Jess Phillips MP: speeches

Speeches

• 9 Feb 2026 · Violence against Women and Girls Strategy · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady’s constituent’s experience is not unfamiliar to any Member of Parliament who has ever had to deal with the Child Maintenance Agency. That is why child maintenance was included in the violence against women and girls strategy. We will ensure that the abuse of women through child maintenance can no longer happen. Like always, I am more than happy to meet the hon. Lady and her constituents.

• 9 Feb 2026 · Violence against Women and Girls Strategy · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and I suppose I want to say from this Dispatch Box that I want that perpetrator to be inconvenienced. Inconveniencing him is exactly what we should try to do, which is why this Government are tackling perpetrators —that is essentially about shifting the focus on to those who cause harm. We are rolling out domestic abuse protection orders, removing the burden on victims by placing stronger, enforceable prohibitions and requirements on the perpetrators, such as electronic monitoring and positive requirements to keep victims safe. Importantly, a breach of that order is a criminal offence.

• 9 Feb 2026 · Violence against Women and Girls Strategy · Hansard source

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  What I would say to the shadow Minister and to everybody is this: I do not care who you are or where you come from; if you abuse women in our country, we will come for you. There is no lever in the Home Office that I can pull to get reliable data on this issue. That is why under this Government, unlike the previous one, we will start collecting it.

• 9 Feb 2026 · Violence against Women and Girls Strategy · Hansard source

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  I give credit to the stalking victims and stalking organisations that took out a super-complaint against the previous Government, I think, on the many different areas where stalking legislation needed to change. This Government are acting on every single one of those recommendations. The violence against women and girls strategy had more than £1 billion of investment, of which £550 million will go into victim services. I can assure the hon. Member that as a victim of stalking myself, I take the issue very seriously.

• 9 Feb 2026 · Violence against Women and Girls Strategy · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words—I will continue to do that for the rest of my life. Women and girls must be safe at home and in public, which is why the Government are strengthening early intervention, improving police responses, and ensuring that women facing domestic or post-separation abuse receive protection and support. We are embedding VAWG considerations into things like transport guidance, updating national design standards to ensure public spaces are safer by design. Together, these measures will make communities across England and Wales safer, including women and girls in Loughborough, Shepshed and the villages, so that they can live confidently and without fear.

• 9 Feb 2026 · Domestic Violence: Victim Support · Hansard source

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  Our cross-cutting Government strategy commits £1 billion over the next three years to support victims of violence against women and girls, including domestic abuse. That includes a £30 million uplift under this Government on refuge and safe accommodation for victims of domestic abuse, and millions extra on funding the domestic abuse perpetrator schemes, which specifically target the repeat offenders who pose the highest risk of harm.

• 9 Feb 2026 · Domestic Violence: Victim Support · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman makes an incredibly good point. We would save ourselves a lot of time and people a lot of harm if we just got it right in the first place. That is why the Government have invested £13.1 million specifically in a policing centre for tackling violence against women and girls, which seeks to look at all the gaps in the policing system and make nationwide standards against which the police will be held accountable.

• 9 Feb 2026 · Domestic Violence: Victim Support · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that suggestion. I will ensure that our officials look up that particular study. I will do anything that shows an improvement in this area. It never surprises me that gender parity makes things better. That is another thing I have committed my life to.

• 9 Feb 2026 · Domestic Violence: Victim Support · Hansard source

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  While these are questions to the Home Office, and people will rightly bring questions about policing across the country, only 10% of domestic abuse victims will ever see the inside of a police station or interact with policing, so every other element of our system—including the family courts, the family justice system and our civil courts—absolutely has to play a part. Those things are a fundamental part of the violence against women and girls strategy.

• 9 Feb 2026 · Domestic Violence: Victim Support · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to the organisation in my hon. Friend’s constituency and to all such organisations across our constituencies, and I pay tribute to her for doing that work in her own surgery. I encourage everybody to do the same—I am sure many do. Rural communities experience domestic abuse the same as those in urban areas, but they have different needs that have to be met. That is why the Government—I invite her and all Members to join me in this—will work with Members from rural areas to consider what specifically needs to be done to make sure that, when police standards are written, that isolation is fully taken into account.

