGM on a child, the position is quite different with male circumcision. Society and the law, including family law, are prepared to tolerate non-therapeutic male circumcision performed for religious or even for purely cultural or conventional reasons, while no longer being willing to tolerate FGM in any of its forms.”

As the former barrister who I mentioned earlier also said, it would require a parliamentary override for male circumcision to be legal, and that has never existed. No exemptions to the law of the land are permissible for religious or cultural reasons.

The Ministry of Justice went on to say that there was no doubt that female genital mutilation could have a physical and psychological impact on women, and also said that some girls die as a result of the procedure, which is absolutely correct. I do not pretend to be an expert in this field, but I believe that boys have also been reported to have died following a circumcision, and I have seen accounts of the physical and psychological impact of circumcision on men.

I understand that the position of the NHS is that the risks associated with routine circumcision, such as infection and excessive bleeding, outweigh any potential benefits. I am mentioning all this because I believe it should be on the record, not least because of the very different approaches to male and female genital mutilation. The Government said back in 2016 that they had no current plans to change the law in relation to male circumcision. Given everything I have said, there may be no need to change the law to bring about a change in male circumcisions. However, I would be particularly interested to hear from the Minister on that point.

I also want to touch on parental alienation. Men are clearly disadvantaged when it comes to family breakdowns and how children are allocated after those breakdowns. Women are more likely to get custody of the children and, as has been noted on many occasions, men really do draw the short straw in these instances. Parental alienation is a topic that requires much more time than can be given to it today, but I want to put on record how concerned I am about what is a growing problem in this country. For those not familiar with parental alienation, it is what it sounds like: parents being alienated from their children, usually by the other parent, to the detriment of that parent and the children. In my view, it is a form of child abuse. It can happen for all kinds of reasons, and in some cases it is clearly right that parents are kept away from their children—for example, when there are genuine safety concerns. However, parents—when I say “parents”, it is usually men, in reality—are being kept from their children without justification.

One solution is more use of child contact centres. I recently visited Bingley contact centre in my constituency, which is run out of Bingley Baptist church. It is one of the centres under the umbrella of the National Association of Child Contact Centres, which says that more than 1 million children have no contact whatever with one parent or another after separation. I want to place on record my thanks to everybody who works at the Bingley contact centre. They are all volunteers, and they give up their time week in, week out to make sure that parents get to see their children and—just as importantly, if not more importantly—that those children get to see their parents. It is fantastic to see the reaction of the children when they see the parent who has previously been alienated from them. These centres are meant to be a temporary solution, and they work to give—mainly—fathers the chance to get back into their children’s lives. There is a waiting list for that service in Bingley, and no doubt in other places around the country. That is a shame, as the more fathers who can see their children, the better.

I mentioned everyday sexism against men earlier in relation to domestic violence, but there are plenty more cases that need to be challenged. People may recall the absolute hoo-hah over the Presidents Club charity event. That men-only event was derided because the hostesses were asked to wear certain clothes, and a lap dance was given as a prize. I am sure we remember that all hell broke loose when that event was reported. Even the millions raised for good causes, including Great Ormond Street Hospital, were under threat of being returned in disgust.

Fast-forward a few months, and the Daily Mail featured an article about 11 old ladies who invited their daughters and granddaughters to their nursing home for a performance by Hunks in Trunks, complete with numerous pictures of male dancers in the buff, with no trunks in sight. That was of course hilarious, and not seedy at all: women ogling men, women touching men—and those men had far fewer clothes on than the women who were at the Dorchester hotel for that charity dinner, I can assure you, Mr Bailey.

If that had been a bunch of male pensioners doing that with women with no clothes on, apart from a scrap of material, I am pretty sure that the reaction in the newspapers would have been very different. The papers certainly would not have been reporting the story in such a glib fashion. I accept that the events are not totally comparable, but there are plenty of other, similar examples of how we treat men and women differently. Adverts that apparently objectify women do not, it seems, do the same for men.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman almost admitted at the end of his remarks that the two situations are not comparable. Does he not see the difference between essentially forcing women to look and dress a certain way as part of their job to please men, and a person having a job where they take their clothes off for a living?

[Philip Davies]

I see the hon. Lady’s point, and I absolutely accept it. I just hope that when the papers report a similar event in reverse, she will say, “Well, that is absolutely fine.” I do not think the reports would have been the same if male pensioners had been doing to women what those female pensioners were doing to men, but if the hon. Lady is saying that she would treat both exactly the same, that is fine; that is all I ask in this particular instance. I just doubt that that would have been the general reaction.

To show how ridiculous these things are, I was recently accused of sexism, and I could not for the life of me think what the lady who complained was talking about until she explained. I had sent her an email in response to her message to me following the mass misreporting that I had blocked the Bill to deal with upskirting, when, in fact, as the Speaker confirmed afterwards, I had done nothing of the sort. I said I was

“sorry people just act like a herd without knowing the facts.”

