Jess Phillips MP: speeches

Speeches

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

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her support in the development of the strategy. One thing that makes me most proud is the advancement in refuge funding. She played no small part in pushing for that and deserves every thanks in the world, not just because she is a brilliant Member of Parliament but because of her experience—one that too many of us in this House share. Work must be done across the board to look at exactly how protection orders work. As my hon. Friend says, people can have action taken on their restraining orders—although I am about to go to court because somebody has breached one of mine. Domestic abuse protection orders and stalking protection orders are, in my view, considerably better tools and should be used more widely. The strategy is very clear on that.

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

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  I thank my hon. Friend for the diplomatic manner in which she is clearly representing high-profile cases in her constituency. I absolutely agree, and it goes to a number of points made by shadow Minister, too: “I don’t care who you are. I don’t care how important you are. I don’t care if you ran a big department store. I don’t care if you are a movie mogul. I don’t care which country you come from. If you do this in our country, we will come for you.”

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

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  We have not done anywhere near enough to engage with young men and boys about their feelings on this issue, and to devise a system that is best for them. Other than saying, “six-seven”, what do I know about what it is like to be a teenage boy? Not even my children are teenagers any more. We will test a number of models, and that will have to be done in concert with young people.

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

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  The backlog in our courts is one of the stickiest, most difficult issues, and it covers lots of different Departments that need to get this absolutely right. It is probably the problem that drives our collective work more than almost anything else. We are due to have 100,000 cases in the backlog by 2028 if we do not put in place real, radical change, keeping at its heart the experiences of women and girls. There are things in the strategy around legal advice for victims and greater support for independent sexual violence advisers. All those sorts of things are there, but this will require a radical change.

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

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  The hon. Lady will see from the strategy that the issue of tech is undoubtedly in there. I agree that, on assessing how well things are going, it seems quite a long time to wait until 2027. I can absolutely guarantee that I will hold tech companies accountable for their behaviours—I think it is quite famously known that a lot of them are not all that keen on me. I will also work with them on what is possible, for example on ensuring that what teachers know is adapted to the modern world—my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) asked about that. We will also need big tech brains on that, so although I will hold them accountable, it will also be important to work with them. There is ringfenced money specifically for targeting domestic abuse and sexual violence. The strategy contains a commitment to how we give the standards of commissioning when giving out money from the centre down to areas, in order to look at exactly the issue of “by and for”, which the hon. Lady talked about, whether for older people, for veterans support, or for black and minority ethnic groups. All those “by and for” groups will have to be taken account of.

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

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  The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. I always say this, but it was a genuine pleasure to work with him on this issue, and I thank him for his leadership in this space. We obviously have to wait for the Sentencing Bill to pass, but I expect that it will throw up huge amounts of data that will be incredibly helpful. It will take a bit of time to see exactly what data we want to collect and look at, but the process can start as soon as the Sentencing Bill passes. That is certainly our ambition.

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

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  I thank the hon. Lady for giving me the opportunity to say that, throughout this process, many Members from across the House have been to see me about various issues and the importance of this matter in their areas. The strategy definitely tackles issues relating to migrant women. The Government fund specialist provision for women with no recourse to public funds so that they can escape, and we have increased that funding. The type of visa they have does not matter; they can access the funding. One inclusion in parts of the Istanbul convention relates to the firewall between police and support services. I am pleased to say that that is part of our strategy, and we will look to implement it as soon as possible.

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

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  My hon. Friend will be pleased with the Government action that the strategy proposes with regard to some of the commercial sexual exploitation that occurs within pornography—she rightly points that out—based on Baroness Bertin’s review. Much more broadly, we must properly integrate adult sexual exploitation —including the terrible commercial sexual exploitation—into what we consider to be violence against women and girls, and have robust measures to deal with that. That is a fundamental part of changing this.

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

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  I really thank the hon. Gentleman for his approach to this issue, and for working collectively with us. Alongside the strategy, there is a statement specifically targeted at men and boys, and there are some specific support services and policies for male survivors, but anything in the strategy, any of the legislation, and any of the support services and the commissioning are for men and boys who are victims. As he and I said, we actually need a piece of work done, because we cannot just paste what women have always used on to men. At the men and boys summit that my hon. Friend the Victims Minister will hold early in the new year, which I am sure the hon. Gentleman can be part of, we will look at exactly what that is.

