Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 11th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lauren Edwards (Rochester and Strood) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

It is a privilege to open this debate on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill—a Bill that will give dying adults, under very stringent criteria, choice, autonomy and dignity at the end of their lives.

What is being asked of MPs today? It is a fair question, given that this House already voted to send the near identical Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) back to the House of Lords in June last year. On Second Reading, we vote on the principle of a Bill, but we did that in November 2024. It is a broader principle that the House must consider today: who ultimately decides the laws that govern our nation?

Many Members would no doubt prefer to be working in their constituencies today. They are not because a small number of peers in the other place chose to prevent any votes from taking place on the substance of the Bill in the last Session.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Lauren Edwards]

I will once I have concluded my opening remarks.

That decision by those peers means that one of the most significant national conversations that we have been having as legislators was brought to an abrupt halt. Who suffers detriment as a result? Clearly, the terminally ill and their families, who had a fair assumption that the will of the people they elected to represent them in this Chamber would be respected, but also those who must navigate our current, unclear laws. They are laws that do not protect or guide those who work in our health system, laws that do not contain safeguards against the risks of coercion, laws that criminalise and traumatise families who simply want to be with their loved one at the moment of their death, and laws that four Directors of Public Prosecutions have urged need to change. If we do not vote today to allow this Bill to continue its passage through Parliament, we accept those outcomes as the cost of maintaining the status quo, and who knows how long it will be before we get the opportunity to consider the introduction of assisted dying laws again, despite consistent polling showing that it receives majority public support?

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[Lauren Edwards]

It is not quite the exact same Bill; it incorporates two amendments that were agreed without a vote in the House of Lords last time. We have had our conversation in this Chamber about this Bill in 2025, and we have had an interrupted conversation as a nation. I am asking Members of this House to send the Bill back to the House of Lords so that they can continue their important work of amending and scrutinising legislation.

[Rachel Taylor]

Does my hon. Friend agree that unless this House makes it absolutely clear that it is outrageous and unacceptable for a very small number of unelected peers to block legislation, supported by the elected Chamber, then the same tactic could be used again with any private Member’s Bill that comes forward in this House?

[Lauren Edwards]

Absolutely—it would set a dangerous precedent. Those Members who want to come in on the specifics of the Parliament Acts will have ample opportunity to do so later in my speech, and I will be willing to take interventions on that matter.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley for the courage, courtesy and openness she showed during the passage of her Bill. Her engagement with those from all sides of the debate, particularly in Committee, delivered a stronger Bill that this House voted for on Report and Third Reading. One strengthening factor was the introduction of a requirement for the Health Secretary to report regularly on the availability, quality and distribution of palliative care. In asking parliamentarians to consider assisted dying, my hon. Friend also prompted a national conversation about how we improve and fund palliative care. We saw more funding for hospices, as well as Government action to develop a new framework to improve palliative care and end-of-life care.

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[Martin Vickers (Brigg and Immingham) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak in this important debate. Understandably, we have heard some passionate and courageous contributions, such as the one from the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton), who is no longer in her place. She made a remarkable contribution to the debate.

In this House, we discuss a whole range of issues week in, week out. Many of them are rather mundane, but nothing is more important than issues of life and death. To be honest, I would have thought that the mountain of briefings, reports and individual letters, particularly from a number of clinicians, would have been sufficient to persuade most people that this is an unsafe Bill, but I want to speak about the wider implications. Other Members have mentioned the impact on society. I claim no particular insight; indeed, I see through a glass darkly.

Some of us believe that life is God-given, and others do not, but I am sure we can all agree that it is uniquely precious and that we should do all we can to preserve it. I do not in any way question the motives of hon. Members or members of the public who take a different view. As we have heard today, many will have reached their conclusions having witnessed the slow and sometimes painful death of a loved one. I am of the firm view that if assisted dying is legalised, we will be poorer as a society. We will have crossed a line. We will have accepted that, to adapt the phrase I used earlier, life is not uniquely precious and, importantly, we will have changed the relationship between doctor and patient. That relationship is crucial, and it could be compromised if a patient was anything other than 100% certain that their doctor or clinician was striving to maintain life. When we are old, weak and seriously ill, we need compassion and support, not the nagging doubt that the treatment that we are receiving is not entirely—

[Rachel Taylor]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Martin Vickers]

No, I cannot give way. There is no time for interventions.

