Strategy for Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the Government’s strategy for tackling violence against women and girls. May I thank you, Mr Speaker, and the parliamentary staff who have helped facilitate this statement on what is an immensely important subject, but at an unusual hour, I think it is fair to say, of the parliamentary day?

I would like to begin with the words of some of the women who responded to our call for evidence, which helped to shape the strategy:

“I had never felt so lost in my entire life at the time of the abuse. I thought my life would never be the same again”.

Another:

“We shouldn’t have to pretend to be on the phone, or actually call someone, just because we’re scared to walk down the street in case we get attacked”.

And another:

“The trauma will stay with the victim forever. It seriously compromises all life prospects and opportunities”.

Those words are difficult to read. They are difficult to hear, but they capture a reality that we simply must confront: women and girls are too often subjected to abuse, harassment and violence. Enough is enough.

Today we have published our new “Tackling violence against women and girls strategy”, which will build on progress we have made in recent years. When the Prime Minister was Mayor of London, our capital became the first major city in the world to launch a comprehensive strategy to combat violence against women and girls. I also pay tribute to the contribution that the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), has made in this regard. This includes leading work on new offences for controlling or coercive behaviour, stalking, female genital mutilation, and so-called revenge porn. This year, the landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021 was passed, which ensured, for the first time, a statutory definition that includes recognising victims as children in their own right, strengthens the response to perpetrators, and creates new protections for victims.

But we must do more. The strategy we have published today sets out action to prioritise prevention, support victims, pursue perpetrators, and help to make sure the police, education, local authorities, prison and probation services and others work together more effectively. As I say, it has been shaped by a call for evidence that we ran earlier this year and that received over 180,000 responses. The volume of feedback was unprecedented and astonishing, and the content at times harrowing. I want to place on record my gratitude to all those who took the time to offer their thoughts and describe often painful experiences. That takes great courage. The national outpouring of grief and personal experiences that we saw in the wake of the tragic case of Sarah Everard was a watershed moment. We must change our society for the better. We owe it to Sarah and all the other women and girls who have lost their lives or been subjected to violence and abuse.

The first responsibility of any Government is the safety and security of their citizens. Today, rape prosecutions are at a record low, domestic abuse in this country is soaring and charging is falling. Sexual abuse in school is being normalised, according to the recent Ofsted inspections. Ending violence against women and girls is a cross-party issue. On both sides of this House, there is a profound concern and desire for an ambitious strategy that will deliver. The strategy today is not ambitious enough.

There are things to welcome. A policing lead on violence against women is certainly one of them, but we already have one for domestic abuse, one for rape and sex offences, another for historical sexual abuse and one for child sex abuse, so why will this one succeed where others have struggled without the resources to tackle the issue properly?

It is good to see that calls for a public awareness campaign aimed at men to stop the perpetration of misogyny have been answered. A rape helpline looks good when it is written on a piece of paper, but can the Minister answer this: will it be for recent sex offences, or will it be open to all historical cases too? Is there a guarantee that the helpline will have a local specialist agency to refer to that can pick up the case straightaway? Currently, in a number of rape cases I am handling, victims are on very long waiting lists—some waiting for 18 months for any sort of a service. Can people just keep calling the line until a service is available? It is simply not enough.

There is so much missing in what the strategy sets out today, and time will only allow me to highlight a few things. I welcome the offer to look at the possibility of reviewing some non-disclosure agreements at universities and the preventive duty on employers is something we have campaigned for, along with unions and women across the country, for years. Why, then, is there nothing about non-disclosure agreements in workplaces, when women are still being abused and silenced completely legally in our country?

I thank the hon. Lady for her questions and I am pleased to hear that she supports much of this strategy. Perhaps I can just help her understand one or two of the policy areas that we have announced today.

The hon. Lady referred to the national policing lead and to the policing leads in the National Police Chiefs’ Council. She is absolutely right that those officers sit in those roles but, as she knows full well, they are not specialist full-time officers working on those areas; they are assistant chief constables or, indeed, chief constables doing their day job as well as vital work for the National Police Chiefs’ Council. This national policing lead, which incidentally was recommended by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, is a full-time role that will be focused solely on tackling violence against women and girls. This is a great policy announcement, and I very much hope the hon. Lady will come to support it.

The hon. Lady asked whether the helpline will be open to all victims, historical and current. Of course it will; just as with any of the other helplines that we as a Government fund, whether to do with domestic abuse or perpetrators or the revenge porn line, it will be open to all victims 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That message came through loud and clear in the survey; we have acted in this strategy.

In relation to non-disclosure agreements, we have specifically referenced universities. The hon. Lady will know that there are legitimate reasons for non-disclosure agreements in workplaces. It continues to be a line of work that we look at, but we wanted to send the message out loud and clear to universities that they have got to sharpen up their act and ensure that we have consistency and quality of standards in dealing with these serious cases of sexual harassment in universities and on their sites.

