International Women’s Day: Language in Politics

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Maria Miller

Thursday 29th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the use of language in politics in light of International Women’s Day; agrees that the respectful use of language is an important feature of a strong and inclusive democracy; and calls on all parliamentary candidates to pledge that respectful language will be used at all times in the upcoming General Election campaigning period.

I would like to start the debate, on behalf of members of the all-party parliamentary group on women in Parliament, by saying thank you. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate, which we should never take for granted given the pressure to hold debates in the Chamber, and I thank the Fawcett Society, which provides the secretariat to the APPG. Like all APPGs, ours is open to all Members and is cross-party. There is more that unites us than divides us when it comes to women in politics and particularly to women who stand for elected office.

Let us start the debate to mark International Women’s Day, which I have to remember is a national holiday around Europe, by celebrating the women who make our communities great. Like everybody else I have a long list I could recite, but I would just like to highlight Dr Avideah Nejad, a consultant gynaecologist at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, who took the time last Friday, along with Dr Dominic Kelly, to speak to students at my local sixth-form college about our brand new hospital and the work she does to inspire another generation of young people to take up medicine. We need more people like that in our communities.

The APPG want this debate to be more than a celebration. We want to continue our work to ensure that the amazing women on these Benches and in our communities see elected office as a way they can contribute to the future of our country. Women are now more likely than their male counterparts to come out of the best universities with the best degrees. They make up the majority of solicitors and the majority of students studying medicine, so why has the House of Commons not seen the same leaps as other sectors when it comes to attracting women into our midst? There are still two men elected to this place for every one woman. There are many reasons for that and I remind colleagues of the excellent research the APPG launched in September, but today’s debate invites us to focus on one element.

At the moment, as we heard in the statements today, too many women reject the idea of standing for election because of the abuse they face, in particular the abusive language used on social media. Abuse affects all of us, but it is disproportionately aimed at women and is more likely to put women off from standing for election. That is not to say that abusive language is acceptable to anyone. There is far more that online media platforms could and should be doing to stop online bullying and abuse among all their users, but the evidence is that it disproportionately negatively impacts women. That poses a huge risk to the retention of women in this place and, in turn, to democratic representation.

Over nine in 10 women MPs who took part in the research reported that online abuse or harassment negatively impacts how they feel about being an MP, compared with seven in 10 men—still not a great figure. Similarly, all the black and minoritised MPs who took part in the survey reported that they were negatively impacted by online abuse. The nature of the abuse was described as misogynistic and racist, with it taking a considerable toll not only on them but their families.

Lots has been done to recognise the problem. I pay particular tribute to Mr Speaker and his team in Parliament for the work they do in monitoring and acting on online abuse against Members, and ensuring increased levels of support are in place, as we heard in the statement by the Minister for Security, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) a few moments ago, so that MPs have support to live their day-to-day lives as they want to, and not in an isolated ivory tower. Abusive and threatening language is spilling over into real-life behaviour. This is something I and others raised in the debates on the Online Safety Bill.

Politicians are not delicate flowers, but there can be few people who would be unaffected by having two work colleagues murdered in the last eight years. David and Jo were just going about their work as constituency MPs. We have seen the shift to protesters feeling a legitimate right to camp outside MPs’ homes, and maybe not just outside, and to attempt to intimidate MPs through their children, partners, husbands or wives—something I have experienced myself. The additional security is essential, but it will not solve the problem. We have to challenge and change the culture of online abuse, and the online abuse that is now spilling offline, too.

Free speech and its protection is often cited as a reason why we should not be regulating the online environment. Free speech is a crucial part of our democracy. The passing of the Online Safety Act 2023 into law demonstrates that the Government understand there is a line to tread between free speech and protections. But free speech is not the only thing we must safeguard. Speaking freely is just as important. Too many women in particular fear organised attacks if they speak up and speak freely on the issues that matter to them. In research, three quarters of women MPs said they do not speak up on certain issues because of the abusive environment online. The same goes for men; the numbers who are impacted are much smaller—around half—but that is still something we should be concerned about. The ability of this place to speak freely is being curtailed.

There is another aspect to this. Parliamentary privilege and the parliamentary language we use in this place means we have an obligation to choose our words carefully. People who watch our debates note that every time. But are we as careful outside the Chamber? Is political campaigning being shaped to fit the medium of social media: polarised, binary, simplistic, and chasing the algorithm first and foremost at the expense of nuanced debate? There are serious implications for our democracy if we allow our politics to be shaped by—I am afraid—a mob mentality that can thrive in the online world. The Online Safety Act can only be the start. I reiterate my call, which I mentioned in earlier proceedings, for a Select Committee for online safety to keep the issue under constant review.

