Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls

Tonia Antoniazzi Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree. I think that things are going wrong at every stage in the process. Things are going wrong in the police investigation—I will come on to talk about Operation Soteria, and how we should go much more widely—in the referral process between the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, which is also breaking down, and in the prosecution. The hon. Member is absolutely right: at every stage in the process things are going wrong. That raises the challenge for us in Parliament, because there is always a risk that different bits of the criminal justice system end up blaming each other. We need the oversight to pull everybody together and demand that action is taken. My fear is that we are not seeing that oversight, because it is simply not delivering results.

I have respect for the Ministers in both the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office who work on violence against women and girls, but I say to them that the work is not delivering results, and it is overwhelmingly not on the scale that we need. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue has said:

“Provision is at breaking point.”

It has said:

“Rape victims are continually and systematically failed by the criminal justice system.”

How have the Government allowed that to happen? How have the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice allowed that to happen? How have we allowed it to reach breaking point? Back in 2014, Labour called for action to increase prosecutions, but the opposite has happened. The rape prosecution rate is down to a horrendous record low of just 1.3%—lower than ever.

We should consider for a moment the reality of what that means. Around 63,000 rapes are reported a year. It is estimated that at least as many again are not reported. Of those reported, just 1.3% result in someone being charged. That means that across the country more than 300 women will be raped today—more than 300 lives devastated by a vile crime, according to those estimates. Those figures mean that, on average, 170 rapes will be reported today, but the figures also suggest that just less than three of those rapists will see the inside of a court room this year, never mind the inside of a prison cell.

These are the basic pillars of the criminal justice system: if a vile crime happens, the victim should expect to be able to get support, and for the police to investigate and the perpetrator to be pursued, prosecuted and brought to justice. Nothing can ever undo the damage that the crime has done, but at least we can give the victim justice, and protect others from the same thing happening again. The truth is that all of us should be ashamed of the reality of the way that the criminal justice system is treating violence against women and girls. I know that across the criminal justice system there are brilliant police officers who are working hard to get evidence and to get the prosecution rates up, brilliant lawyers and CPS prosecutors who are working incredibly hard to try to get prosecutions, and brilliant support workers and advisers who are working hard to support victims, but the total system is failing.

We have a system that still too often has blind spots around violence against women and girls. There could be blind spots, for example, on the way that domestic abuse prosecutions happen—something that I have been raising, and that the Government have accepted. A woman in my constituency told me how she had been assaulted while she was pregnant, but the case timed out. She could not get justice because of the six-month limit in the magistrates court, which works sensibly for common assault if it means fights in the street or in the pub, in order to speed up the justice system, but does not work for domestic abuse, where there may be countless reasons why someone cannot report a crime straightaway.

When I first raised that, neither the Home Office nor the Ministry of Justice had any research on it. Many in the criminal justice system and in organisations that had campaigned on violence against women and girls had assumed that it was just not possible to change that, because it was so embedded in the criminal justice system. I welcome the fact that the Minister talked to me about this, commissioned research and accepted the proposals that we put forward to change the system and to lift the six-month limit, but it reflects a deep blind spot that has been in the system for too long.

There is still a blind spot on spiking. Until the surge of needle spiking last autumn, it had been too often dismissed as a crime linked to young people drinking and drug taking, and particularly to young women drinking and not taking enough care to protect themselves. The best that would happen was that a bit of advice would be given young women on how to cover their drinks to stay safe.

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that there is a lack of cohesion between presenting at accident and emergency and reporting the crime to the police? In a case that I was involved in recently, a young lady who had to stay in hospital overnight was then told by the hospital that she had to go to the police the next day when she was out of hospital. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is a real issue that we have to resolve between A&E departments and the police?

[Yvette Cooper]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend’s point. I have also had cases raised with me where the victim of spiking was told to make an appointment with the police to have the tests done and could not get an appointment until considerably after the drugs would have left her system. Therefore, there was no possibility of getting the evidence needed that might then help with an investigation.

That is why we need a co-ordinated approach, but that requires leadership. Very often it is the nature of our criminal justice system and the support services, be they in health, mental health or other areas, that we need organisations to work together, but ensuring that that happens needs leadership from us and, ultimately, from the Government. That is the purpose of today’s debate: to call for much stronger leadership from the Government to tackle these awful crimes and the gaps where things are simply not happening.