• 9 Feb 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  It is for the Scottish Government to undertake an inquiry because, unlike in Wales, justice is devolved in Scotland, as are education and health—all of which will be vital facets of the inquiry that will run across England and Wales. I do not disagree that there needs to be no stone left unturned in Scotland. We will make sure that anything that is found through the work of the inquiry’s committee is shared with Scotland.

• 27 Jan 2026 · Digital Exploitation of Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  As others have said, it is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Sir Mark Hendrick) for securing the debate, and to all Members who have spoken. From the get-go, I want to set out my stall and talk about exactly how I feel about this issue. If someone makes their money through harming women, and if part of their business model is sharing terrible, sexualised, faked images of people like me—well, I am not really allowed to say what I think about that, but I want to make it completely clear that it is totally and utterly unacceptable. Discussions like this are essential, especially as we know that the technology is developing more quickly than we can write legislation. The hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool) asked why we cannot ban these things now. I remember the Online Safety Act going through Parliament, and I have to say that it is a triumph of hope over experience to think that I could just say, “Ban it now,” and that by tomorrow it would be banned. If only I wielded such a great ban hammer, I would be banning stuff all over the shop—no one would be listening to their phone out loud on the train any more. But that pace of change is not one that legislation easily keeps up with, and I say to other hon. Members who have spoken that we need to find backstops and ways to make our legislation more agile, so that it can change without having to go through some of the processes we have—I gave 10 years of my life to the Online Safety Act.

