Jess Phillips MP: speeches

Speeches

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

  More

  First and foremost, I welcome my hon. Friend—I don’t really need to welcome her to the party; she and I have been in the same meetings in the sector for about a decade. I absolutely can confirm that. When Departments stand up and say, “We’re going to put so and so millions into this”, what I want to highlight about the measures in the strategy that my hon. Friend has spoken about is the cultural shift of not just the Minister saying, “It’s everybody’s business,” but the Health Secretary, with other Cabinet members, saying, “Okay, what does, ‘It’s everybody’s business,’ mean?” I thank the Health Secretary for making it mean that he understands that if someone is raped, stalked, harassed or domestically abused, they will be sick, and that we have a responsibility to deal with that. The idea that every child in the country will now have access where they live to what can only be described as a gold-plated system, like the one that exists in Camden and in other places across the country, frankly makes my heart sing.

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

  More

  The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Anyone who has spoken to victims of domestic abuse who have interacted with children’s social care would know that there was a need for a new strategy. The strategy includes half a billion pounds for the Family First pilot across the country, which seeks to do exactly what he speaks about by ensuring that domestic abuse is dealt with through early intervention. It is now a statutory duty for schools to be informed when children are at home during, or involved in, any domestic abuse incident. We will give schools the tools to know what to do in those circumstances.

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

  More

  A nine-year-old looking at any pornography on any social media site or any site in the UK is illegal. If there are instances of that, they should be reported. We saw a case recently of a pornography site not having age verification. It was fined £1 million by Ofcom and asked to put age verification in place. Those sites will be blocked in the UK if that is not the case. Such measures are already in place, but I ask the hon. Lady to get her schools to report those particular issues, which we will raise with Ofcom. It is important to say that misogyny existed before the internet—tackling misogyny has had to be done for quite a long time. I absolutely agree that we need to support teachers because of what young people are seeing, both inside and outside schools, and the strategy deals with that.

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

  More

  With regard to my hon. Friend’s Rape Crisis service, there will be a specific amount of uplift to the ringfenced budget for Rape Crisis services in the country. I think Rape Crisis England and Wales asked for a 15% uplift. Funnily enough, that will be from health service funding. That is the cultural change I am talking about—people making this their business. We expect to see those uplifts, so Rape Crisis services will hopefully benefit from that. On domestic abuse, compared with the £130 million a year under the previous Government for refuge, housing and other support, there will be £109 million extra over the three years. I hope that her organisations will be able to access that through the commissioning process, which we will redesign, so that it works better, and works over a longer period, rather than our doing this every year.

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

  More

  I totally agree, and I am not a fan of the term “toxic masculinity”. As somebody who has raised two men—I used to be able to say I have children, but I have raised two men; they are very tall—I have watched over the years, since the Me Too movement and then the death of Sarah Everard, a real pouring out of emotion by women in our country that did not include men and boys in the conversation, so they went somewhere else to get their information. So much of the strategy is about inviting those young men and boys in, but also young men and boys who are victims of these crimes. Today there are terrible cases for all to see in the news of sextortion, and my hon. Friend the Victims Minister will be holding a men and boys summit, and there is a men and boys statement as part of the strategy. It is vital that we get this right because we have tried the alternative before, and it did not work.

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

  More

  Although I will not give out the detail until Thursday—I feel like I am going to say that a lot today—there is absolutely a need to look at the funding model. That is why I say that the strategy has to be different from what has been delivered before. Even if I had the moon on a stick and all the money in the world, the way that things are commissioned under the current model would not be the right way to go. The strategy has to be truly cross-governmental, because for too long—I should not say this as a Home Office Minister—the criminal justice part of this, rather than the housing part, the health part or the other commissioning bodies that exist in our country, has had supremacy, so there will definitely be things about commissioning in the strategy.

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

  More

  I only wish there was a high prevalence area in the country that I could target with all the interventions, but this is something that exists in every single part of the country. There is no one place that is worse for it than others, but I absolutely guarantee that on Thursday the hon. Member will see that the violence against women and girls strategy seeks to improve the situation for his concerned constituent.

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

  More

  I cannot say which organisations will get the funding, but I can absolutely commit to there being long-term funding.

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

  More

  My hon. Friend shares my passion for this subject, and has done over many years. She is absolutely right: the data shows that nearly half of all teenage relationships between those aged 13 to 17 experience issues of control. What does that mean for both the victim’s group and the perpetrator’s group? As the mother of teenage boys—although one of them is no longer a teenager, because I am getting old—I can say that the idea that we should not support boys in this circumstance has led us to the terrifying statistics that she and I have cited. The strategy will focus very heavily on prevention, because I am sick of just putting bigger, better plasters on scars, rather than trying to stop the scars coming in the first place.

