Jess Phillips MP: speeches 2025

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Speeches

17 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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I thank the hon. Lady for raising this case with me, and I am happy to look into it in more detail. It is a fundamental principle that victims of sexual violence are entitled by law to anonymity, and breaching that anonymity is a crime. I am very interested to hear from her and to see how we can ensure that that is not happening.
5 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source
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The Minister for Women and Equalities is already wearing a pink jacket. I absolutely pay tribute to the group in my hon. Friend’s constituency. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), who is the Minister with responsibility for tackling violence against women and girls, will be visiting Stroud very soon and has offered to don the pink jacket on our behalf.
5 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source
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I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. However, there have been recent successful campaigns by British Transport police and the Rail Delivery Group, which is the rail industry-funded group representing the views of the rail industry, to encourage reporting of offences against women and girls, and we believe that some of the rise in recorded offences is because of that success and the willingness of victims to come forward and bystanders to intervene or report on a victim’s behalf. However, we are not complacent. The Department for Transport recently announced £17 million of investment to better connect CCTV at train stations. The project will enable greater real-time access for the BTP to accelerate investigations and identify offenders as quickly as possible to bring them to justice.
5 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source
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I absolutely do support the “Loose Women” in this regard. I was about to say that I would like to think of myself as one, but I am not sure that that would come across very well. I agree that signage in GPs’ surgeries, dentists’ waiting rooms and pubs and clubs are valuable tools to warn the public about the signs of domestic abuse, and can help to point those who are worried about a friend or family member to places where they can be helped. We as a Government must ensure that when people need to see that signage it will be there, and that is what we are doing
5 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source
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The Ministry of Justice, which oversees victims funding, absolutely ringfenced those two sexual violence funds last year to ensure that they were protected. As for future funding, it would be difficult for me to stand here and guarantee anything while the comprehensive spending review is being allocated, but as someone who used to work in one of those services, I find it vanishingly unlikely that they will not be funded in the future.
5 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source
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Yes, I can absolutely give the hon. Gentleman that assurance, and I would be more than happy to meet him to discuss these matters and see where we can go forward together. The delay is being caused by the fact that the work will be completely cross-governmental; we must ensure that the allocations processes, and all the things that go on in Government Departments, are as good as they possibly can be, because the National Audit Office reports about previous VAWG strategies have left a lot to be desired, and I do not want that to happen again.
5 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend and Birmingham constituency neighbour and share his real concern about a spate of what appear to be instances of racially motivated sexual violence. All I can say is that some of these cases are sub judice and charges have been laid, but I absolutely assure him that I have spoken to organisations that work on the ground with black and minoritised women to ensure that we do everything we can, along with the police and other agencies, to make sure that women where he and I live feel safe.
5 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source
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I have seen those cases. Domestic homicide reviews point to failures in the Child Maintenance Service that have led to the most tragic circumstances. We are working with the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that the system that operates in our country is completely safe, but we are also working with the DWP more widely on exactly what we are doing in that Department on violence against women and girls.
5 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source
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I have handled cases myself that were not dissimilar, where a third party could not be given that information, so I absolutely understand the hon. Lady’s frustration. That area, which sits within the Home Office, is one that I scrutinise very closely, and I will gladly take away her recommendations, because, frankly, I think they are quite good ones.
5 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source
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Tackling violence against women and girls is a top priority for this Government. We will deliver a cross-Government, transformative approach underpinned by the new strategy, which we aim to publish as soon as possible. This strategy is overseen by the violence against women and girls ministerial board, the safer streets mission board and regular stocktakes by the Prime Minister. This structure holds the Government Departments to account.
5 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend for his passionate plea, and I absolutely will take up his suggestions in the meetings to which I have already referred. Tier 1 local authorities in England have a legal requirement to assess and address the need for support within safe accommodation for all domestic abuse victims. The Government have increased the funding to local authorities to £160 million this year—an uplift of £30 million from previous years—to provide further support in safe accommodation for domestic abuse survivors. The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government has published statutory guidance, which is clear that local authorities should ensure that sufficient suitable support in safe accommodation is available to meet the needs of victims locally.