• 27 Jan 2026 · Digital Exploitation of Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady makes an incredibly important point. She is absolutely right that we need to make sure these things are enforced. To Members who spoke about pornography, I would say that there are reasons to be cheerful about the enforcement by Ofcom. I could dance a jig because Pornhub has reported a 77% reduction in traffic since age verification stopped young people being able to access it so easily. We are in the foothills of what that legislation can do. Where pornography companies have not been undertaking age verification, Ofcom has issued £1 million fines, and changes have been made to companies’ roles in the UK, so that they meet our laws. So there are reasons to think that there is some enforcement, but I absolutely agree that we need to grapple with the agility, scale and scope of that enforcement. I must come to the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Preston. Before I came to the debate, my colleague the Minister for victims was telling me how amazing my hon. Friend and his office have been in Preston in handling online abuse. People in our constituency offices often do not get praised for these things, but I hear that my hon. Friend has a legend working in his office. My hon. Friend talked about the importance of education in this space, and about this being a country-wide push for change, and I could not agree more. The Government have invested in this issue, and it will be an absolutely fundamental part of the violence against women and girls strategy. The National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection will do exactly what my hon. Friend talked about, so that the good standards, for example, in Cheshire—it is not far from him, and the anti-stalking practices are amazing and world-leading—are the same for people in the west midlands and everywhere else. My hon. Friend used the example of stalking legislation and making sure there are standardised systems and standards that police forces have to live by, which will absolutely include upskilling, when policing the digital elements of these crimes, whether it is domestic abuse or online. Stalking online is as illegal as stalking in real life—just to be clear, they are the same crime. My hon. Friend talked about the richest man in the world. I am not sure there are many people in this building who have quite such a claim against the richest man in the world as me. What happened is unacceptable, and anyone who has existed online will know about the Grok outcry. Some hon. Members mentioned Meta glasses. If I had been in the meeting where they floated the idea of making Meta glasses, the very first thing I would have said would have been, “These are going to be used to abuse women.” Why is that not being baked into the design of such products? One of the things the violence against women and girls strategy has absolutely committed to is working on safety by design. In the car industry, we now take safety features for granted. If we are talking about what it was like when we were kids versus now, my dad used to put us in the back of the car and purposefully go round the corners fast so that we would smack into the window. These things are not acceptable now. We have to go on a journey with this technology. To me, a Ring doorbell is such an obvious way to stalk somebody, as is an AirTag. I see cases again and again. It does not matter what the new technologies are; perpetrators of these abuses will find a way to use them for that purpose, so we need to design in safety functions. On the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern) about planning, I will take that away and work with him. The Government obviously took a strong stance—I felt pleased about this—against Grok. We can see that when we stand together and people speak up, we can make change in this area, but we need to make sustainable change. We absolutely are always looking at legislative changes. As people have said, there have been a number of those. There is the issue of Grok being added into the Online Safety Act, so that there can be accountability on that basis. In the Crime and Policing Bill, we are also banning nudification apps. I have also had it shown to me that they do not work on men and boys, which I am glad about for men’s and boys’ sake, but if you are designing something that will nudify only women, you have a problem. I do not know who I can talk to, but there is something wrong with you. Have a word with yourself; otherwise, we will have a word with you. The ban will target firms and individuals providing and supplying tools that use AI to turn images of real people into fake nudes. There is a raft of other legislation that we are putting through and that we hope will shift the dial. Obviously, in the violence against women and girls strategy, we have made a very clear commitment to ensuring that we make it impossible for children to take and share naked images of themselves—we will make it impossible for them to do that. My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy) and others talked about children being taken from social media and on to other platforms. I have to say that encrypted spaces are the most dangerous for child abuse imagery. But to the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire, who was talking about that, I say this: 91% of all child sexual abuse images are self-made; they are made by children themselves. People have groomed them—exploited them—to make those images. It may be their peers. We will not stop this just by looking at the issue of new AI. There is an issue with where our children can go and who has access to them. I agree with the hon. Lady’s sentiment. We have to make sure that we get this right. Even with the 10 years of work on the Online Safety Act, and with the level of detail and, I have to say, the arguments that went into it, it still has all the gaps that we are talking about, so we need to make sure we get this right and legislate in a way that can be agile for the future. That is why I think the Government need to take the time—not too much time, I agree—to make sure we do that. Others talked about accountability and whether anyone ever actually gets punished for these things. As part of the work we are doing in the Home Office, we are expanding the use of covert officers to address violence against women and girls, and improving the capabilities to counter and reduce the highest harms. We operate a similar system with regard to child abuse online. We are now doing that also for women and girls online, recognising the level of organised crime that is behind this. The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) talked about people who are asleep and being filmed, like Gisèle Pelicot. These issues deserve a police force specifically looking at the covert aspect, and that is what this Government are doing.

• 19 Jan 2026 · Disclosure and Barring Service · Hansard source

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  I will come on to that when I pick up some of the issues of portability from one person to another. However, from Wednesday those hiring personal carers, or families engaging private tutors, will have access to the same high level of check, with the same level of information, including information about whether a person is barred by the DBS. Thirdly, we have enabled the disclosure of an individual’s barred-list status on the international child protection certificate.

• 19 Jan 2026 · Disclosure and Barring Service · Hansard source

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  We recognise that people may want to use their existing DBS check when moving from one role to another, where the new role requires a check. That is exactly the point that the hon. Lady raised. It is possible for employers to accept an existing criminal record certificate, but it must be for the same type of check in the same workforce—in the instance she has given, that would be working with children—such as enhanced with barred lists checks for the children’s workforce. This is to ensure that the appropriate level of information is available. We do not want a random DBS to have been done, and for someone to just say, “Look, I’ve got a DBS”. Over the years, I too have had more DBS checks than I can count. On the delays, the DBS has a key performance indicator of getting 80% turnaround within 14 days, and it currently reaches 75%. It has been progressively working on that and ensuring that things are done more quickly. The enhanced check relies on police forces undertaking the work, and seven months seems like a very long time, but there can be a variety of reasons why delays may arise. However, the vast majority of checks are done within 14 days. My son had an enhanced DBS the other day, and it came back in three days. I do not think the DBS knew that he was my son.