In advance of the debate, I received a note from the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, who is contacted by thousands of members of the public every year with their views on parliamentary standards. The language we choose to use matters in maintaining a culture of respect in political debate. Robust debate is not the same as personal intimidation and abuse. Is referring to your opponent as “scum” part of free speech and a robust debate, or is it abusive political campaigning? We all need to think carefully about that.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

The right hon. Lady has mentioned online platforms and a form of responsibility, but does she believe that Parliament itself should take more responsibility for the barriers that women are facing, or citing as their reasons for not entering Parliament, and for the language that we use here? What might that responsibility look like?

[Dame Maria Miller]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, and for her support for the all-party parliamentary group. Trying to make this a place that people want to come to should be a cross-party effort, along with tackling social media abuse and not only holding online platforms to account, but ensuring that they take down abusive images and messages inciting violence against Members of Parliament. That should be done much more quickly than it has been in the experience of many Members. There is so much more, over and above social media, that we need to change if we want more women to be willing to come here. Although half the population of our country is female, very few women want to stand for election, for reasons including some that I have mentioned.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Maria Miller

2nd reading
Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

For too long, the tech giants have been able to dismiss the harms they create for the people we represent because they do not take seriously their responsibility for how their products are designed and used, which is why this legislation is vital.

The Bill will start to change the destructive culture in the tech industry. We live simultaneously in online and offline worlds, and we expect the rules and the culture to be the same in both, but at the moment, they are not. When I visited the big tech companies in Silicon Valley as Secretary of State in 2014 to talk about online moderation, which was almost completely absent at that stage, and child abuse images, which were not regularly removed, I rapidly concluded that the only way to solve the problem and the cultural deficit I encountered would be to regulate. I think this Bill has its roots in those meetings, so I welcome it and the Government’s approach.

I am pleased to see that measures on many of the issues on which I have been campaigning in the years since 2014 have come to fruition in this Bill, but there is still room for improvement. I welcome the criminalisation of cyber-flashing, and I pay tribute to Grazia, Clare McGlynn and Bumble for all their work with me and many colleagues in this place.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Scotland banned cyber-flashing in 2010, but that ban includes a motivation test, rather than just a consent test, so a staggering 95% of cyber-flashing goes unpunished. Does the right hon. Lady agree that we should not make the same mistake?

[Mrs Miller]

I will come on to that shortly, and the hon. Lady knows I agree with her. This is something the Government need to take seriously.

The second thing I support in this Bill is limiting anonymous online abuse. Again, I pay tribute to the Football Association, with which I have worked closely, Glitch, the Centenary Action Group, Compassion in Politics, Hope not Hate and Kick It Out. They have all done a tremendous job, working with many of us in this place, to get to this point.

Finally, I support preventing children from accessing pornography, although I echo what we heard earlier about it being three years too late. It is shameful that this measure was not enacted earlier.

The Minister knows that three demands are coming his way from me. We need to future-proof our approach to the law in this area. Tech moves quickly—quicker than the Government’s approach to legislation, which leaves us playing whack-a-mole. The devious methods of causing harm change rapidly, as do the motivations of perpetrators, to answer the point raised by the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse). What stays the same is the lack of consent from victims, so will the Government please look at that as a way of future-proofing our law? A worrying example of that is deepfake technology that creates pornographic images of women. That is currently totally lawful. Nudification software is commercially available and uses images—only of women —to create nude images. I have already stated publicly that that should be banned. It has been in South Korea and Taiwan, yet our law is playing catch-up.

The second issue that the Government need to address is the fact that they are creating many more victims as a result of this Bill. We need to make sure that victim support is in place to augment the amazing work of organisations such as the Revenge Porn Helpline. Finally, to echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell), let me say that this is a complex area, as we are proving with every speech in this debate. I pay tribute to the Select Committee Chair, who is no longer in his place, and the Joint Committee Chair, but I believe that we need a joint standing committee to scrutinise the implementation of this Bill when it is enacted. This is a world-class piece of legislation to change culture, but we also need other countries to adopt a similar approach. A global approach is needed if this is to work to end the wild west.

Sibling Sexual Abuse

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Maria Miller

Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Maria Miller (in the Chair)]

I will call Wera Hobhouse to move the motion and then I will call the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for a 30-minute debate.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of tackling sibling sexual abuse.

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. This is a hugely difficult and harrowing subject. I begin by thanking all those who have worked on the sibling sexual abuse project: Rape Crisis England and Wales; the University of Birmingham; the University of the West of England, Bristol; West Mercia Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Centre, and Somerset and Avon Rape and Sexual Abuse Support. I also recognise the fantastic work of Fleur Strong, Dr Peter Yates and Tanith McCulloch, two of whom are here today.