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

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  Merry Christmas, Madam Deputy Speaker. With permission, I will make a statement on the publication of the Government’s strategy to tackle violence against women and girls. Let us start with the facts. Last year, one in every eight women was a victim of domestic abuse, stalking or sexual assault. Every day, 200 rapes are reported to the police, and many go unreported. Behind every one of those figures is a woman or girl whose life has been shattered. Behind every crime lies a perpetrator who all too often gets away scot-free. For too long, we have accepted these statistics as simply a fact of life. Today this Government say: no more. We are calling violence against women and girls the national emergency that it is. We are committing to halve these horrific crimes within a decade, and today we publish the strategy that sets us on that journey. The strategy does something that none before it ever has. Until now, responsibility for tackling violence against women and girls has been left to only the crime-fighting departments, which work so often in isolated ways. They provide support that is vital, but it often comes too late to truly change the story. This strategy is different. It deploys the full power of the state, across national Government and local government. It draws on the experiences of victims and the power of the third sector to transform our approach to these crimes—in our schools, in our police forces, from housing to healthcare, on our streets and behind closed doors, online and offline. The strategy is designed to deliver three goals: first, preventing boys and men from ever becoming abusers in the first place; secondly, bearing down on perpetrators so that those who have offended do not do so again; and, finally, supporting victims so that they get justice when they seek it and the closure that they deserve. I will start with how we stop the violence before it starts. Because of the proliferation of content that has the potential to poison young minds, the need to address this issue has never been greater. Our strategy tackles radicalisation and confronts behaviour long before it spirals into abuse or violence. Education is undoubtedly the key. We must empower teachers to challenge harmful attitudes and act before they escalate. To do so, we will invest £20 million to tackle harmful attitudes in young people. Our universal pledge is to change fundamentally how relationships, consent and attitudes can be embedded through education. That means changing the curriculum and developing training for teachers and external providers on healthy relationships and consent. We will also develop targeted programmes for those starting to exhibit harmful behaviours, and we will pilot interventions in schools, focusing in on and managing risk where abusive behaviours are starting to show. We will provide parents and frontline professionals with the support and training that they need to spot the warning signs of misogyny and act on them. We will make the UK one of the hardest places for children to access harmful content and misogynistic influences online. We must help our parents to protect their children from harmful, poisonous content. We will ban “nudification” tools, which currently enable users to strip clothes and produce intimate images without the consent of those depicted. We will work with technology companies to make it impossible for children in the UK to take, share or view nude images through nudity detection filters. First and foremost, our goal must be to stop these crimes from ever happening. That means stopping anyone from ever becoming a perpetrator. It also means bearing down on those who commit these awful crimes. In this strategy, we set out significant new powers and tools to pursue these dangerous individuals. Today, police performance varies from force to force, with more than two thirds of rape cases seeing the victims withdraw support in some police force areas. For that reason, by 2029 every police force in England and Wales will have a specialist rape and sexual offences team, mirroring the approach taken by the Metropolitan police. We will ensure that police forces use the same data-driven approach to tacking offenders that we apply to terrorists and serious organised criminals. New forensic technology will be used to track down rapists and sex offenders, allowing us to reopen cold cases and bring offenders to justice many years after they thought they had got away with it. We will ramp up our efforts to take perpetrators off our streets, and we will pursue them online too. Following the approach long applied to disrupting child sex abusers, and acknowledging that violence against women and girls is increasingly happening online, we will deploy covert officers online to disrupt offending and bring criminals to justice. We must also do more to break the cycle of offending. Through the Drive project, we are investing £53 million in ensuring that high-risk, high-harm domestic abusers are subject to intensive case management arrangements. We will also roll out domestic abuse protection orders across England and Wales. Crucially, they can be applied for by a police officer or a court—criminal or family—and, unlike other orders, they do not rely on the victim to act. In the pilot locations alone, 1,000 victims have already been protected in this way. Now, many more will be. Where crimes are committed, it is essential that we help those who have suffered to get the justice they deserve and as much closure as is ever possible. I have spent most of my life working with the victims of these crimes, and their voices have informed every decision that we have taken. We will be backing this strategy with over £1 billion in victims funding. That includes over half a billion pounds for victims’ services and another half a billion pounds for providing safe housing for victims of abuse as they escape their abusers. As part of this investment, we will support vital victims’ helplines, set up a new service to connect victims with specialist help through their GP and provide up to £50 million for therapeutic support for child victims of sexual abuse. In the short time I have today, I have touched on only a fraction of the measures in the strategy—one that signals, in its entirety, a transformation in the Government’s response and a Government who are rising to the challenge of the national emergency that we face. Before I finish, I would like to take the opportunity to thank all those who have helped us get to this point. I am particularly grateful to my counterpart at the Ministry of Justice, the Victims Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), for her integral role in developing the strategy, as well as to the Home Secretary; her predecessor, who is now the Foreign Secretary; the Deputy Prime Minister; and, last but by no means least, the Prime Minister and the team at No. 10—they have stepped up to the plate with leadership and ambition, and I thank them all. I would also like to thank all those across different Government Departments who I may have been slightly annoying to at times but who have stepped up admirably, from the national health service to police forces, and all my colleagues sat beside me on the Front Bench today. They have worked incredibly hard. I am also grateful for the incredible dedication of the third sector, which has, rightly, long called for the Government to do more. Most importantly of all, I would like to thank the victims of these awful crimes—those I have met and worked with for many years, whose bravery and determination have inspired me and always will, and kept me going through what seems like a very long career when it too often felt like change was impossible. Without their support, this strategy would have been impossible. It is, above all else, for them. I end by imploring those here and far beyond these walls to recognise that this strategy is more than a document; it is a call from a Government who recognise this as a national emergency and are willing to back up their words with action. Ending violence against women and girls is the work of us all—those who might spot a young boy at risk of turning down a darker path; those who might see troubling signs in the behaviour of their friends or perhaps even themselves. It will take all of society to step up and end the epidemic of abuse and violence that shames our country. The challenge is great, but I have never felt more confident that we can rise to it than I do today, because change is coming. We can make women and girls safe, at last. I commend this statement to the House.