As society has evolved and civilisation has advanced, care of the vulnerable, those who are sick and those who need comfort as they near the end of their lives has become a higher priority, and rightly so. In preparation for this debate, I re-read an article that the former Supreme Court Justice, Lord Sumption, published in the Sunday Times in November 2024. We cannot produce legislation that meets every circumstance. Lord Sumption stated that

“the decision to allow doctors to help bring about the death of a human being crosses a major moral threshold.”

I think that is sufficient warning that we should be very confident that the Bill has the necessary safeguards, and I do not believe it does. As I say, we cannot produce legislation for every individual circumstance, so we are left with the alternative: to include sufficient safeguards. Even for those who support the Bill in principle, it does not have those safeguards. If one is old, frail, weak and seriously ill, one needs help, support and compassion, not the added worry and the nagging doubt over whether everything possible is being done to preserve one’s life.

Both of my parents died of cancer and suffered in their final months. I well remember the telephone call from the consultant after the tests on my father, when he said, “We must hope that God is merciful and does not allow him to suffer for too long.” Although he did suffer, he lived for a further six months after I received that fateful call, and in that six months I saw him enjoying life and sharing time with his then four-year-old granddaughter. In his final weeks, he spent time in St Andrew’s hospice in Grimsby. I saw then what comfort could be offered through palliative care. No longer did he suffer the periods of pain that he had had in earlier weeks. That happened as long ago as 1988, and things have improved dramatically since that time.

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[Christine Jardine]

I do, but they are each one individual, and each of the professional organisations is neutral, and believe me, I envy them on that.

We have the responsibility to make the decision. The majority of us have already said that this is the best Bill we can produce. We—the majority of us—have made that decision once already, and we sent it to the other place. If we do that again today, I hope that those in the other place listen and take that on board and that the handful of peers who blocked it—

[Rachel Taylor]

The hon. Lady speaks with great passion. Does she agree that members in the other place bringing forward amendments such as suggesting that women who had been through the menopause, or men, needed to have a pregnancy test before they could be eligible for an assisted death, was a deliberate attempt to wreck the Bill, as opposed to undertaking their important role of scrutiny?

[Christine Jardine]

I completely agree, and it did the other place no credit at all that they did that.

There is something interesting and noticeable about all the experiences we have heard today. I have personal experience, which I admit influences my view. I saw my mother go through a very painful death and wished that she had had the choice. I do not know what she would have done, but I wished that she had had the choice. What is interesting is that we have all taken different things from those experiences. Some of us have said that we cannot do it because of that experience, and others have said that we must do it because of that experience, because we have all made decisions. We all have the right to make decisions for ourselves, and that can surely be no more important than when we face the final decision that we will face. It is for that reason—to respect that choice, to respect a decision that has already been made in this place, to respect the will of the British people—that I ask the House to send this Bill back to the Lords for approval.

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[Dr Marie Tidball (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

This week, death has felt rather too close to home for me. My dad, John—my constituent, my great political hero and, indeed, my hero in life—had surgery for lung cancer, followed by a cardiac arrest the next day. Thanks to our wonderful NHS and its outstanding care, the CPR and treatment performed on him were successful. He is now in the process of recovery, to such an extent that I was able to have a detailed conversation with him at his bedside, in which he insisted that I come here to this place to speak and vote in this debate. My dad is determined to live. Nevertheless, he told me that if circumstances were different—if his condition was terminal, if he had six months left to live and if he had capacity to make that choice—he would want to have the option to choose an assisted death to give him dignity.

Access to the choice of assisted dying, as tightly drawn in the Bill, enables the terminally ill adult who chooses it to live a good death. On Second Reading of the Bill previously brought forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater), I said that my support was conditional on further safeguards being embedded in it, because too often control is taken away from disabled people.

[Rachel Taylor]

Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?

[Dr Tidball]

I will continue, if my hon. Friend does not mind.

Clause 2(4) of the Bill before us today says:

“For the avoidance of doubt, a person is not to be considered to be terminally ill only because they are a person with a disability or mental disorder (or both).”

As a member of the previous Bill Committee, I worked for over 90 hours to ensure that all the changes that I requested were made, and they are now on the face of the Bill brought forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Lauren Edwards). My amendments, including two new clauses, were unanimously supported by that Committee. The first, clause 48, establishes a disability advisory board made up of disabled people and our organisations in order to embed a long-term and iterative structure in law to report on the Bill’s implementation and its impact on disabled people. The second, clause 22, sets out provisions to put in place independent advocates for people with autism and mental health conditions, enabling them to effectively understand their options around end-of-life care.

