Jess Phillips MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 23 Mar 2026 · Financial Abuse · Hansard source

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  It is not unusual to hear of such cases, and that is why the Department for Work and Pensions sits on the interministerial group on violence against women and girls. The VAWG strategy commits to removing direct pay, which will enable the Child Maintenance Service to manage and transfer payments, preventing the system from being used as a tool of abuse, which has in the past had fatal consequences.

• 23 Mar 2026 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  We are delivering the cross-Government freedom from violence and abuse strategy, published in December, which sets out concrete actions for halving VAWG in a decade by preventing violence and abuse, pursuing perpetrators, and supporting victims. As part of that, we have already launched our behaviour change campaign, rolled out domestic abuse protection orders, and embedded domestic abuse specialists in police control rooms under Raneem’s law.

• 23 Mar 2026 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  I send all my sympathy to the hon. Gentleman’s constituent, who sounds like she has had a terrible ordeal. Off the top of my head, one measure that the Government have rolled out is the domestic abuse protection order, which gives police the power of arrest, if it is breached. It is the first domestic abuse order that can be taken out for coercive and controlling behaviour. The evidence so far on the police response to those orders, compared with other orders, has been really heartening. We will roll them out across the country.

• 23 Mar 2026 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  In the launch of the violence against women and girls strategy, I committed to annually updating the House on progress across a number of metrics—both the overarching metrics, and those that sit in different Government Departments, some of which are having to take responsibility for this issue for the first time. On working with the financial sector and regulators, the strategy talks about exploring how financial products, including joint mortgages, can be used as a tool of abuse. We will work with Departments, such as the Treasury, on exactly how we can monitor progress against all our aims, and I will report on that annually.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Domestic Abuse Survivors: Government Support · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I was also—I feel like I have been here for ages—part of work with Surviving Economic Abuse, which the hon. Member for North Cornwall mentioned a number of times, to amend the Domestic Abuse Act to ensure that our legislation with respect to controlling or coercive behaviour included behaviour post-separation, because of the level of risk for people post-separation, which both my hon. Friend and the hon. Member alluded to. Over the years, there has been quite a lot of investment in getting somebody out in a crisis, rather than addressing the massive issues that occur in people’s lives afterwards. It is as if we tick a box when somebody leaves their home, and do not think about all the ramifications in their lives. My hon. Friend and I have worked very closely on that issue with regard to the family court and the presumption of contact, which has also been mentioned.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Domestic Abuse Survivors: Government Support · Hansard source

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  Of course. I did not mean to exclude Somerset or anywhere else, rural or otherwise. I would gladly meet the hon. Gentleman—I would gladly meet anybody. I do not wish to cause him offence, but I would dance with the devil to make women and children safer, so I would happily meet him to talk about Somerset. I will conclude my remarks by saying that we have a cross-Government strategy, and that the points that the hon. Member for North Cornwall passionately highlighted will inform how we measure our progress. I always welcome people pushing not just my Department but every Department to do the very best that it can on violence against women and girls. Question put and agreed to.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Domestic Abuse Survivors: Government Support · Hansard source

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  Just to be clear, there are no legal ramifications of the homelessness test in part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act. There is a homelessness duty; in the vast majority of cases, people do not have to undertake legal action in order for the homelessness duty to apply to them.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Domestic Abuse Survivors: Government Support · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I find myself in the difficult position that the debate was tabled for response by the Home Office, but almost its entire thrust is legal aid, which is the responsibility of the Ministry of Justice. I will do my very best to answer the points made by the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Ben Maguire), but this is one of the main cultural changes that I wish to achieve with regard to violence against women and girls across the Government and across the country. Not a single one of the matters relating to violence against women and girls that he carefully alluded to—issues faced by victims of domestic abuse such as housing and homelessness, the family court, and issues to do with benefits and child maintenance—is the responsibility of the Home Office, and yet whenever there is an issue related to domestic abuse, people look to the Home Office. It is a cultural and an institutional failing that has led to a lack of advancement in this space. I will answer the hon. Member’s questions as best I can, but he will get a much more thorough response on the specificity of legal aid from the Ministers who are responsible for legal aid.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Domestic Abuse Survivors: Government Support · Hansard source