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

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  As somebody who was one of those professionals who went into schools, I could not agree more with the hon. Lady. I attended the same school as the Home Secretary, so when we were building the strategy, we kept talking about which of our teachers we would not have wanted to talk to about these issues, which was quite amusing. No offence to the teachers at our school in the ‘90s, but not many of them came out well when we were thinking about talking to them about consent, pornography or other things. What is being announced today is the use of specialists, but the point is that eventually teachers have to comfortable with talking about these matters. I think that my kids’ teachers are more comfortable than mine were, but there has to be development towards that.

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

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  I thank the hon. Lady for her kind words and her reminder of the many years that passing the Online Safety Act took. Many of us will remember them—I was about to say “fondly”, but I am not sure that was necessarily always the case. First and foremost, I would not be afraid of doing any of the things that she has highlighted. The hon. Lady was not here, but the Act took 10 years to get to its current legislative state, and it has only really been rolled out since July. The Government have repeatedly said, and what they say in the strategy, is that where we need to go further, we absolutely will.

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

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  The new curriculum is for children aged four to 16. It is compulsory in schools and should be done in an age-appropriate way. Through the new funding, we will create a series of interventions, so that, if there are worries that a kid is sharing images, or young people are disclosing abuses in their relationships, for example, schools can send people for interventions. I can absolutely assure my hon. Friend—mother of a son as she is—that that provision will be age-appropriate across the board.

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

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  I absolutely can confirm that. The strategy is not only about challenging institutions, whether that is children’s services, police forces or the court system; we have tried to look at wherever a person might come forward or has previously been failed, and look at ways we can seek to improve that. We cannot undermine, frankly, millennia of patriarchy overnight—if only; I’d do it if I had a magic wand—but I don’t care what it says above the door of your establishment: if you are not working with us, you are working against us.

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

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  As I have said, the strategy will live and die on whether everybody takes part in it. The right hon. Gentleman has given me the perfect opportunity to pay tribute to Soroptimists from all over the country. Some of the work that appears in the strategy—specialist advocates for rape victims in courts, for example—started because of volunteer programmes run by Soroptimists in parts of the country. I want to give them the confidence that they can change Government policy, and they can work through the right hon. Gentleman’s good offices to reach out to me. They do amazing work in their local communities.

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

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  That is absolutely a vital part of this puzzle. I have worked with the Children’s Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister), in the Department for Education on the “family first” part of the strategy—the bit about children’s social care and care leavers. People often talk about grooming gangs, but we cannot talk about grooming gangs without talking about care-experienced children, and the interaction between the two. That is a vital part of getting this right. The Government also have a children in care plan that they will work towards, and I sit on the board for that.

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

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  I thank my hon. Friend. Organisations such as SADA are absolutely vital to how we roll out new perpetrator schemes, so that victims do not have to do the work, and instead, there is offender management of their perpetrators, and support for victims. Lots of new national schemes will be rolled out as part of this strategy over the next three years, and I very much welcome, and will work with, all organisations across the country to get those schemes right in local areas.