5 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source
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The hon. Lady makes a very important point about how women’s health can be used in coercion, especially their fertility—on both sides of the coin: about having an abortion or not having one. She will know that, unlike her, I am positively pro-choice. However, she is absolutely right that, when we look at any changes to abortion legislation in our country, those conversations will absolutely be going on, and all safeguards will be put in place.
5 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source
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Sadly, what my hon. Friend describes is something that I think everybody in the House would recognise. We are strengthening the justice system to better support victims, and we have committed to ensuring that there are specialist rape and sexual offences teams in every police force and that police officers receive stronger training on violence against women and girls, including on coercive and controlling behaviour. We will also ban anyone with a history of violence against women and girls from joining the police force and we will increase the powers of the Victims’ Commissioner through the Victims and Courts Bill, so that they can hold criminal justice systems accountable and independently scrutinise the victims code of compliance.
5 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source
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I will have to go away and check exactly what the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) has said regarding the people who the hon. Lady says will be released, because there are, of course, exceptions—and more exceptions than there were under her Government’s prison release scheme, because people like me and my hon. Friend had oversight of this process and cared about the women involved. It is absolutely shocking that someone from a Government who oversaw the total collapse of our prison system, where we would not have been able to arrest rapists because there were no places for them in prison, can dare to stand there and suggest that that is something that we should—it is unbelievable that she cannot recognise her own role in this.
5 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source
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I greatly appreciate the hon. Lady’s question, and I was very proud when it was announced yesterday that this Government would make strangulation in pornography illegal in our country, because of the rising tide of its becoming acceptable. Much of that work comes from the institute that she mentioned. She must be in absolutely no doubt that there is not a Cabinet Minister in the country who is not aware of the strength of my feelings about what should be spent on violence against women and girls.
21 Oct 2025 · Rape Gangs: National Statutory Inquiry · Hansard source
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I will not be chairing the inquiry, so I can only say to my hon. Friend that the terms of reference—I am not sure this is usual—will be consulted on in public. That is because of the issue of bad faith and the concern about transparency. The remit of the inquiry will be decided by the chair, living within those terms of reference. Having been part of various different inquiries or watched them from a distance, I know that no stone will be left unturned. Whoever chairs the inquiry will feel empowered to do what they think is best.
21 Oct 2025 · Rape Gangs: National Statutory Inquiry · Hansard source
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I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is in a unique category of always asking a question that leads me to further questions that are pertinent. An inquiry does not usually report to the House while it is ongoing, but I will take that away to see if there is an appetite for that. All I can say is that there is no institution in the country, including this one here, that does not have skeletons. Do I think all politicians would not be robust in this? No, I do not. I think some would. I can guarantee that I can point at people, the hon. Gentleman included, who would show absolute rigour even against his own. The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, IICSA, had a judge leading it and it lost the confidence of the victims. Three people lost the confidence of the victims. It took two years. There is not an institution that did not fail those girls. That is the whole point. There is no clean skin, but there are brilliant people who whistleblew and who tried, in every one of those institutions. That is essentially where we are left with this, but I promise rigour in the same way that, when I saw things happening in here, I was rigorous.
21 Oct 2025 · Rape Gangs: National Statutory Inquiry · Hansard source
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As the inquiry is set up—as with previous inquiries with very vulnerable groups of people, such as IICSA—things will have to be put in place to ensure that people can freely give their evidence, and that will have to be done in a trauma-informed way. The twelfth of Baroness Casey’s recommendations was that all the recommendations should be fully funded by the Government, and this Government have absolutely committed to that. I very much expect that, when the chair is in place, those conversations about exactly how that will look will begin. The only thing I do control, I suppose, in any of this, is that this Government will pay for it.