Further, I ensured that clause 8 provides for specific, up-to-date training for registered practitioners on reasonable adjustments and safeguards for autistic people and people with learning disabilities. I also secured an expanded duty in clause 28 to collect additional information about whether, immediately before death, the person seeking assistance has a disability—as defined under section 6 of the Equality Act 2010—other than a disability amounting to terminal illness, as defined in this Bill. Together, these measures create a solid foundation to enable disabled people to have a strong voice when advocating for themselves about their choices on end-of-life care and, importantly, to have a seat at the table so that they can scrutinise and monitor the implementation of this Bill.

Spending nearly two years thinking about death in relation to this Bill has been life-changing for me, because the thing about considering choice in death, understanding what dignity in dying involves and what living a good death really means, is that it makes you think deeply about the meaning of living a good life, too: to love ferociously and to live passionately, experiencing every single moment as if suspended like a vignette woven from “Charlotte’s Web”. As E. B. White’s eponymous character points out:

“After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die.”

Each of these stages of human life requires us to treat ourselves and fellow humans with dignity and to value ourselves, to enable us to feel and to perceive our own worth. This Bill not only anchors that dignity at the final stage but, in doing so, compels us to embed dignity in each and every other stage of our lives as well. This Bill lays a counterweight alongside the Government’s plans to improve the quality of and access to palliative care, to drive urgent reform on social care, and to build a new system that gives people the dignity, security and support they deserve. Driving quality in these areas together can and must be done contemporaneously.

My friend, the incredible assisted dying campaigner Nathaniel Dye, passed away this year. He squeezed every single drop of joy out of life and taught me so much about why living a good death matters. In setting the bar high for dignity in death, we set the bar even higher for dignity in life.

Courts and Tribunals Bill

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 10th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sally Jameson (Doncaster Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I, too, pay tribute to those Members of the House who made exceptional contributions, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols). Her bravery today will be the debate’s real stand-out moment.

As we all know, the backdrop to this Bill is a court system that is facing crisis; that has been the case throughout the criminal justice system for many years. People up and down the country are waiting years for their day in court. When the justice system breaks down, it is our constituents and victims in our areas who pay the price. Although I will not address the presumption of contact in my speech, I pay tribute to the campaigners in this House, in the Gallery and around the country who have made sure that a measure on the presumption of contact is included in the Bill. It is a really special moment.

In the last six months, a number of my surgeries have been attended by constituents who are bearing the brunt of court delays—victims of serious crime who have been waiting years without justice and without closure. That is why, in the House today, I will be supporting this Bill on behalf of my constituents, who deserve timely justice.

We also have to remember the remand population, which has not been talked about much today. It is well publicised that our prison estate is in absolute crisis, having reached capacity and been totally stretched. While the Government are making the necessary reforms to address that and are building up capacity, they can ill afford to have the remand population at its current level. Frankly, those people are entitled to their day in court, to get their verdict and to be able to get on with their lives one way or the other.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is nothing progressive about a working-class man spending a year on remand—without a judge or a jury, and without any end to his turmoil in sight—when he may in fact be innocent?

[Sally Jameson]

I completely agree. Whether they will be found innocent or guilty, people are entitled to their day in court, and within a reasonable amount of time, as are the victims who need to have their cases heard. Frankly, that also allows prisons to get on with the important work of punishing those who are guilty and focusing on rehabilitation.

I want to take the opportunity of this Bill to push for a further reform of courts policy—I know the Minister is aware of this issue. I understand the reasons it is not in the Bill, but there was a particular case in my constituency. Somebody arrived for their day in court and ready for their trial, but because one of the jurors went sick, the judge decided it would not go ahead, even though the minimum number of jurors was available. They had to wait for a new trial date, which was many months later and, sadly, in the time they were waiting, the defendant—the perpetrator—died. In that case, justice delayed really was justice denied. Will the Minister meet me at another time to discuss whether there can be, if not a legislative change, a policy change on the expectation on judges to carry out trials when the minimum number of jurors is in attendance, unless there are exceptional circumstances?

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[Rachel Taylor]

I really feel for my hon. Friend’s constituent. Warwickshire police used to have one of the worst records in the country for charging in rape cases, but they have turned that around and now have one of the best. Does he agree that, for the police to continue doing their work investigating the accused, our court system must support fair and timely trials? Only then will we restore public trust in our justice system.