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  I will be down in Devon and Cornwall next week for both business and pleasure—I have turned business into a bit of pleasure as the recess comes along. I would like to thank Airbnb for that. [ Laughter. ] The issue of need and how we commission services in rural areas has never been properly considered. On the basis of a headcount, we provide funding from lots of different Government Departments and lots of different sources. Whether that it is through part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act or through police and crime commissioners, the Government send finances to local areas, and it is for them to decide. North Cornwall is quite different from east Birmingham, and it is for local authorities to make decisions. On the commissioning arrangements, do I think that rurality has been understood as a specific need in the same way as poverty or police data? I am not sure that it always has been—but what do I know? We are undertaking a huge piece of work on commissioning, and in fact I have reached out to some Liberal Democrat colleagues who represent rural areas to look at what we could be doing to make sure that we are getting the commissioning right. I am sure that the services that I am visiting in Devon and Cornwall next week will have some excellent ideas for me.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Domestic Abuse Survivors: Government Support · Hansard source

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  I hope that the hon. Member appreciates that that is exactly what this is. I only make the point because there is so often a risk in this place, and in the Government, of one person who cares a huge amount about something becoming the responsible party for it, always. I will move on to the hon. Gentleman’s broader points. As he stated, the Ministry of Justice is conducting a review of the domestic abuse evidence requirements that need to be satisfied in order to access legal aid for private family matters, to ensure that those requirements are not a barrier to accessing legal aid for victims of domestic abuse. I intervened on the hon. Member on his point about homelessness. I speak as somebody who, this week alone, has handled more than 10 cases of homelessness relating to domestic abuse. Not a single one of those interacted with the legal aid system, because, thanks to part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act, which I fought very heavily for, there is a duty on every tier 1 and unitary local authority area, with funding provided by the Government, to provide accommodation and house people. I would not want the message to go out from here that people will end up on the streets. Of course, there need to be massive improvements in the manner in which refuge accommodation is commissioned. That is committed to in the violence against women and girls strategy. We also need to be clear what we mean by the term “refuge”, because one man’s—well, one woman’s—refuge accommodation may not be another’s. As we heard from our friend from Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), the housing of children in refuge accommodation is patchy across the entire country. Looking at how we commission that homelessness service is a huge and fundamental part of this.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Domestic Abuse Survivors: Government Support · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree. When I was running refuge accommodation, we were moving from the era of everybody living in communal refuges to a new era of people needing separate accommodation. Some of that was about the rules on safeguarding with regard to which children could and could not live together, and about boys over the age of 16—actually, I think the age threshold was 14. As somebody who has adult male children, I would not want to flee to somewhere they could not live. That is hugely important. The hon. Member for North Cornwall made a very important case for the need for legal aid thresholds. As somebody who has managed to amend our legal aid laws to carve out victims of domestic violence, I absolutely agree with him that we need to ensure that people can access the right legal services when they need them. If we had a lawyer from the Ministry of Justice in front of us, they would almost certainly be able to give a considerably more thorough answer, but there is relevant case law. For example, if someone’s asset is a house that they co-own, it cannot be included in the means test. There are a number of issues, and we need to look at whether the threshold is right. My threshold is that I believe somebody when they tell me that they are a victim of domestic abuse, but I understand that the burden of evidence has to be slightly higher for Government Departments or legal departments. In the strategy, we have committed to addressing tenancies and the economic abuse of those who do not own houses, but who live in either social housing or privately rented properties. We have to look at the threshold for exactly what evidence is needed, and make sure that it is fair and balanced.