• 19 Jan 2026 · Disclosure and Barring Service · Hansard source

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  That is a very good question. There does seem to be a bit of a discrepancy. I know that when the hon. Lady was looking through different regulated systems to get people checked in her own area, they were found wanting. Individuals, families or those who want to employ a tutor or a carer on a self-employed basis, whether or not that involves direct payments, will have access to the enhanced check. I pay tribute to Richard and the campaign of his brilliant wife Louise: she is absolutely on the money. The right to ask is a fundamental part of the system, and from Wednesday—give me 48 hours—parents will have that power. If I were sending my child to a tutor—which I have done, like many other people across the country—I would be able to ask whether that tutor had had an enhanced check. It may not be possible to access all the information, but it will be possible to question and scrutinise employers as well, to ensure that that is done. Parents will have that power. As I have said, we understand that child protection is international. The ICPC, issued by the ACRO Criminal Records Office, is used for individuals who intend to work with children overseas. We changed the relevant legislation on 18 December, reducing the risk that an overseas employer could unknowingly hire a barred person to work with children and thereby meeting the third of the inquiry’s recommendations relating to the disclosure of criminal records. Overall, our approach is underpinned by an unwavering commitment to safeguarding through the proportionate disclosure of criminal records and other relevant information. It is of course important that we listen to, and when necessary act on, any concerns raised by individuals, including Members of Parliament, and the sectors that interact with the regime.

• 19 Jan 2026 · Disclosure and Barring Service · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. When I woke up this morning, I did not think that this debate would start until 10 pm, so any more time is a bonus. I apologise. The last time I replied in an Adjournment debate, I ran wildly over time, and somebody had to shut me up. I did not want anyone to be put in that position again. The portability of checks was raised. I think people do not understand quite how many DBS checks are done a year—7.3 million. It gives me some comfort that quite a lot of the workforce in our country are undertaking checks. Incidentally, we do not have to undergo checks as Members of Parliament.

• 19 Jan 2026 · Disclosure and Barring Service · Hansard source

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  I will give way.

• 19 Jan 2026 · Disclosure and Barring Service · Hansard source

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  We absolutely understand that. Just to be clear, police forces are paid through the DBS system to undertake the checks. The resources are given by the DBS system to police forces to undertake that work. I will ensure that the hon. Member receives the exact cost, but it comes under the costs of the DBS. On the issue of exactly how long a DBS check lasts, there is no one simple answer, but we should encourage more people to be part of the updating system and the checking system. This system has been heavily scrutinised over the years, and it deserves that level of scrutiny, but I have seen a real effort to make sure that it is the best and the fairest that it can be, but we are always here to work for any possible improvements. Question put and agreed to.

• 19 Jan 2026 · Disclosure and Barring Service · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) very much for securing this debate on an important issue. I am grateful to her and to all others who have contributed this evening. A good amount of ground has been covered, even in the relatively short time available, so I will respond to the various points that have been made. First, I ask for the House’s indulgence as I set out some of the factual background of the Disclosure and Barring Service. The wider disclosure and barring regime is there to protect children and vulnerable adults through the disclosure of relevant criminal records, helping employers to make informed recruitment decisions about the suitability of an individual to work with those groups. It does so through criminal record checks, with the standard, enhanced and enhanced with barred lists levels. Increasing criminal record information is disclosed at each level. The roles and activities that are eligible for the higher-level criminal records check are set out in legislation owned by the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. During the last reported year, the DBS issued a total of 7.2 million certificates. The regime also allows for barring by the DBS of those who are considered to pose a risk, as has been covered. If someone is barred, they cannot work in what is defined as regulated activity in our legislation. As has been identified, regulated activity and institutions that are regulated are two different things—I make that completely clear. Examples of regulated activity include teaching, supervising children and providing health and personal care to children and adults. It does not matter whether it is voluntary or otherwise. Through the relevant arrangements, the DBS ensures that those it has barred cannot work in those roles and have access to vulnerable groups. The DBS’s most recent annual report states that 104,000 individuals are on its children and adults barred lists. I should note that the disclosure and barring regime is not, as has been pointed out, a vetting regime. The disclosure and barring regime focuses on providing employers with information on people, whether that is criminal records, relevant police information or barred list status. This can support robust suitability decisions while allowing ex-offenders to get back into work and employment. As Parliament and the public would expect, the regime is kept under review to ensure that it is effectively delivering on its key objectives, and I am always keen to hear suggestions, especially those, as laid out by the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole, that are based in real life—IRL, as my children would say—with regard to our constituents. We are bringing in changes to respond to the DBS-related recommendations from the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. First, a measure in the Crime and Policing Bill will prevent those on the barred list from working closely with children, even in supervised roles working alongside somebody with a DBS certificate. Currently, if a role involving teaching, instructing or supervising children is supervised by another member of staff, it is not considered to be “regulated activity” under the legislation. This means that an employer can ask only for an enhanced DBS check, which does not include a check of the barred list. That creates a risk that a barred-list individual could work as a volunteer in a school, or as an employee in a youth club or other setting, if supervised. We agree with the inquiry that the risk is too high, and we are changing the law accordingly. Secondly, we are enabling self-employed or personal employees to access higher-level DBS checks if they work with children or vulnerable adults. The relevant provision will come into force on Wednesday—completely coincidentally! Before we made that change, people such as private tutors or paid personal carers could only access a basic DBS check, while their counterparts in settings such as schools or care homes would be expected to obtain the highest level of DBS check.

