Violence against Women and Girls

The scale of violence against women and girls in our country is intolerable. The Ministry of Justice has already taken action by: launching a pilot of domestic abuse protection orders in selected areas; introducing new criminal offences that capture creating sexually explicit deepfakes, and spiking; announcing family court reform, such as expanding our Pathfinder programme in the family court; and commissioning the independent review of criminal courts in order to improve court timeliness and provide justice for victims.

As a member of the Public Accounts Committee I have been appalled at the failure of the previous Government to tackle the backlog in the courts, delaying justice for victims of domestic abuse and sexual abuse. I thank the Minister for her unwavering commitment to repairing the justice system that we inherited for victims and survivors. Will she outline the reforms specifically to the family court that the Government are introducing to protect victims of domestic abuse, including children, from further harm?

I thank my hon. Friend for that question and for her service on the Public Accounts Committee looking at this issue. The Government are committed to better supporting adult and child victims of domestic abuse in the family courts. The Pathfinder model already provides access to expert support for victims, and published data has shown that the backlogs are more than 50% lower and cases are resolved up to 30 weeks quicker. Importantly, the Government have announced that, when parliamentary time allows, we will repeal the presumption of parental involvement in order to protect children in our family courts.

Will the Minister confirm whether she is aware of anyone accused or convicted of a sexual offence having been granted asylum in the UK?

I refer the hon. Member to the stats published on the Ministry of Justice website.

I thank the Minister and the Ministry of Justice ministerial team for repealing the £318 charge for the person at risk of violence order a couple of weeks ago—that will make a huge difference. However, I want to raise the strategy and the fact that online abuse is on the rise. Does she agree that any party that says it wants to repeal the Online Safety Act 2023 is not a party that cares about tackling violence against women and girls?

Hear, hear. I thank my hon. Friend for the brilliant work she has been doing in championing this issue recently. The Online Safety Act ensures that online platforms are required to remove illegal content such as harassing or abusive material as soon as they are made aware of it. That is a fundamental feature in order to protect children in our country, and any party seeking to repeal that is not on the side of protecting children.

Across the west midlands, there is currently a backlog of 6,000 Crown court cases, many of which are sexual offence cases. In Shropshire, 759 cases are outstanding at Shrewsbury Crown court. Will the Minister commit to looking at the midlands circuit and seeing whether more rape and serious sexual offences resources can be given so that there can be suitably qualified and trained judges and advocates, and cases can be brought more quickly and swiftly to court? In Shropshire, some of those court cases are potentially two years out.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the question and the way in which he asked it. As he will know, the Government are doing all we can to bear down on the backlog in our Crown courts. That is why we have tasked Sir Brian Leveson with looking at how we can best get to grips with it. The right hon. Gentleman is right, however. I have sadly spoken to far too many rape and sexual violence victims who are waiting far too long for their day in court, which has an impact on them. We are straining every sinew, working with the judiciary and colleagues in the Crown Prosecution Service, to better support these victims and ensure that when they do get that day in court, they can access justice appropriately and have the best support available to them. I will happily work with him and anyone else in the House to ensure that any victim of crime has the support they need.

I call the shadow Minister.

Last week, when told by my hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies) that the Sentencing Bill would cut prison time for rapists and child groomers, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), said she that would have to “go away and check” whether that was true—the time to check was before she voted for the Bill. Surely the victims Minister knows and can tell the House what proportion of rapists and child groomers will have their prison time cut by Labour’s Sentencing Bill.

Make no mistake: the Government had to make these choices because of the Conservative Government’s catastrophic mismanagement of our prison system. We are not abolishing short sentences, and judges will retain full discretion to keep offenders locked up. We have built safeguards into the systems to protect victims.

I remind the shadow Minister that the greatest threat to victims is the risk of not being able to lock up any dangerous offender in the first place. The measures that the Government are introducing will ensure that that will never happen again.

Yet again, we have a Government and a Victims Minister who cannot tell the House basic facts about the implications of their Bill. I will tell her: 60% of rapists and 90% child groomers sent to prison will have their prison time cut. That is appalling.

We also know that knives are all too often a feature of violence against women and girls. The House will have seen the tragic news that Katie Fox, the female victim of a brutal knife attack in Birmingham on Friday, has died. Over the last few weeks, the Labour Government have been talking tough on knife crime, but can the Minister tell the House what proportion of criminals sent to prison for carrying a knife will have to serve only a third of their sentence under Labour’s appalling Sentencing Bill?

My thoughts and those of the whole House are, of course, with Katie’s family after the horrific crime that occurred in Birmingham. However, the hon. Member is clearly incapable of facing up to the reality that his Government left behind. It is this Government who are protecting victims and ensuring that violence against women and girls is a political priority, and that we are never again faced with the reality of having to let offenders out early without any safeguards in place. It is this Government who put those safeguards in place and it is this Government who are ensuring that we protect the public.