• 12 Mar 2026 · International Women’s Day · Hansard source

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  First, I thank the Minister for Equalities for securing this debate in Government time. In the time I have been in the House, I think this is only the second time that has happened. I am incredibly proud to stand alongside her. I also thank the Opposition spokeswoman, the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey), for setting the tone for this debate, and everybody else for following that tone. I have to say that I have felt tearful at lots of points—I do not know what is wrong with me, but it is almost certainly something that the mother of my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Tulip Siddiq) would not be pleased for me to say. It is either hope or anger, or just the fact that I have my period, that makes me feel tired, hopeful and angry in equal measure. I say to the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) that if I get through this without crying, it will be a miracle. I just want to say a massive thank you. As others have done, I had assumed—because sometimes I do not pay much attention—that this debate had been secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler), who does us that service so well every year, through the Backbench Business Committee, but it was in fact the Government’s doing. I thank the hon. Member for Beaconsfield for her comments, and I agree that she would be—and I hope she is—a challenge to whoever she stands opposite. I thank the hon. Member for Gorton and Denton (Hannah Spencer), who made her maiden speech. When I made my maiden speech, I commented on how sexist it is for it to be called a maiden speech, and I said I was not a maiden because my children were in the Gallery. True to form, I am talking about my period and my lack of virginity, but I shall continue. It was an absolute pleasure to listen to her. I shall put aside my Birmingham versus Manchester rivalry, and say that she is very welcome here and across this House. I am definitely not going to repeat what I said when I first introduced myself to her, but to paraphrase it without being sweary, I said there are lots of lovely people here regardless of which political parties they come from, and when we work together we are always strongest. I wish that I could go through everybody’s speeches, but I just want to highlight my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Dr Tidball), a woman who I work very closely with. Campaigns we have worked on together gave me cause to cry earlier in the week. I would only say that she has ruined “Bridgerton” for me, because I have seen only the first episode, so I am irritated. However, she always speaks with such passion, and who does not deserve love? That rang out through the Chamber. I would like to pay tribute to the towering figures of the past that everybody has mentioned who advanced the causes of women’s rights, but we have also all paid tribute to the women who, without fanfare and acclaim, support families and contribute to their communities every single day. I personally could not cope without the women in my life propping me up, making me laugh and just noticing the stuff that needs noticing. People do not notice how important that little act of love actually is. We have spoken of progress and celebration, but we know we have far to go. I could highlight the women of many countries in the world whom many Members have highlighted. The women of Afghanistan and Iran have featured very heavily in this debate. I am the sister-in-law of a beautiful and now departed Iranian woman who died of breast cancer. She made her home in our country, because her country was not safe for her. The bravery of the women who stand up to be counted in Afghanistan and Iran should move every single one of us. When we do not want to come here on a Monday morning, imagine the privilege to be able to stand and speak out in this place. The reason I stood to be elected to Parliament in the first place is that, while we are gathered here at the heart of our democracy to discuss these issues in comfort and safety, beyond these walls in every part of our country women and girls are suffering. They are being attacked, abused, harassed and stalked. At home, in public places and online, the scale of violence against women and girls shames our society. Today’s debate is not the moment for detailed policy talk, so I will not do that. But I will say that I am proud to be part of a Government who are tackling this issue as the national emergency it is. That has been underscored by many people who have spoken about our commitment to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. But we know that words are not enough. Plenty has been promised and pledged in the past without results. That is why our violence against women and girls strategy, published in December, had to be different. It must deploy the full power of the state to deliver the