She tweeted that I had sent her a sexist message. I was dumbfounded because I could not work out what on earth was sexist about that line. When I inquired, she sent me an email back saying that by referring to the words “people” and “herd” it sounded as though I was referring to women as cows. That is how ridiculous the situation has got. You literally could not make it up.

Then we have the pay gap, which is reported in such a way as to be sexist against men. Although the whole thing is a nonsense from start to finish—I suspect most people who complain about the pay gap have not got even the first idea how it is calculated—it seems that a pay gap against women is totally unacceptable and yet a pay gap against men is apparently a good thing—at least, it seems to be, according to organisations such as the Parliamentary Digital Service. On Parliament’s own website, on the release of its figures, it states:

“In the Parliamentary Digital Service...the mean pay gap was -5.21%. The median pay gap was revealed to be -4.16%. This negative gap”—

the fact that men are paid less than women on average in that department—

“illustrates that women have a pay lead in terms of both mean and median hourly pay over men.”

The director of the Parliamentary Digital Service said:

“I am delighted that this first set of gender pay data is so encouraging for women in our organisation and I am proud to lead an organisation which is committed to ensuring equality and diversity in staff, including gender equality.”

So it seems the politically correct belief is that a pay gap is OK if it is against men. That cannot be right. We surely should not want a pay gap at all. Any pay gap must be wrong. We have a part-time pay gap in the UK that has persistently favoured women over men. I never hear anybody complaining about the part-time pay gap in this country, but we have to treat these things equally. If a pay gap is wrong, it is wrong. One cannot be right and one wrong. We can all agree with that.

This is one of the myths that has taken on an untouchable status as evidence of discrimination against women, when it is nothing of the kind, particularly given that the pay gap is not about paying someone less for the same job, which is already illegal. I wish that normally intelligent people would grasp that and do more to expose this issue for the sham that it is.

Yet again there are many more issues that I would like to cover today, but I do not have time. We have blatant discrimination against men in businesses, organisations and politics, where we are hellbent on having more women. No care is given to how that is achieved, so we now have positive discrimination, which is, as it says, discrimination. People think, not without justification, that women have been discriminated against in the past, but rather than thinking the solution is to remove that discrimination, it seems their agenda is to try to reverse it and say, “We want you to be discriminated against in the way that we were for all those years.” That kind of revenge tactic is what positive discrimination is. [Laughter.] The hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) laughs, but women-only shortlists, which she may have been a beneficiary of, discriminate against men. She thinks it is funny, but the people of Blaenau Gwent did not think it was funny when Labour lost one of its safest seats in 2005 simply because it had imposed a women-only shortlist and denied a good local man with impeccable local credentials the chance of standing. He stood as an independent and won the seat, which had been one of Labour’s safest seats in the country. That indicates the hon. Lady is probably slightly out of touch with working-class Labour voters around the country.

[Dawn Butler]

What amuses me is how out of touch the hon. Gentleman is when he talks about the hoo-hah over girls as young as 18 years old being forced to wear short skirts and high heels to serve men. He talks about the “untouchable status” of women when we try to get some balance and equality into the system. Without all-women shortlists, this House would not be as diverse as it is, which I am sure the hon. Gentleman has taken offence at.

[Philip Davies]

I do not really want to get into women-only shortlists, apart from saying that they clearly discriminate against men. There are only two possible reasons to have a women-only shortlist: either the women standing are not as good as the men and therefore need positive discrimination to help them, or the Labour party selection committee is so sexist it would choose a worse man than a better woman. If the hon. Lady believes the Labour party is stuffed with sexists who would choose a worse man than a better woman, I will not disagree with her, but it is hardly a ringing endorsement of people running the Labour party up and down the country. I will not even go on to the barmy idea that our stretched police forces should now extend the list of hate incidents—not even hate crimes—that they spend time on to cover misogyny and maybe misandry, but, in all likelihood, just misogyny.

I hope that the issues I have covered are different from those that others will speak about in this debate. I think the world really has gone mad at times, which is why I am glad that we can have these debates to discuss the variety of issues affecting men. As I have said before, nothing I say on this subject should be controversial in a normal world, yet people who have read or seen things about me might get the impression that I have somehow been unbelievably controversial in simply asking for men to be treated exactly the same as women. It is apparently sexist to ask that men are treated the same as women, but I do not think it is.

Finally, one clear message that I would like to go out today is that men should not feel alone. Whatever their problem, there are people out there who can see their point of view and can help. We politicians are not all blind to the problems that men face, and I hope that men feel reassured that they have a voice in Parliament on all issues and not just those that fit certain politically correct agendas. Also, the vast majority of women out there agree with common sense rather than the politically correct dogma that many people in this House give them as they claim to represent their interests. Together I hope we can make this country a better place for men and women, so they can live together equally happily, being treated the same and not differently simply because of their gender.