There has now been recognition of the seriousness of spiking, but we still have to go much further to ensure that action is taken. I spoke to a college class of 17-year-olds in my constituency a few weeks ago. We started talking about this, and I asked them how many of them knew someone who had been spiked. They were 17-year-olds, and all the girls and half the boys said that they knew someone who had been spiked. That shows the scale of the challenge that is affecting young people. We have failed as a society and across the criminal justice system to take the action needed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

It is a real pleasure and privilege to speak in this debate. We have talked about this issue many times, and I could not agree more with the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) that the time for talking should be over and we need to see a lot more action.

I want to praise the organisations in Bath that are working on tackling violence against women and girls: the Southside project, which supports families affected by domestic violence and abuse; Somerset and Avon Rape and Sexual Abuse Support, or SARSAS, a specialist support service for women and girls who have experienced any form of sexual violence at any point in their lives; and Voices, a survivor-led charity supporting those living with and beyond domestic abuse to recover from their trauma, which redoubled its efforts during the pandemic to make sure that no one was forgotten. I was delighted to recognise Voices with the first Best of Bath award last year.

But we should not leave it to charities to tackle violence against women and girls. We must do a lot more not only to support survivors but to prevent the terrible violence from occurring in the first place. We absolutely need to improve police training so that victims and survivors are properly supported. Many crimes do not even enter the criminal justice system. Over 600,000 women are sexually assaulted each year, but only one in six of those assaults is reported to the police. We must give women and girls the reassurance that their concerns are taken seriously whenever they report crimes of assault or domestic abuse.

I would like to add something to the motion before us today. Supporting victims of violence and sexual abuse begins at a local level. The Government must support local authorities to perform this vital task by giving them the duty and funding to provide accommodation for survivors of abuse. Our criminal justice system is failing women. It takes an incredible amount of bravery to not only report sexual abuse but then to relive that trauma in the courts. To add insult to injury, 1.6% of reported rapes lead to a charge. I need to repeat that: 1.6% of reported rapes lead to a charge. We are letting survivors down; it is shocking. We absolutely need better training and more resources for prosecutors and judges to punish perpetrators and deliver the justice that victims and survivors so desperately need.

We are still waiting for the Government to ratify the Istanbul convention, 10 years after signing it. We are one of only 13 countries that are dragging their feet. The Istanbul convention enshrines rights of survivors of sexual violence, including the right to access crisis counselling and mental health support. The Government have yet to give a good reason for that delay. This is really about the number of support centres that the Government should support and fund, and I think that is the reason they are dragging their feet: it is simply about money. I hope that the Minister can give her commitment to ratifying the convention without delay, and do so today. I ask the Government: please sign the Istanbul convention.

Violence against women and girls is endemic in our society. If we are serious about tackling it, then we need a dramatic culture change. We in Parliament, and Government, have to lead that change: it is our duty. It starts with better age-appropriate sex and relationship education in schools. I welcome the Minister’s announcement today that something will be done, as I was a teacher six years ago. It was just not good enough for tired teachers to give some relationship training in the afternoon after all the lessons had finished.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I want to support and highlight the hon. Lady’s comments about teaching staff. Having been a head of modern foreign languages myself, I know how difficult it is, when you are not trained, to give this specialist advice and to talk to young people, whose formative years are the most important, about relationship forming. I completely agree that specialist services are needed in schools.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Once again, it is simply a matter of resources. Schools must be given extra resource to have specialists who guide young people into proper relationships. It will probably save us a lot of money if we get this right, but we need to spend the money in the first place.

To back this up, a 2021 Ofsted report highlighted just how early sexual harassment begins, to the point where it becomes “commonplace”. According to the report, 92% of girls said that sexist name calling happens a lot or sometimes; and 80% of girls—80%—reported being put under pressure to provide sexual images of themselves. These figures speak for themselves and say that we need urgent action.

It is hugely disappointing that the Government continue to rule out making misogyny a hate crime. Yes, we discussed this at the beginning of the week, but I need to repeat what I said just two days ago: we have to get to the root causes of violence against women and girls. We must send a powerful message that negative attitudes towards women that lead to hate and lead to offences—from harassment all the way to very serious sexual assault—are not acceptable, and that is what making misogyny a hate crime would do. Hate crime legislation, as we have established, does not add to an offence, but it has made a clear difference to crimes based on racial or religious hate. Why do women not deserve the same treatment? I still cannot understand why the Government are not supporting this. Making misogyny a hate crime is not a silver bullet, but existing hate crime legislation has made a clear difference. So let us get on with it and make misogyny a hate crime.

None of the steps that I have pointed to will make violence against women and girls stop overnight, but the time of inaction and making excuses is up—we owe it to all women and girls who suffer violence and harassment on a daily basis.2.48 pm