change that is desperately needed. It is just a piece of paper; it is just a document. I have always said that when it needs to be stretched and ambition needs to be stretched, then that is absolutely what it should be. Brilliant women and campaigners—and credit to the Domestic Abuse Commissioner—campaigned for what I am about to say, which was not in the VAWG strategy. Before I take on the grim task of reading out the names of all the women who have been killed in the past year, I want to take this opportunity to commit the Home Office to funding and delivering the oversight mechanism for the recommendations made in domestic homicide reviews. We will put in place a system that strengthens accountability and ensures that learning is consistently embedded across both local and national agencies. This is about turning lessons into action, not just letting documents sit on a shelf in some local authority. By doing so, we will drive the meaningful change that is so desperately needed, because those women’s names—they used to just be numbers, but now they are names—must enable us to change to prevent future horrific deaths. It has been a long and arduous struggle, but I do believe that, with drive and leadership, change will come. Tragically, though, it will be too late for the victims, whose lives have been ended by this scourge, and their shattered families. That brings me on to the task at hand. I will now read the names of the women who have allegedly been killed by men in the past year, collated arduously every year for over a decade by the Femicide Census. They are: Anjela Chetty; Joanne Penney; Michelle Egge-Bailey; Maleta Rosevear; Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo; Rachel Dixon; Claire Anderson; Paramjit Kaur; Clare Burns; Sarah Reynolds; Hien Thi Vu; Rebekah Campbell; Paria Veisi; Tracey Davies; Pamela Munro; Aimee Pike; Elizabeth Tamilore Odunsi; Nnenna Chima; Kathryn Perkins; Margaret McGowan; Ellen Cook; Rachael Vaughan; Marjama Osman; Yajaira Castro Mendez; Miriam MacDonald; Mary Green; Mandy Riley; Samantha Murphy; Isobella Knight; Christina Alexander; Annabel Rook; Reanne Coulson; Nilani Nimalarajah; Irene Mbugua; Nila Patel; Sarah Montgomery; Angela Botham; Fortune Gomo; Phylis Daly; Gwyneth Carter; Stephanie Blundell; Brenda Breed; Vanessa Whyte, and her children, James and Sara; Courtney Angus; Nkiru Chima; Kimberley Thompson; Shara Miller; Paris Kendall; Sufia Khatun; Zahwa Salah Mukhtar; Niwunhellage Dona Nirodha Kalapni Niwunhella; Sheryl Wilkins; Halyna Hoisan; Tia Langdon; Ndata Bobb; Linner Sang; June Bunyan; Michelle Thomson; Ann Green; Shelley Davies; Anjanee Sandhir; Catalina Birlea; Chereiss Bailey; Sonia Exelby; Agnės Druskienės; Michele Kennedy; Angela Shellis; Stephanie Irons; Dickiesa Nurse; Natalie Egan; Colleen Westerman; Katie Fox; Lainie Williams; Lili Stojanova; Xiaoqing Ke; Julie Wilson; Maria Saceanu; Lisa Smith; Janet Bowen; Samantha Lee; Lisa-Marie Hopkins; Gilly Livie; Tania Williams; Gloria De Lazzari; Victoria Hart; Lisa Denton; Vanessa Pountney-Chadha; Helen Rundle; Anam Rafay; Rita Rowley; Amaal Raytaan; Carla-Maria Georgescu; Helen Bird; Angela Clayton; Naomi MacIvor; Carolann Barraclough; Jennifer Symonds; Ellie Flanagan; and two women in their 40s whose names have not yet been confirmed. Every single year, there is always a name that has to be written on at the end because it comes in as I am walking in—I say that to give the House an idea of how regularly this happens. That final name on this year’s list is Karlie Sone. The following are women whose names have not been read out in previous years: Lat Parks; Delia McInerney; Lucy Harrison; Laleh Zarejouneghani; Judith Law; Jane Riddell; Dawn Kerr; Victoria Adams; Simone Smith; and Brigitta Rasuli. I am grateful to the women of the Femicide Census for completing the list—it was incomplete because the information was not known—so that those women can be remembered. I also want to take a moment to remember those who have died by suicide or in unexplained circumstances as a result of abuse. We commit to doing more, so that their names are not forgotten. The number of those women outstrips the number in the list that I have just read out by some margin. We refuse to forget these women, who all deserved so much more. I want to once again thank the Femicide Census for the tireless work that goes into collating these names every year. We find it difficult to listen to them, but the Femicide Census look through every single story. I express my profound gratitude for the work that it does to raise awareness of women and girls who have been so tragically killed by men. There is so much more that I could say, but the list continues to speak for itself. I will finish by saying only this: may these women get the justice that they deserved, and may we honour them by preventing others from suffering the same fate. Question put and agreed to. Resolved , That this House has considered International Women’s Day.