The relationship between siblings is one of the most important we will ever form in our lives. There are many different forms of sibling relationship: biological, step, half, adoptive and social. In all those contexts, siblings share an enduring bond. When that relationship goes wrong and one sibling sexually abuses another, it can have devastating, lifelong consequences.

There is no universally accepted definition of sibling sexual abuse. That lack of consistency and clarity contributes to the challenges in identifying this form of abuse. A 2020 definition states:

“Sibling sexual abuse consists of sexual acts initiated by one sibling towards another without the other’s consent, by use of force or coercion, or where there is a power differential between the siblings.”

It occurs when both children are under 18; it can be between brother and sister, sister and brother, brother and brother, or sister and sister. We must distinguish sibling sexual abuse from other forms of child sexual abuse. We are not talking about adult abusers, nor should we conflate sibling sexual abuse with peer-on-peer abuse or child sexual exploitation, which occur outside the home.

It is also critical that we do not view sibling sexual abuse through an adult gender violence lens. The reasons that children sexually harm siblings are complex and different from those associated with adult violence. In many cases, the child who harms is a victim and has experienced neglect, witnessed domestic abuse or experienced some form of childhood trauma. We cannot judge children’s harmful sexualised behaviour without first understanding the context of the family situation they are living in, and we cannot assume that someone will become an adult sex offender because of their behaviour as a child.

I will refer to sibling sexual abuse, siblings who have harmed, and siblings who have been harmed, which are the terms recommended by experts. This is a type of abuse that affects thousands of children, adults and families. Its impact on the entire family is not only devastating but lifelong. As one survivor said:

“It is not just the abuse. It’s the family ramifications, too, that can last for years and tear survivors away from the family.”

Sibling sexual abuse has been described as a hand grenade going off in the family. One adult who was harmed as a child said:

“I have been fumbling around in the dark for so many years trying to understand myself, my reactions, relationship difficulties. Feeling the way I do about myself—totally inferior with nothing to offer anyone. Worthless, in other words.”

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the prevention of childhood trauma, I am well aware of the lifelong consequences facing these children. Childhood trauma is at the root of many mental illnesses and other lifelong impacts on achievement, employment and quality of relationships. If it is unrecognised, children will take their trauma into adulthood and, through their traumatised behaviour, pass it on to their children. Those who experience childhood trauma are twice as likely to develop depression and three times as likely to develop anxiety disorders. The child who has harmed often has to deal with the dichotomy of their actions as a child and who they are now as an adult.

In cases of sibling sexual abuse, multiple layers of educational, societal, economic and health impacts affect the whole family. Sibling sexual abuse is unlike other forms of child sexual abuse. The child who has been harmed and the child who has harmed are not only both children, but children of the same family. One affected parent said:

“We are the parents of a much-loved adult who was sexually abused by his older brother as a child. The abuser, also our much-loved child, committed suicide last year, following investigations by Social Services as to whether he constituted a risk to his own young son. No evidence was found. The revelation of the abuse has caused our family to fall apart.”

Parents are often faced with the “double dilemma” of trying to support both of the children involved, dealing with school, social services, children’s services and police investigations, as well as unaffected siblings, friends and extended family. Some parents never accept that abuse has or is still taking place. Many families instinctively close ranks, never sharing what has happened with anyone outside the family.

Research by Rape Crisis England and Wales suggests that parents would be more likely to come forward if they knew that their harming child would not be criminalised. Domestic abuse in the home is a significant factor in families where sibling sexual abuse takes place, suggesting that children are reflecting behaviour that they have witnessed. The situation is complex and requires a family response. One child has been harmed by another; that in itself is difficult to come to terms with, but both children need support.

We have known about the risk to children from sibling sexual abuse for years. In fact, it has been confirmed by Home Office-funded research. From 2020 to 2022, Rape Crisis England and Wales has worked in partnership with two universities and rape crisis centres on a groundbreaking project to support victims and survivors of recent and historical sibling sexual abuse. The project is the largest Government-funded project on sibling sexual abuse in the UK to date. It is funded by the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, and it is the first England and Wales-wide project on the subject.