[Mr Adrian Bailey (in the Chair)]

Before I call the next speaker, may I make it clear that I want to call the Front-Bench spokesperson at 4 o’clock? You can do the arithmetic as well as I can. If all speakers on the Back Benches take that into consideration, I will be grateful.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

I thank you, Mr Bailey, for chairing our session today. I thank everybody who has attended and spoken in the debate. I am sure everybody would agree that we have had some fantastic contributions, from Members from all parts of the House.

I am glad that people were able to give a plug to some of the initiatives in their constituencies, such as “It Takes Balls to Talk” in the constituency of the hon. Member for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) and the men’s sheds in that of the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson). I thank everybody for their contributions. Everybody has raised a different element or issue, all of which are very serious. The hon. Member for Coventry North East said that there was not much time to talk about these things, and I hope we will have longer in the future. We might have lots of men discussing issues, but we do not often discuss men’s issues.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Philip Davies Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 28th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I thank the Minister very sincerely for the way she has engaged in this issue. Clearly it was a ridiculous loophole that the offence of threatening somebody with a knife applied only in a public place and not in a private place, and I am delighted that the Minister listened to the argument and engaged with it and has brought forward these new clauses today, which I will happily support. On that basis I am very happy to confirm to her that I will not press my new clauses in this regard.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend and thank him again for his help not just on this but on a drafting correction that we made in the Bill Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Hanson]

I rise to speak to new clause 1. I say to the Minister straightaway that I think she has missed the point on this. We are trying to strengthen the Bill to protect retail staff who are upholding the law. I support the Government’s position in relation to the banning of sales to under-18s of corrosive products and the restrictions on sales of knives. However, the question is whether it is right that those who hold stocks of those items are accordingly prosecuted if they sell them.

The key question for this House is: what about the people who are at the frontline in upholding the law through enforcing this legislation? Under this Bill, in the case of refusal to sell corrosive products and knives, it will not be the police or the security services, police community support officers or police and crime commissioners, or the local council or trading standards who are at the frontline in upholding the legislation that we hope the House will pass this evening. It will be the individual shop staff—often alone; often, perhaps, not much older than some of the people who are trying to buy these products—who are at the frontline of that challenge.

Let us just picture for a moment a large, 24-hour supermarket open at 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning with a shop assistant at the front counter refusing to make a sale of a corrosive product or a knife, upholding the legislation that the Minister proposes. Imagine for a moment a small, open-all-hours shop refusing to sell these products, or a DIY store on a Saturday afternoon refusing to sell at that frontline. When that member of staff says no, they say no on behalf of us all in upholding this legislation.

The simple measure that I have brought before the House would strengthen the Bill to give those people some protection. It would tell them what their rights are in upholding this legislation and what defences we are giving to them.

[Philip Davies]

As I am sure the right hon. Gentleman knows, I worked for Asda for 12 years before I first entered this place, and what he has said about shop staff is absolutely right. It is a hellishly difficult job working on the checkouts in a supermarket—or in any shop, for that matter—and we ask an awful lot of those people, who are not paid an awful lot to do the really responsible job that they do. I agree that the least that we can do in this House, when we put such pressures on them, is to give them the support that they need. On that basis, I very much support his new clause 1.

Police: Financial Sustainability

Philip Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 12th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

The right hon. Gentleman has raised an extremely important point. One of the clear messages that I received during my tour of the police system was about the frustration caused by the amount of time that officers spend—in their words—doing other people’s jobs, away from core policing work, and a large part of that frustration relates to the amount of time spent supporting people with mental health issues. We are doing a piece of work on this, because evidence must support the initiatives that we take. We need to understand the problem, and think about how we can make local collaboration work more effectively so that time can be freed up to allow police officers to do what the public expect, and focus on core policing.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Policing should always be a spending priority for a Conservative Government. I have voted against cuts in police grants every year since their introduction in 2010. Our police are overstretched, and that is of increasing concern to many of our constituents. Is it not time that the Government broke the habit of a lifetime and did something popular? [Laughter.] Is it not time that they scrapped some of the huge, ridiculous sums that are going into the overseas aid budget, and passed them to our hard-pressed police forces? That would be popular with our local communities.

Does the Minister agree that calls for increases in the police budget—which I consistently make—are not helped by morons such as the police and crime commissioner in South Yorkshire, who seems to think that his force has so much money that it can now start asking people to report non-crimes as well as crimes?

[Mr Hurd]

My hon. Friend is a great and long-standing champion of the police, and I have great respect for that. However, he should know—because he is good at numbers—that this year the Government are spending, on behalf of the public and the taxpayer, more than £1 billion more on our police system than we were three years ago. I hope he welcomes that, because, as he fully recognises, the police system is stretched, and it is our responsibility to ensure that it has the resources that it needs.