• 11 Mar 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The cross-Government violence against women and girls strategy to which my hon. Friend has referred contains an ambitious package of measures to prevent and tackle economic abuse and to support victims. It includes exploring how to prevent joint mortgages from being used as a tool of abuse, ensuring that coerced debt is reflected accurately and that the severe problem of victims’ credit files is addressed, and piloting the use of the economic abuse evidence form within the Government to improve our response to victims of economic abuse.

• 11 Mar 2026 · Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls. · Hansard source

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  We are delivering the commitments set out in the cross-Government “Freedom from Violence and Abuse” strategy, published in December 2025, which sets out actions to prevent violence, pursue perpetrators and support victims. A ministerial group bringing together 14 Departments provides strategic oversight of delivery, driving progress, addressing risk, and ensuring collective ownership of our commitment to halve VAWG within a decade.

• 11 Mar 2026 · Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls. · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his question. This weekend, I was with Black Country Women’s Aid, celebrating its 40th anniversary, and its staff mentioned how my hon. Friend had been incredibly supportive of them. The first of the three aims of our strategy is to stop violence before it starts, focusing on the prevention that he talks about. We will focus on young people, supporting parents and working with schools to challenge misogyny and promote healthy relationships. We will also engage with industry and take decisive action to safeguard young people by making the UK one of the hardest places for children to access harmful content and misogynistic influence.

• 11 Mar 2026 · Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls. · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman highlights another incredibly sad case. Of course, I work with the Justice Minister in Northern Ireland—we work very closely with all the devolved Administrations to make sure we are working together to deal with this problem collectively.

• 11 Mar 2026 · Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls. · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Lady for her question. Once again, I point to this exact issue being covered in the violence against women and girls strategy, with the need to improve police responses. That is why the Government have invested £13.1 million into a policing centre that focuses specifically on VAWG. On this specific issue of suicide following domestic abuse, it has undertaken some absolutely groundbreaking work that I very much hope will lead to change and further convictions, which we all want to see.

• 11 Mar 2026 · Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls. · Hansard source

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  If the hon. Lady were to read the violence against women and girls strategy, she would see that there is a specific section on healthcare workers and workers across the community, specifically targeting the issue of sexual harassment within the NHS. I would also point out to her that the charging rate for sexual crimes fell to a historic low under her Government, and I am very pleased to tell the House that it is now increasing.

• 2 Mar 2026 · Small Religious Organisations: Safeguarding · Hansard source

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  I am more than happy to look directly into that case. My hon. Friend highlights an important problem: we need clarity about who is responsible in the system. First and foremost, if child abuse in an institution is raised with anyone, it should be reported to the police, with the support of the victim. I do not know the details of that case, but I will come on to the issues that my hon. Friend raised about the Charity Commission. As a constituency MP, I have had to raise such issues with the Charity Commission. We need to ensure that the regime of regulation in our charitable sector is as robust as it can be on safeguarding, as well as on financial irregularity and other things. I do not disagree with what my hon. Friend said.