Research shows that sibling sexual abuse is the most common form of child sexual abuse in our homes. Estimates suggest that a child is three to five times more likely to be abused by their sibling under the age of 18 than by a parent or adult living in their home environment. The Minister will appreciate the difference between prevalence and reported incidence. However, the sibling sexual abuse project has, for the first time, put together a national picture of reported incidence in England and Wales. Using freedom of information data provided by 20 police forces, the project identified over 10,000 recorded incidents of intrafamilial sexual offences and assaults where the victim was under 18 between 2017 and 2020. Of those, nearly 2,500—24%—were recorded as a sibling relationship. Nearly a quarter of incidents of intrafamilial sexual offences reported to the police are sibling sexual abuse, yet there is systemic silence.

Local and national safeguarding policies and strategies do not name, measure or prioritise sibling sexual abuse. No targets are set; no data is gathered. The Home Office’s 2021 tackling child sexual abuse strategy, which it describes as its

“whole-system response to all forms of child sexual abuse,”

does not even acknowledge the existence of sibling sexual abuse. This is the thing that we really need to talk about today—the need for an acknowledgement of the existence of sibling sexual abuse in our strategies.

It is almost unbelievable that an entire strategy on child sexual abuse not only fails to recognise the primary type of child sexual abuse in our homes, but fails even to acknowledge its existence. Worse still, the Home Office’s systemic blind spot is cascading down and compromising other national and local safeguarding policies and strategies. Of the more than 80 child safeguarding boards that published annual reports in 2021, zero mentioned sibling sexual abuse. According to a survey of 700 frontline professionals conducted by the national project on sibling sexual abuse, sibling sexual abuse is significantly less recognised within general society than child abuse where the perpetrator is an adult.

There is ongoing stigma around sibling sexual abuse. That is not surprising: it goes against our very concept of childhood. It completely challenges societal and professional thinking on child sexual abuse. In some cases, sibling sexual abuse survivors have stated that they do not recognise themselves as survivors of child sexual abuse, because of the way that society, the Government and sexual violence organisations communicate what child sexual abuse is. Even worse, they do not seek help. Rape Crisis England and Wales has heard of professionals minimising the abuse because they do not know how to respond, exaggerating the abuse in order to gain access to children and young people’s statutory services, or catastrophising the abuse. All three reactions are detrimental to children, young people and their families.

How can we make things better? How can we help to safeguard thousands of young children and properly support survivors to seek help? I hope that the Minister will agree that the first step is to acknowledge sibling sexual abuse. She might respond by saying that the Government’s child sexual abuse approach already includes sibling sexual abuse, because it is a form of child sexual abuse. Unfortunately, that is not the case. That is not what survivors think, it is not what rape crisis centres think, and it is not what 700 professionals think.

The Home Office’s own documents focus only on adult abusers in the home, despite the Home Office’s own evidence stating that something is wrong. Things must change. The only thing that will make things better for thousands of families is acknowledgement that sibling sexual abuse exists. This is about language. It is about five simple words that must be included in every document aimed at tackling child sexual abuse: “brother”, “sister” and “sibling sexual abuse”. Will the Minister commit to updating the Home Office’s 2021 tackling child sexual abuse strategy to name and appropriately respond to sibling sexual abuse as the most common form of child sexual abuse in our homes? That is in line with research funded by the Home Office itself, so I hope that she will offer me her reassurances.

Criminal justice is not the answer to tackling sibling sexual abuse; we need health and education to work together and take a trauma-informed approach. We must reassure families that they are not dealing with this alone and properly equip professionals so that they can offer the support that is needed. That will mean proper, age-appropriate sex and relationship education in schools, something for which we Liberal Democrats have been asking for a long time. It is important for children to understand that sometimes harm can come from children, so that they come forward when it happens and they understand that it is wrong.

Will the Minister also speak to her colleagues in the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care to ask them to update their safeguarding and commissioning approaches to children, in order to respond properly to intrafamilial abuse and, specifically, sibling sexual abuse? Until now, this issue simply has not been addressed properly. Children are being let down by the status quo. If the Home Office will not believe its own paid-for evidence, who and what will it believe?

--- Later in debate ---

[Wera Hobhouse]

We all need to work on this together, and I am very pleased to hear about the work the Home Office is doing, but may I challenge the Minister again on what she has said about the Home Office’s 2021 report on tackling child sexual abuse? Sibling sexual abuse is only referenced in that report once, at the end, and is only referenced in relation to research, not as abuse that must be actioned as the most common form of child sexual abuse in the home. Can I ask again whether the Minister will commit to ensuring that, when the report is updated, sibling sexual abuse will be highlighted as the most common form of child sexual abuse and something that should be prioritised immediately?

[Mrs Maria Miller (in the Chair)]

Order. Before the Minister responds, let me clarify that, as a result of the delay caused by the votes, this session will finish at about eight or nine minutes past 6, so that I can put the Question before 10 past.