[Warinder Juss]

Yes, the measures are all about getting timely justice, which is why I will support the Bill.

This Labour Government inherited a system on the brink of collapse, and in which cases like my constituent’s are all too common. We must all recognise that action is sorely needed, and I welcome the Government’s commitment to reform. I thank Sir Brian Leveson for his detailed and thoughtful review—part 1 was completed last July, so the Bill is not being rushed. His review has played a significant role in shaping the reforms in the Bill. I know that there are mixed opinions about the proposed changes to jury trials, but the independent review of the criminal courts was carried out because of the truly appalling backlog in our criminal justice system. I have heard of trials in the most seriously affected courts being listed into 2030. I heard this morning that victims are saying that waiting three years for their case to come to court was worse than the rape itself. Jury trials do take longer, and I would have preferred the Government to follow Sir Brian’s recommendation that a new bench division be created, in which a judge and two magistrates try cases without a jury.

However, I trust this Government to take the necessary steps to repair our justice system while preserving the sanctity, fairness and integrity that underpin justice in this country. Any proportionate and appropriate amendments to the Bill can be made in Committee. I also welcome the investment that this Government have made in modernising our court system, to try to reduce the backlog while ensuring that victims do not face unnecessary delays and inefficient processes when seeking justice.

HMP Downview: Female Prisoners

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Paul]

I will not. E wing has sleeping quarters and bathrooms, along with some living room space. Everything else that these prisoners need, like work, education and health services, are only available in the main estate. They therefore spend their days mixing with the women. So what supervision arrangements are in place to protect the women from these dangerous males?

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Rebecca Paul]

I will not.

In September, the independent monitoring board published its report on HMP Downview and shed some light on this matter. The report makes it clear that there had previously been

“a requirement for constant sight and sound supervision of E wing prisoners by a dedicated prison officer on a 1:1 basis whilst in activities…alongside prisoners in the general population.”

However, the report notes that that was changed earlier in the reporting period. It says:

“The previous 1:1 supervision arrangement was replaced”

by staff having

“general oversight of the E wing residents off the wing, as they do for all other prisoners”—

in other words, nothing additional.

To be completely clear, we have violent males housed in a women’s prison, which in itself is against the law. These males are not segregated from the women in the daytime; they use all the same services and communal spaces. These violent males are not supervised any differently from the female prisoners, with the previous one-on-one supervision by a dedicated prison officer being stopped. That is gross negligence and shows a complete disregard for the safety and wellbeing of female prisoners at HMP Downview.

What have been the responses of Ministers to the supervision issue raised in the report? Are they horrified? Have they committed to look into this issue? No, of course not. What they did do was remove the chair of the independent monitoring board the day after publication of the report highlighting the safeguarding failure.

Before I bring my speech to a close, let me comment on assertions that these males have not caused any issues for female prisoners. In reality, I really do not know if that is the case, because my question about how many of the prisoner-on-prisoner assaults at HMP Downview were committed by males has not elicited a response. Ministers simply say that the information could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. Why is that information not being provided? A failure to respond to that straightforward question does not fill me with confidence.

I would be grateful if the Minister could answer the following questions. When are the biological males being moved out of HMP Downview and all other women’s prisons, in accordance with the Equality Act? What immediate action is being taken about the inadequate supervision of these males in HMP Downview and any other women’s prison where it is relevant? How comfortable is the Minister with the removal of the chair of the independent monitoring board the day after the publication of the IMB’s September 2025 report highlighting the changes to supervision of E Wing inmates? How many assaults of female prisoners and prison officers by biological males in the women’s prison estate have taken place since the inclusion of males in women’s prisons? What percentage of total assaults do they make up?

I thank all Members for their participation in the debate this evening. Those who notified me in advance that they would like to make an intervention were granted said intervention—courtesy needs to be paid to these things. I also thank the Minister for listening to what I know is probably a difficult speech to listen to. I hope the issue at hand is now clear.

I urge the Minister finally to grasp the nettle on this shocking scandal and ensure that women’s prisons become single sex once again. We managed to get this right more than 200 years ago. Please restore our faith that this country is not going backwards on basic safeguards and rights for women.

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[Rachel Taylor]

May I ask the Minister whether the violence experienced by women, in prison or not, is generally committed by cis men, not by transgender women? Does she agree that this is simply a way of fuelling culture wars and is not helpful in protecting women or any LGBT people, who are experiencing an increase in violent hate crime?