• 19 Jan 2026 · Disclosure and Barring Service · Hansard source

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  I do not think I can take any more interventions, because my time will run out. I am more than happy to meet the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole, and to work with her to make sure that we get the DBS to be the best it can be, within all the regulatory frameworks that are needed.

• 19 Jan 2026 · Disclosure and Barring Service · Hansard source

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  I will get back to the hon. Lady on the specifics of that. This is about people who are barred from working with children, and ensuring that we have enhanced international knowledge sharing. In the cases raised by the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole, the fact that it was not known that somebody had all those issues was a real failure in the system. I want to give some attention to the requirements that the hon. Lady calls for. The Disclosure and Barring Service does one thing. It is not the regulator, and it does not regulate services; it ensures that employers have the right information. The regulation of activities sits with the relevant Departments and institutions. The rules in residential settings are different from those in the Department for Education. We need to make sure that we do not introduce regulation that means that no one can ever start any sort of group—that is certainly something we have been mindful of in our work on the duty to report cases of sexual abuse among children. However, we need to have safeguards in place. The regulation of requirements sits with the relevant individual bodies; it is not for the DBS to say what the requirements should be. However, I am absolutely open to having conversations about what should and should not be regulated when it comes to safeguarding. I go back to where I started: regulated activity. The hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole asks for clarity in the guidance. Regulated activity is activity that involves someone working with children and vulnerable adults. Frankly, I find it quite hard to imagine that the vast majority of the cases that she has raised would not fall under the scope of regulated activity, but I will absolutely take her point away. Before I finish, I want to pay tribute to Lauren, whose heartbreaking case was mentioned. I speak as somebody who knows what drug addiction can do, and what it costs families. I do not know the full details, but in Lauren’s case, I would consider the activity to have been regulated activity. If someone is teaching children, they are undertaking regulated activity, and parents will have the right to ask whether enhanced checks have been undertaken.

• 5 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Happy new year, Mr Speaker. The violence against women and girls strategy is absolutely for every woman and girl in our country. There are specific problems faced by people in rural communities, and I will gladly work with the hon. Lady and others from rural communities to get that right.

• 5 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  There is an independent system that oversees whether access to files from the DBS has been granted appropriately. If the hon. Gentleman would like to write to me on this specific case, I am more than happy to ensure that it is followed through.

• 18 Dec 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls Strategy · Hansard source

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  Again, I am poacher turned gamekeeper in ensuring that the voluntary sector is well placed to deliver much of what is in the strategy—not just classic victim support models of national or local funding, but new opportunities and new schemes in our employment and health services. I want to ensure that where those services are operated locally, voluntary sector agencies can be part of them.