• 2 Mar 2026 · Small Religious Organisations: Safeguarding · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling) for his speech, and I am grateful to other Members for their important contributions today. I welcome the opportunity to talk about the Government’s commitment to safeguarding and protecting children and adults from harm across all settings, including within religious and faith communities. I want to give a special mention to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire for securing this debate and for the compassion, thoroughness and persistence that he has shown this House on this issue. Let me first be clear that this Government recognise the central role of faith in our national life, and we are committed to building a Britain where all communities feel safe and where the contributions of people of faith and belief are warmly welcomed and richly valued, as are the contributions of those who, like myself, have no faith—well, I have a lot of faith, but none that would be recognised or organised. The insights of faith and belief groups should and do play an important role in the national conversation around safeguarding children and preventing violence against women and girls. The other central point to make at the outset is that the Government utterly condemn all acts of psychological, emotional, physical and sexual abuse against children and adults in all settings, including religious settings of any size or denomination. All such acts should be thoroughly investigated and the perpetrators brought to justice. As with every case of abuse, my thoughts are first and foremost with the victims and survivors. As this House knows, we are taking forward an ambitious range of measures to improve safeguarding and child protection. Through the violence against women and girls strategy published last year, which deploys the full power of the state to achieve this aim, and through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, we are strengthening multi-agency safeguarding arrangements and improving information sharing. We are also taking forward work to safeguard and protect children from harm in out-of-school settings, including religious organisations offering education in their own faith. All out-of-school settings have a legal duty to safeguard and protect children from harm in their care. To support them in meeting this duty, the Department for Education has published guidance setting out the safeguarding standard that they should meet and last year launched a call for evidence to gather views on potential approaches to strengthening safeguarding further, including regulation. The Department for Education is currently analysing the responses and continuing engagement with key stakeholders, and will respond in due course. We are also taking action on the recommendations of IICSA, which have been mentioned, including establishing a child protection authority to improve the national oversight and leadership of child protection and introducing through the Crime and Policing Bill a mandatory duty to report child sexual abuse. The duty will create a culture of knowledge, confidence and openness among those most likely to be alerted to child sexual abuse. It will help children and young people to trust that their voices will be heard when they speak out. The duty will apply to those working or volunteering with children in faith settings. There will be no exceptions based on religious practices. We will continue to engage with groups that may be impacted to help them manage the implementation of this new duty. My hon. Friend raised some specific points about the Government’s mandatory reporting duty, which I would like to address. We are grateful for the expertise of the child protection sector in shaping the new duty. Our shared aim is to have a regime that is effective for children and workable for professionals. For the avoidance of doubt, the organisations that my hon. Friend mentioned have always fully supported the Government policy of not applying criminal sanctions to the failure to report. It is true that they also advocate for robust action against the deliberate concealment of abuse, but there is a qualitative difference between a lapse in reporting and taking active steps to deter it, or destroying or concealing evidence. The Crime and Policing Bill reflects that distinction by creating a criminal offence of obstructing a reporter from carrying out their duty, punishable by up to seven years in prison. The question of whether failures to report should be subject to sanctions was fully considered during the Bill’s parliamentary passage. Earlier today, on Report in the other place, the House rejected a proposition to amend the Bill to that effect. The question of what triggers the duty—for example, whether to include the observation of signs and indicators —is a separate matter, although I recognise that, because these issues are often debated in tandem, some conflation may have crept in. The Government have not claimed the same stakeholder endorsement for our chosen threshold for the duty. Although some stakeholders favour adding recognised indicators or reasonable suspicion that abuse has occurred, as I have set out previously the Government’s view is that we need to deliver a model that is clear, proportionate and operable, anchored in direct disclosure, witnessing or recorded material. As with all aspects of the duty, we will keep that under review, but we are confident that the Bill as drafted strikes the right balance. Let me respond to some of the points that have been raised. I often feel anxious that people think that any organisation that they raise will not be considered as part of the duty, but most people in positions of trust—we do not need to name them—are covered by the duty because they work in regulated activity with children. That is the core definition in the Bill for a mandated reporter. In other words, if a person’s role as a sports coach already brings them into regular close contact with children, they are in scope.

• 2 Mar 2026 · Small Religious Organisations: Safeguarding · Hansard source

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  With the mandatory reporting duty, a huge body of work will go into guidance about how to report. However small—however nervous—they are covered by the duty. I have only three minutes still to speak. To the issue of faith-based charities promoting misogyny, I hear the concerns raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire. The Charity Commission has apparently reviewed the National Secular Society report on religious charities promoting misogyny and confirmed that it has already assessed and responded to a number of incidents. I will follow up on that action, and I will gladly meet him once I have a fully robust answer. He invites me to annoy, I suppose, the Treasury—I do not think he used those words—but I agree with him that, as in the examples he gave, the idea that an organisation can promote the hatred of women or the supplication of people’s wives and also be considered a charity is an alien one. I will follow up on that. Furthermore, as the Prime Minister announced recently, the Government are already working with the commission on plans to give it additional powers to help tackle extremist abuse, which will bar anyone convicted of hate crimes from serving as a trustee and make it easier for the commission to act against anyone undertaking that. The changes will be made after a public consultation that is coming this month, which I invite everybody to take part in. I will speak to the Department of Health and Social Care on medical coercion. I do not lead on that as a Minister, but I do not disagree with my hon. Friend that people must be able to make those decisions in full view. I thank my hon. Friends for their contributions. I promise that we will continue to try to work together, because we all want the same thing. Question put and agreed to.