The hon. Lady asked about street harassment. Again, I refer her to the communications campaign. It became clear as we read the responses that it was felt that if only it were the case that passing a law on street harassment would eradicate street harassment, but that in fact it is much more complex than that. We need to look at, for example, why women are not reporting cases to the police: is it because they do not know that what they are experiencing is in fact already an offence, are there gaps in the law, and how can we help them have the confidence to report to the police? That is why later this year we will be launching a public communications campaign; I understand it will be welcomed by those who work with victims and survivors of violence against women and girls, and I hope it will be welcomed across the House, because this is the campaign through which we can tackle perpetrators’ behaviour and also, importantly, give victims the confidence they need if they wish to report such behaviour to the police.

I commend my hon. Friend for the measures in her statement and for her personal commitment to this subject. As she mentioned, the Law Commission has today recommended that cyber-flashing be made a criminal offence. It is a pernicious act, and one that we know is a gateway towards more dangerous crimes. As someone who has been flashed in the past, I was appalled to learn that Sarah Everard’s murderer was accused of flashing someone six years before he attacked Sarah, so may I urge my hon. Friend to review the commission’s recommendations and to work to make this a criminal offence as soon as possible?

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend, and I thank her for sharing her experiences. It is so important to share our experiences if we feel able to do so, because hopefully that will give confidence to younger women in particular, who may be facing these problems too. I also commend her for her campaign to bring about an offence in relation to cyber-flashing. We have said throughout the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that we will await the Law Commission’s findings, and that we will look at them carefully when it has reported. I am delighted to say that it has reported today, and we will look at the findings expeditiously. I very much hope that my hon. Friend’s campaign will come to fruition in due course.

I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement. It is welcome to see the UK Government looking further at this issue. These past months, we have had many discussions in this place and more widely on the blight that violence against women and girls is on society, and the lives that it destroys, but this is not a new issue and the statement, welcome though it is, comes with a glaring and inexplicable gap. The UK signed the Istanbul convention almost nine years ago. Five years ago, Dr Eilidh Whiteford, a former SNP MP, brought forward measures obligating the UK to ratify the convention, but despite warm words, the UK Government remain one of the few EU Governments yet to ratify it, despite repeated pleas from these Benches, so the UK is still not legally bound by its provisions. Does this violence against women and girls strategy mean that this issue will finally be addressed and, if so, when? Warm words do not protect women, but ratifying the Istanbul convention would.

I welcome references to measures to increase prosecutions, but that is just spin unless there are also resources to handle that increase. Delays will simply mean more trauma for victims and less likelihood of convictions as existing delays stack up further. I also ask the Minister to clarify what the strategy will do to overcome the failure of the UK Government to improve support for migrant survivors in their Domestic Abuse Act 2021. What specifically will it do for foreign nationals and those with no recourse to public funds because of UK Government policy choices?

I hear what the Minister says on higher education, but we know that because the UK Government have not acted, abuses of non-disclosure agreements to cover up workplace discrimination remain hugely problematic, two years after the Women and Equalities Committee’s inquiry on the issue. What specifically will this strategy do for these women? When will the UK Government bring forward specific steps to deal with this in the employment context, including requiring companies to report on their use of NDAs? These issues could not be more important, and we need to match our words with action in this situation. We need to see action from the UK Government, but I fear that some of the elements of the strategy do not appear to offer the heavy lifting that is required to move far enough forward.

May I reassure the hon. Lady? She knows that we have to report to the House each October on our commitments to the Istanbul convention. I am pleased to tell the House that we meet or exceed the expectations of the convention in all but three of the requirements in the convention. Two of the three requirements will be met by the end of this year. We had to pass the extraterritorial jurisdiction measures in the Domestic Abuse Act. That has happened and, with the help of the Scottish Government, they will apply across the United Kingdom. Legislation also needs to be passed in Northern Ireland, and I am told that that will happen by the end of this year. That leaves the support for migrant victims. As the hon. Lady will know, in the Domestic Abuse Act we set out a support for migrant victims scheme, which is due to finish next year, but we take these serious commitments very seriously, unlike other countries. Some other countries do not need to meet the requirements before they ratify, but we do, and I hope and expect, given the commitment in the strategy to ratification, that that is our intention.

We know there are some instances in employment situations where non-disclosure agreements are used legitimately. They must not—I repeat, must not—be used to conceal criminal behaviour, and we want to take this first step with higher education because we are particularly concerned about how some young victims are having to deal with these cases at university.

My hon. Friend will understand my disappointment that there is no current commitment to outlaw public sexual harassment. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, writing in The Times, indicated that there would be ongoing work to look at gaps in legislation, but her correspondence to Members this evening omitted it. Please will my hon. Friend the Minister, from the Dispatch Box, commit to making sure that, where gaps are identified, they will be acted upon, and swiftly?