[Alex Davies-Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention—it is important to put on record the nuance in this area. It is also important to recognise that levels of violence in prison are untenable and need addressing, whoever is committing that violence. The level of violence in the male estate is incredibly high and needs addressing, and my priority as the Minister for victims and for tackling violence against women and girls is getting on top of all this, because anyone who feels unsafe in prison needs our support. That is exactly what we are trying to ensure.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Friday 20th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir James Cleverly]

I need to make progress.

A number of professional bodies have said they do not have the capacity. They do not have enough people to fill the slots that this Bill demands of them.

Secondly, in terms of fundamental changes, are hon. and right hon. Members genuinely happy to write the blank cheque that this Bill demands? It is normal for the Secretary of State of a Government Department to decide when a piece of legislation comes into force, and they make their decision based on the state’s ability to deliver that legislation. Commencement dates matter; they are not just some arbitrary dates on a piece of paper. I understand people’s desire to ensure that this cannot be lost down the back of the sofa when it comes to Government work, but when the people on whom we would rely to deliver this Bill say that they are not ready and that they do not feel that they will be ready—they do not have enough people and they do not have enough capacity, so they will have to take resource from current provisions to move across to this provision, which will be driven by a statutory requirement and a locked-in commencement date—we should listen. If the people who are going to make this work—and work as well as we hope it will, if it becomes legislation—say that they are not confident that they can make it happen, we should be very careful about demanding that they prioritise this. That is what this legislation says: they will prioritise this above any other work that they might otherwise do.

Thirdly—the hon. Member for Spen Valley hinted at this, and I mentioned it in an intervention in an earlier stage of the Bill—on coercion, on the pressure that individuals put on themselves and on medical professionals raising the issue, we know that there are inequalities in health provision already, none of which will be addressed by the Bill. There are certain communities, and certain people in those communities, particularly women, who are overly deferential to men and to men in authority. Can we genuinely say that we have no fear whatsoever about a potentially vulnerable woman sitting in front of a medical professional who raises assisted dying? Even if they do not imply that it is the right thing for her to do, the very fact that they bring it up will have a significant influence on that woman’s thinking. We cannot believe that the effect will be completely neutral across all communities.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

With the safeguards that have been put in the Bill, there will be a panel that looks at those issues and asks questions like, “Has your doctor persuaded you to do this?” Do we honestly think that a social worker, psychiatrist or lawyer is totally incapable of finding coercion? That is exactly what the panel is there to do, and that is exactly what those safeguards will provide.

[Sir James Cleverly]

The hon. Lady makes an important point, but I refer her to my second question. Those bodies say that they do not have the people to populate those panels, yet that is what the commencement date demands. The principle of having a person or group of people to protect against coercion is important—I am talking not just about coercion, but about how people perceive people in authority—but royal colleges and social workers have told us that they do not believe they will be ready to put those guardrails in place by the commencement date. We should listen to them.

This is an important debate that has stimulated an important conversation, which demands our full attention, but I do not believe that the Bill is ready to go to the other place. It is interesting that there are both proponents and opponents of the Bill who hope that the Lords will make significant changes to the Bill. That should surely set off alarm bells.

Ultimately, because the Bill is such a fundamental change, we need to ensure that there is an enhanced level of scrutiny of its detail. We all want to avoid and alleviate suffering wherever possible, but I do not believe that we have had the opportunity to get the Bill into the right shape. That is why I will oppose Third Reading, and I encourage others to do likewise.

Violence against Women and Girls

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

I want to thank all my colleagues for their valuable and powerful accounts, in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington), who has worked so hard on this issue, and my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh), who has done a great deal to assist in community cohesion.

Violence against women and girls is undeniably difficult to speak about, especially as so many of us have suffered and will know friends and family who have been affected. Before I begin, I would like to express my solidarity with the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), who has received further vile and misogynistic attacks this week. I hope members of the official Opposition are brave enough to do the same and call out these vitriolic attacks for what they are. My hon. Friend has always shone brightly as a beacon for all victims of violent and sexual abuse.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) said, it feels like nothing has changed since the 1980s, when I went to university in Leeds in the wake of the Yorkshire ripper. Women’s behaviour is still dictated by fear of rape and violent attack. Violence against women and girls is a national emergency, not the inevitability that previous Governments have treated it as. We are sick and tired of seeing women and girls facing the same threats of violence and abuse, generation after generation.