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

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  I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady and pay tribute to Sharon Holland, who I have met a number of times, who campaigns fiercely on behalf of her daughter, Chloe. Suicide is a fundamental part of the strategy with regard to how we end domestic-related deaths and femicide, to call it what it is. A number of different things appear in the strategy, such as how well our domestic abuse risk assessments look for mental ill health; often, assessments are looking for instances of homicide rather than suicide. On the issue of manslaughter, my hon. Friend the Victims Minister has empowered the Law Commission to undertake a review of that exact thing, and we await its findings.

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

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right when she characterises the kind of violent pornography that young people are exposed to. Among other things, part of the strategy is to ban strangulation in porn. Indeed, I am sure that everybody will go away and read the strategy and some of the guidance that comes from the review on pornography and exactly what we have to do. I am very pleased to say that since the introduction of age verification in July, Pornhub has seen a reduction of 77% in its traffic—my heart bleeds for them. We are seeing the green shoots, but my hon. Friend is right that the strategy tackles head-on how we have to work with tech companies, whether through regulation and/or collectivism, to ensure that the kind of vile crimes that we see happening to children in our country cannot happen any more.

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

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  In the list of people who have put in effort over the years in this regard, I would like to make special mention of Baroness May, who I worked with for many years on many of these issues. In answer to the hon. Lady’s question, let me give her a really specific answer about data. She is absolutely right that data collection on a variety of different issues has been neglected for some years and is not good enough. Issues relating to how we collect data, whether it is ethnicity data or other forms of data that will inform this strategy, are vital. Having been a pro-choice Member of Parliament and a pro-choice advocate my entire life, I am more than happy to stand here and say, on a woman’s right to make any decision, that, “It is nobody else’s business what I do with my body.” I hope the hon. Lady and anyone else would always join me in telling that to anyone from anywhere, including when they are of our own ranks and communities. I am more than happy to say that. I say to the hon. Lady that this Government have deported an increased number of foreign national offenders—a 12% increase since her Government’s period in office—and have passed much stronger laws limiting the ability of asylum seekers to claim asylum in our country, and I believe that Conservative Members voted against that Bill. I also say to her that if the only crime that I had to concern myself with halving was that committed by people who arrive in our country, my job would be considerably easier. The vast majority of the data that I am talking about is about people who were born in our country abusing other people who were born in our country, from every culture and every creed. I have yet to come across any community where violence against women and girls does not happen.

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

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  As an alumni of Women’s Aid, I can absolutely do so. One of the strongest messages that came from the sector, especially the domestic abuse sector, is how crackers it is that these organisations have to apply for their funding every year. Obviously, we cannot commit funding for longer than comprehensive spending review periods, but we are committing to long-term funding going out of our door and into those organisations’ doors, under a set of standards and commissioning models that we in the Government will work to, because there are also quite a lot of complaints about localised commissioning. That is a fundamental way of allowing those organisations to grow, and to breathe again.

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

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  The Government have released new curricula on healthy relationships education. Working with Ofsted to ensure that schools are monitored against the delivery of that education is one of the most important things we can do. Schools just saying they do it, and then the teaching never being looked at to see whether it is any good, has led to a hodgepodge and, frankly, some terrible behaviour around the country. I will absolutely take her point away and speak to my colleagues in the Department for Education, which is a fundamental pillar—I am starting to talk like a civil servant; they say “pillar” about everything—in this strategy, because if a school is not safe, how could it be “outstanding”?

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

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  No doubt when the hon. Gentleman worked for Baroness May he was heavily involved in some of this work, so I should thank him for some of things he did in that time. I will not say anything from the Dispatch Box that will affect any case by saying that it is aggravated by one thing or another. I am very proud that for the first time this Government are making grooming an aggravated offence, but without seeing all the evidence, I cannot comment on individual cases. From my years of working with the victims of grooming gangs, I know that there is absolutely no doubt, as the Home Secretary has said, that women and girls were targeted for being white and working class—I have seen that with my own eyes. I will not scrap the European human rights law, but we do not need to do that in order to deport sex offenders. We should have been doing so for a lot longer.

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

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  I am very happy to say that coming up with a statutory definition of honour-based abuse, and working on statutory guidance with the organisations that my hon. Friend has identified, are very much in the strategy. I am very proud to do that, because we absolutely need cultural sensitivity in the services we provide, and we need to listen to the voices of the women in those services. It is an honour to work with those organisations, and I will continue to do so.

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

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  Absolutely, I can confirm that. I am more than happy to meet my hon. Friend and the others she has mentioned to discuss what exactly goes into the guidance. We always have to ensure not just that we write nice words on goatskin in this building, but that we make them workable in the real world. I am keen that everything in the strategy does that.