• 11 Feb 2026 · Police Grant Report · Hansard source

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  I will make some progress. I do not think that those warranted police officers should be doing that. That is why we are tilting to increase the number of police, getting 12,000 of them from behind desks to where they need to be: working on the frontline. The consensus from Members in the House today, including my hon. Friends the Members for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) and for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) and others from different parties, is that some unfairness exists in the funding formula. It would be ridiculous to reform the police funding formula, carry out all of the police reforms that will come out of the planned review of policing, and then paste the funding formula on to that completely new programme. The hon. Member for Huntingdon has already laid out his questions about the White Paper, but the point is that there will be a review of policing. I like the way hon. Members have started to use the term “mega-forces” as if they will be a bad thing. To me, they sound quite cool, like something out of “RoboCop”—which is not Government policy. It is for the hon. Gentleman and every other Member to take part in that review, ask questions, such as the ones he asked today, and represent their areas. The hon. Members who have spoken today largely come from rural or semi-rural communities. From listening to that debate, people would be forgiven for thinking that where I live is basically a police state, where if someone calls the police, they will be out in five minutes. I recognise exactly the same issues that Members representing rural constituencies raised—that the police do not always come when people need them—and the needs of their police forces. One of the forces mentioned was West Mercia and there seemed to be an idea that that force would suck resources away from Birmingham, but I feel the same way about other bits of Birmingham, and indeed other parts of the country. That is why we need to reform the system. I was in a meeting this morning with three of the most senior police officers in our country, who are part of the new violence against women and girls policing unit created by this Government. We were talking about the disparity between the 43 different police forces—stalking or honour crime may be tackled well in one area but not in another—and the domestic abuse risk assessments that they use. In that meeting, I thought, “Gosh, we are going to have the opportunity to start from first principles.” If I were to design the police force today on behalf of women and children in our country, I would not be designing the systems that we have today, so I ask people to enter into the issue of police reform in that spirit. On the policing funding formula, there is no doubt, as hon. Members have mentioned—I suffer from this in Birmingham, as well—that a council tax base that is low has a disproportionate impact. When the funding formula is reformed, as part of the overall reform of policing, it will absolutely have to rely on need, deprivation and demand, as was laid out by my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East. Need can do a huge amount of heavy lifting for things like seasonality, which was raised by a number of hon. Members.

• 11 Feb 2026 · Police Grant Report · Hansard source

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  What is actually going up is rape charging. To put the record straight, I never criticised increased reporting of rape. What I criticised was the decimation of rape charging under the right hon. Gentleman’s Government, which led to the worst record in history.

• 11 Feb 2026 · Police Grant Report · Hansard source

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  I will come to the points that were raised in the debate, and that is one that the right hon. Gentleman raised many times. The hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) asked a specific question about the baseline. The baseline of the number of police personnel working in neighbourhood policing, which is measured from 31 March, was 17,715. Today that figure is 20,687. I will tell a story about my recent visit to Cumbria police. I visited a call centre, where brilliant work was being done, and where I met some brilliant domestic violence advisers. However, the people staffing the call centre were warranted police officers. I do not think that warranted police officers should be staffing the call centres in police departments.

• 11 Feb 2026 · Police Grant Report · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman raised many such points, so he will excuse me if I do not give way now. It seems that the whole House can agree that no one likes the funding formula. The hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) gave an especially good trot-through of that issue. While he is not of my political stripes, he is considerably better than the previous right hon. Member for North Norfolk, who bears some responsibility for the damage that this Government are having to fix. The funding formula is fundamentally— [ Interruption. ] If hon. Members would like to intervene or think that I have said something that I should not have said, they should feel free to defend the former right hon. Member for North Norfolk, the one-time Prime Minister who crashed the economy.