Recent generations have faced the new threat of image-based abuse. My colleagues and I on the Women and Equalities Committee investigated image-based abuse and produced a report, which recommended that the Government take action to protect victims. I am pleased that the Government will introduce three new offences to combat image-based abuse. These are steps in the right direction—steps that will protect more women from revenge porn and will hopefully lead more victims to feel confident in reporting perpetrators.

We can go through statistic after statistic, but I want to speak about the experience of one of my constituents, who was brave enough to share her story with me and asked me to share it with the House. Olivia, in her words, was love-bombed before her abuse started. Her abuser emotionally manipulated her and then strangled her and left acid in her car. She did everything that we ask of victims. She called the police. She reported everything at the time and had witnesses who spoke to the police, but she was too scared to tell them about all the abuse that was happening. Then her perpetrator made her believe that he was the victim and convinced her to drop the charges and continue their relationship. They went away on holiday. There, the abuse continued, and she had to get the police involved abroad. She decided to end the relationship shortly after, but it did not end there.

Her abuser harassed, stalked and threatened her at her own home and in public. Again, she did everything right. She called the police on every occasion to report it. When he was finally arrested, no further action was taken because there was not enough evidence to convict him. When she first reported him, she was told that he would be convicted and charged for non-fatal strangulation, but he still walks the streets, and it is her who must live in fear of what could happen next.

We must confront the uncomfortable reality that even when victims of violence report domestic abuse to the police, they do not get the help they need. I asked Olivia whether there was anything she would like me to share, and she asked me to tell the House that

“when a girl or woman approaches the police, faster action needs to be taken as the perpetrators can very quickly get back into our heads and feel that we are the problem and women are more likely to drop the case, there should be more support from the police when victims ask for cases to be dropped”.

We know that domestic abuse is much more than physical abuse. Coercive control leaves victims helpless and unable to escape their abusers, like Olivia says. It is time we made sure that our first responders, police and ambulance crews know what coercive control looks like. We must make sure that teachers teach their students about coercive control, and that cases of coercive control are spotted and taken seriously by the police before it is too late, as was the case with another of my constituents, who sadly lost her daughter.

The Government’s new ministerial board on tackling violence against women and girls will bring together Ministers from the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Education, the Department for Transport, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and many more Departments, to ensure that for the first time we have a truly cross-Government approach to violence against women and girls. I urge them to ensure that tackling coercive control is at the centre of that approach.

This cross-Government approach and the introduction of domestic abuse specialists into 999 control rooms as part of Raneem’s law give me hope in the fight against gendered violence. We have a long way to go, but I am proud to be part of a Government who are committed to tackling misogyny, halving violence against women and girls and taking action now to make that a reality in every corner of our society.

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[David Burton-Sampson (Southend West and Leigh) (Lab)]

Tackling violence against women and girls is a job for everyone. We all know that tackling violence involves far more than just the police and the criminal justice system. Preventing abuse in the first place is crucial, and everyone needs to play their part.

I join my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh) and others in expressing my disappointment that some seem to pick and choose which type of abuse they wish to champion. Abuse is not a political football. All should come together to tackle abuse.

Across Government, and with mayors, local councils and police and crime commissioners, we need to support strong preventive action. According to the crime survey for England and Wales for the year ending March 2024, 2.2 million women that year had experienced domestic abuse, 1.1 million had suffered sexual assault and 1.5 million had been stalked.

Of course, it is not just physical abuse that women experience; they also experience online abuse. My fellow members of the Women and Equalities Committee and I recently heard evidence from young women about the abuse they experienced through non-consensual intimate images and deepfakes. It was harrowing to hear about the long-term impact this abuse has had on those young girls’ lives.

As we have heard, this Government have pledged to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, and I am pleased by the action they are already taking. I must mention the tireless and dedicated work of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips). She has stood up and fought against violence against women and girls for many years, supported many victims and is now doing great work to influence the tackling of this issue in her role as Minster for Safeguarding and Violence against Women and Girls.

However, the issue is not just what the Government should do. Preventing abuse in the first place is crucial, and everyone needs to play their part. Men need to play their part—men need to do more. The charity White Ribbon wants to prevent men’s violence against women and girls by addressing its root causes. It works with men and boys to change long-established and harmful attitudes, systems and behaviours that perpetuate inequality and violence.