As I hope is clear in the strategy, we are looking very thoroughly at the issue of street harassment. We very much hear the concerns of Members on both sides of the House about whether current legislation meets every instance of street sexual harassment that we see in the survey, that we see as constituency MPs and, indeed, that we have perhaps experienced ourselves. That work will be ongoing, and I am sure I will appear at some point before the Women and Equalities Committee, which my right hon. Friend chairs, to provide an update.

I welcome the measures that the Minister has announced, and I welcome her personal commitment. The challenge is whether these measures match the scale of the problem and the scale of the huge response that she has had from women across the country. I, for one, do not want to wait 10 years for major changes to take place. Much of this feels very incremental—just limited pilots and evidence gathering.

In the most awful cases of violence against women, we know that too often the perpetrator has committed previous offences of stalking or domestic abuse, or previous sexual offences. What will the Minister do to make sure that all police forces take much stronger action to identify those repeat perpetrators and intervene early so that lives can be saved?

The right hon. Lady is right to highlight the issue of escalating behaviours. On waiting 10 years, this is the beginning of the journey. If one reads the strategy—I appreciate it only came out today—I hope one will see the immediate-term, medium-term and long-term aspirations. As Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, she will know better than anyone that some of the education work and cultural attitudes work will take time.

We cannot pretend that attitudes will change in a matter of months, but we have immediate-term work. The public communications campaign will be launched later this year. We will begin the appointment process for the national policing lead as soon as possible. The online tool pilot is being launched next month. The what works fund is being set up, and it is an interesting fund because I am trying to mirror the excellent work of the youth endowment fund in tackling serious violence. We want to do the same for violence against women and girls and build the evidence base.

I accept the right hon. Lady’s point that we cannot wait 10 years, but there is a lot of work before that 10-year period ends. I very much want colleagues on both sides of the House to see this as the beginning of the journey.

I welcome my hon. Friend’s statement on the strategy for tackling violence against women and girls, and I welcome her personal commitment. I am grateful to her and her ministerial colleagues and officials for meeting me to discuss the new clauses I will address. She is no doubt aware of the campaigners from Karma Nirvana, IKWRO, the Middle Eastern Women and Society Organisation and others who worked with me on my proposed new clauses 1 and 2 of the Health and Care Bill to end so-called virginity testing and hymenoplasty. They, like me, will welcome her statement that we will criminalise virginity testing. We must also look to tackle hymenoplasty, and do it now. Will the Minister examine new clauses 1 and 2 and meet me and colleagues to discuss them again and ensure that further progress can be made in this Session?

Yes. I thank my hon. Friend, who has been a diligent campaigner on these issues. I remember meeting him some months ago on precisely these issues and he has dealt with them, if I may say so, in a sensitive and appropriate way, understanding just how delicate some of them are. In terms of virginity testing, I am really pleased that he welcomes that. We will work together, I am sure, with my counterpart in the Department of Health and Social Care to find the appropriate legislative vehicle. On hymenoplasty, we have already spoken to clinicians about that process. Whereas virginity testing has no medical validation, I am told by clinicians that there are circumstances where it is not quite as clearcut—if I can put it that way—as virginity testing, so we have very much undertaken to examine that in great detail with clinicians and the royal colleges to ensure that in relation to that particular practice we arrive at the right result that is medically sound.

I thank the Minister for her work on this strategy. She will know that if somebody is subjected to abuse or attack because of the colour of their skin, we rightly ask the police to record that and the courts to prosecute it as a form of hate crime. Yet if somebody is subjected to abuse or attack simply for being a woman, they face no such protection under our current system. Will the Minister meet me and campaigners, who are waiting for the imminent report from the Law Commission about how to make misogyny a part of our hate crime rubric in this country, to look at how we can quickly close that gap and give equal protection to everyone everywhere?

Yes. I am very happy to meet the hon. Lady and campaigners to discuss that issue. I hope she will recall that when the Domestic Abuse Act went through the House of Lords, we undertook, in response to issues raised in the other place, to ask the police to record issues of gender where the victim felt it was relevant. We look forward to that data, but I am always happy to discuss such matters with her. Indeed, I hope she will find the public communications campaign, for example, a helpful intervention from this strategy. Again, over the longer term we believe that education and changing cultural attitudes is one of the ways we can tackle misogynistic beliefs.

I welcome my hon. Friend’s statement. Focusing on what she said about delivering a stronger system, I wonder if I can urge her to speak with colleagues in other Departments, especially the Ministry of Justice, about the family court system. Today and yesterday, I have been dealing with constituents who have been subjected to coercive and controlling behaviour. They have finally fled their marriages, and children are involved. Unbelievably, one family court judge dismissed out of hand the coercive behaviour and said it was out of time, and then suggested that my constituent, who had to travel 130 miles to deliver custody of her daughter, could perhaps stay at his house overnight. Will my hon. Friend work with other Departments, because in delivering a stronger system we also have to address the fact that the family courts are really letting down women who have escaped dangerous, coercive and evil behaviour?