21 Oct 2025 · Rape Gangs: National Statutory Inquiry · Hansard source
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To go back to the previous answer, the chair of the inquiry will set the tone for the inquiry. That is why we have to put in place the right chair and a system for victims who want to take part in the inquiry that will care for and look after them, and that is what we are working to achieve.
21 Oct 2025 · Rape Gangs: National Statutory Inquiry · Hansard source
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First, while the inquiry is in England and Wales, one of the victims who we have been hearing about today—Ellie—lives very much in the borderland of our two great countries of England and Scotland. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that some of the things that may get found in the inquiry will have findings across the border. Unfortunately, the trafficking of young girls does not follow lines on a map as easily as we might think it does when we administer inquiries. My hon. Friend should continue to work with survivor groups up in Scotland to push for what exactly it is that they want to see in Scotland.
21 Oct 2025 · Rape Gangs: National Statutory Inquiry · Hansard source
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In answer to the first question, I have every power to intervene in the panel’s process, but the decision I made was that it should be independent of me and my offices, and would be better handled by experts in the field. When I speak to those involved, of course I can raise things and make decisions about how this goes forward. I very much hope that we will be drawing to a conclusion and that soon I will have much less involvement. To the right hon. Gentleman’s other question, victims and survivors of this crime all have different political opinions. They all have different views on the substantive. They have different views about whether it should be called “grooming” or whether it should be called “grouped”. They have different views on all these things. I will not stand here and say that I would eliminate any victim or survivor working on this based on their political views, and I will continue to say that as it is. Many of them do not like me very much. Imagine if I just did not let the people who did not like me very much have their voices heard. Well, frankly, I would be guilty of a cover-up.
21 Oct 2025 · Rape Gangs: National Statutory Inquiry · Hansard source
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As I have said, I would very much hope to hear those concerns directly from Ellie herself and to see what can be done. I only know the victims who I have worked with—when they have been on the panel, they have spoken to me, because I have personal relations with them—and what I can say is that there are differing views about the levels of confidentiality. The confidentiality is not to silence people or prevent them from speaking about their own experiences. It is necessary because there are people in those rooms who have never shown their faces who are also victims. Having run an agency myself, I know about trying to manage that. I can see why somebody might say that we should not seek out people outside the meeting, because others might have said they do not want that, but they are not going to say that in public. I can imagine all those things. I am trying to get across the idea of how complex these situations are, but I am more than happy to listen to Ellie and see what has gone wrong in the process for her and seek to make it better. I am absolutely happy to do that.
21 Oct 2025 · Rape Gangs: National Statutory Inquiry · Hansard source
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I absolutely will, and my hon. Friend gives me the opportunity to say that, no matter who is picked, there will be people unhappy with it. Like most politics that we deal with, let us just call a spade a spade and stop pretending that there is a perfect situation. There is only the best situation we can have. Funnily enough, in the conversations that I have had with some of the prospective chairs, the main thing I have wanted them to take away is the feeling that, if they have to slag me off all day long, then that is exactly what they should do, and I would say the same to the victims.
21 Oct 2025 · Rape Gangs: National Statutory Inquiry · Hansard source
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Absolutely—100%. Far be it from me to speculate about where I would like the inquiry to go, but if I had my way and I was the chair, I would have grave concerns about the area where I live—Members will not be surprised to hear—because that is where I worked. The fact that it has a Labour council would not stop me from wanting to look there. In fact, if the House will excuse my unparliamentary language, I could not give a toss about—
21 Oct 2025 · Rape Gangs: National Statutory Inquiry · Hansard source
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I absolutely will. Funnily enough, this morning I spoke to one of my hon. Friend’s constituents, a grooming gang victim, to assure her of similar things. Quite a lot of this process causes quite a lot of nervousness, and there is a need to manage lots of different people’s emotions, but I absolutely make that commitment to him, as I made it to one of his constituents this morning, and I make it to the House.

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