It is clear that many young men are being warped by toxic influencers online. Police chiefs have warned that young men are being radicalised online. The police have demanded that technology companies act more quickly to take down extreme material. Schools have a role to play in providing high-quality, inclusive and effective relationships and sex education that is relevant to the realities of children’s lives and empowers young people to understand the true relationship boys should have with girls: respect, respect and respect. That really matters. Men need to be champions of that cause and of women’s safety.

[Rachel Taylor]

I thank my hon. Friend, who is my colleague on the Women and Equalities Committee, for everything he does to set an example to young men. Does he agree that we should call upon all our male colleagues to do the same in their constituencies?

[David Burton-Sampson]

I agree, and I call upon all men to do everything they can to champion the cause. Men need to be positive champions: there is so much we can do. We need to be allies, calling out poor language or behaviour in our own friendship groups when we witness it. We need to be conscious of our behaviour around women, such as keeping a distance if we are walking near a woman who is alone at night. If we see a woman being harassed on public transport, for example, we can be an active bystander by ignoring the aggressor and engaging the victim with a benign question, such as asking the time or offering a seat. That is non-confrontational intervention that can help diffuse a situation. There is so much more that we, as men, can do. We can all help. We need to educate, act and do more to support, and we need to drive down such behaviour once and for all.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 29th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kim Leadbeater]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The courts have repeatedly put this issue back to Parliament. This is not their domain. This is the legislation. There are strict criteria.

Coming back to palliative care, in situations where pain simply cannot be managed, the result is deaths that are so horrific that the person themselves can spend hours, and in some cases days, in unimaginable pain as they die. I want to bring the debate back to the issue that we are trying to solve. For their loved ones, no matter how many joyful and happy memories they have, they also have the trauma that comes from watching someone you love die in unbearable agony and fear. That memory stays with them forever.

Rebecca’s mum Fiona developed metastatic brain cancer at the age of 69. She had very good palliative care, but her pain could not be managed, and she died begging and screaming for assistance to end her suffering. Her family and the medical team treating her cried beside her bedside as it took her 10 days to die.

Lucy’s husband Tom was 47, a music teacher with a young son. He had bile duct cancer which obstructed his bowel, resulting in an agonising death. Tom vomited faecal matter for five hours before he ultimately inhaled the faeces and died. He was vomiting so violently that he could not be sedated and was conscious throughout. Lucy pleaded with the doctors to help. The doctor treating him said there was nothing he could do. His family say that the look of horror on his face as he died will never leave them. Lucy now has post-traumatic stress disorder, which is quite common for families who lose loved ones in such harrowing circumstances.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for the powerful and moving stories she is telling. A constituent of mine watched her mum suffer from pancreatic cancer. Unable to keep any food down, she basically starved to death. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is no way to see a loved one die? Does she also agree that we did not come into this place to shy away from difficult choices, but to listen to our constituents and make better laws for everyone?

[Kim Leadbeater]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and I am so sorry to hear that story from her constituency. We all have stories from all our constituencies, and she is absolutely right that we are here to make difficult decisions. On her example there, I have been astonished by the number of people who have been in touch with me to tell me about the terminally ill loved ones who have starved themselves to death out of desperation—something that takes far longer than we may imagine and is just horrific for everyone involved. That is currently legal, and doctors are required to assist the patient through this agonising process. How can we allow that, but not a compassionate and humane assisted death?

Tackling Image-based Abuse

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing the issue to Westminster’s attention and giving us the opportunity to debate it. I place on the record my interest as another member of the Women and Equalities Committee.

We must also do better to protect male victims who reach out to the Revenge Porn Helpline. It is time we prioritised victims. We must not let technology develop without the necessary safeguards to protect us all from harm. I was alarmed to hear last week that online platforms do not take images down while they are reviewing their harmfulness; that practice simply exacerbates the harm that victims face. It is vital we ensure that image-based abuse does not get lost in the excitement of this Government’s new, packed legislative agenda. It is time that the legislation recognised adult non-consensual intimate images as illegal content, in the same way that abusive images of children are so considered. The Online Safety Act 2023—

[Martin Vickers (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions are supposed to be short. May I ask the hon. Member to conclude hers?

[Rachel Taylor]

My apologies, Mr Vickers.

[Kirith Entwistle]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. We should absolutely be putting victims at the heart of any legislation on this topic.

I do not believe that in their 14 years the previous Government did anywhere near enough to tackle the issue. I can already see the Labour Government taking decisive steps to change the answer to the question of whether we are doing enough. I welcome the Government’s manifesto commitment to ban the creation of sexually explicit deepfakes, an essential step in safeguarding women and girls from malicious technology. I am encouraged by the collaborative work under way among the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice to identify a legislative vehicle to ensure that those who create these images without consent are held accountable. I am also pleased that new changes to the Online Safety Act will make image-based abuse a priority offence.

Although those are positive steps, they represent only modest progress. As experts such as End Violence Against Women and the #NotYourPorn campaign have pointed out, sharing intimate images without consent was already prioritised under the Online Safety Act. So far, the changes under this Government have been merely administrative and merely incremental. Having listened to survivors of image-based abuse, I urge the Minister to agree that this is no time for incremental change.

Georgia Harrison is a courageous campaigner who shared her story with the Women and Equalities Committee. Georgia’s images were distributed without her consent, leading to years of harassment, scrutiny and anguish. Even after her abuser was convicted, Georgia continued to see her images circulate online—a haunting reminder that, as she has stated, her life will never be the same again.

Another survivor is “Jodie”, who bravely spoke to the BBC about the trauma of being deepfaked by someone she once considered her best friend. Jodie discovered that images from her private Instagram account had been overlaid on pornographic material and posted across Reddit and other forums, with users invited to rate her body. Jodie endured this abuse for five years. She recalls:

“I felt alone. The emotional toll was enormous. There were points I was crying so much I burst the blood vessels in my eyes. I couldn’t sleep and when I did, I had nightmares.”

In Jodie’s case, the perpetrator was asking others to create explicit images of her, revealing a shameful grey area in our current legislation. That is why Jodie, along with campaign partners the End Violence Against Women coalition, Glamour and #NotYourPorn, is calling for an image-based abuse law.

Speaking as a mother, I cannot imagine having my child endure such horror. I am grateful that Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge has introduced a private Member’s Bill in the other place to address this gap. She has done a great deal of work on the issue, keeping victims like Georgia and Jodie at the heart of her Bill.

Georgia and Jodie’s experiences underscore three critical flaws in the Online Safety Act. The first is the glaring failure to criminalise abusive images themselves. Georgia’s story illustrates this brutal oversight: despite her abuser’s conviction, the absence of a stay-down provision allows her images still to circulate online, forcing her to relive the trauma with each resurfacing. To quote Professor Clare McGlynn,

“every day these images remain online is another day of extreme suffering for victims.”

Survivors deserve certainty that once their abuse is addressed, it is addressed permanently.

A second flaw in the Act is its reliance on Ofcom, whose current enforcement powers lack the agility and speed needed for an online world in which, if one website is blocked, another can appear instantly. Initiatives such as the StopNCII.org campaign have revealed how social media platforms consistently outmanoeuvre Ofcom. This is effectively leaving tech giants to determine whether supporting survivors like Georgia serves their profit-driven interests. To close the enforcement gaps, I stand with the End Violence Against Women coalition, Glitch and others in calling for a national online abuse commission —a dedicated body to champion the rights of victims and survivors of online abuse.

Finally, our legislation fails survivors by denying them accessible civil remedies—such as immediate take-downs and compensation for emotional harm—outside the criminal process. For survivors such as Jodie who have endured years of abuse, the inability to seek swift relief without a lengthy, retraumatising trial is a devastating gap. Creating a statutory civil offence for image-based abuse would not only empower survivors to seek redress directly against perpetrators and platforms, but give them that all-important second chance. The Minister will know that organisations such as South West Grid for Learning and the UK Safer Internet Centre consider civil remedies as much-needed lifelines for survivors. I wholeheartedly agree.

Today, through Georgia and Jodie’s stories, we have seen the devastating cost of our inaction on the escalating, ever-evolving crisis of image-based abuse. For too long, our legislation has had three glaring deficiencies: the absence of a stay-down provision, the lack of an online abuse commission and the unavailability of civil remedies.

Returning to my earlier questions, I want to be able to tell survivors that this Government are doing everything possible to support them. I want to reassure them that our Ministers are responding in real time to the scale and urgency of the crisis. With every day we delay, more women and girls are thrust into cycles of harm without the protections that they urgently need and deserve. I look forward to hearing from the Minister exactly how we will deliver this assurance. I would also be grateful if I could discuss the matter further with the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology at the earliest opportunity.

Let us not wait another day to act. Survivors need real action, not just incremental change. We owe it to Georgia, Jodie and all those who have suffered.