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

  More

  I shall ring the football clubs of Birmingham later today to ensure that they are as well. I pay tribute to all our caseworkers, because they are on the frontline of the cases we see and the reasons why any of us stand up in the Chamber to look out for people. They go under-heard. Every single line in the strategy will have come directly from a victim, or a family of a victim, who came in to see somebody in this House and spoke up for that.

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

  More

  Okay, I may have to stand corrected, but all I can say is that a huge amount of what is being cited on police numbers is being taken from the previous Government’s figures. In my area, we have not got up to the level of police funding that we had in 2010, so I will not take lectures from the Conservatives, given the hollowing out of the police over their era. [ Interruption. ] The shadow Minister may not like what he hears. Brilliant work has been done under a number of people who have held the same position as me, and I can see one of them on the Opposition Front Bench. Throughout the progress of the Bill that became the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, when we were in opposition, I worked very closely with Ministers. I see that the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley) is present. I worked incredibly closely with her in opposition to ensure that the Bill was good enough. Not once has any Member on the current Opposition Front Bench sought a meeting with me to discuss anything that they actually want to see in the strategy, but they would be very welcome to do so.

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

  More

  The right hon. Lady makes a pertinent point about commissioning environments. Frankly, commissioning environments, running on an annual basis, have been the scourge of every sector for many years. That is why the comprehensive spending review, running over three years, is so very important in trying to create a system of stability in the long term. There is absolutely no reason why commissioners should not make their decisions, but there will be a huge amount in the strategy about how we need to commission better. In response to her offer of working together, much of what I have tried to put in the strategy, with regard to commissioning, came from the work of her Committee.

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

  More

  While the strategy that will be announced on Thursday is for England and Wales and is devolved, I take a very personal interest in the safety and security of women in every one of the UK nations and, of course, in Northern Ireland, where the statistics on murder and femicide are there for everyone to see. I will continue to work to ensure—in response to the point made by the hon. Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers)—that we do more of what works and get rid of what does not. But we will have to invent and do things that people have not tried before, because around the world, not enough have cared. I will ensure that any learning is shared with our counterparts.

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

  More

  Ministers from MHCLG are key partners, and housing is a huge part of the issue of, specifically, domestic abuse-related crimes. Today the MHCLG announced refuge funding of £499 million over the next three years, which represents a huge increase on what was previously being offered, as well as an extra £19 million in support of part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act, which places a statutory duty on local authorities to house victims of domestic abuse.

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

  More

  I did not give all the details because, as I said in response to the question from the hon. Gentleman’s colleague, on Thursday I will announce the full details of all the metrics of action plans. They will be placed before the House on Thursday. As for the briefing, we cannot tackle violence against women and girls only “IRL”, as my kids would say, so there has to be an online element—it would be no strategy without it. What the Home Secretary spoke about to the press were Labour party manifesto commitments. It was not new news when we said that there would have rape-related services in every police force; that was written into the manifesto of the Labour party, which the country voted for.

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

  More

  I will pick up on a couple of the points that the hon. Gentleman has made. On the reduction in police numbers, I noticed that the Leader of the Opposition cited those figures, too. Just to be clear, 94% of the fall that has been cited was from March to June 2024, which was before this Government were elected. I just want to be clear on the numbers we are talking about.

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

  More

  As the hon. Member’s constituency borders mine, I am afraid that we see many of the same problems. The inadequacy of some of the temporary accommodation in Birmingham is not something I would ever defend. What he is seeing, therefore, does not surprise me. Safe accommodation for victims of domestic abuse is part of the strategy, and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has already said today that we will be increasing the funding to local councils so that those victims can have access to housing.

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

  More

  I am more than happy to listen to the hon. Gentleman’s representations in that regard.

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

  More

  Throughout the building of the strategy, we have worked very closely with the Metropolitan police and police forces across the country. It would be pointless for me to put something in writing that could not be delivered. I understand the angle the hon. Member is coming from and the commitments in the strategy will be costed, but it is not for me to say what police funding will be next year. The violence against women and girls strategy is not the place for that.

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

  More

  The hon. Lady will have to wait to see what the strategy says. What I can say is that, because we were not waiting for the strategy, the Government announced a £53 million investment in schemes to deal with the most violent perpetrators—those most responsible for, as she says, repeat offending. We have already also said that it will end the presumption of contact and unfettered access. We did not need to wait for the piece of paper; we are cracking on.

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

  More

  My hon. Friend hits on a point that anyone who has actually worked with victims on the frontline would make. It is very easy in this building to only want to see criminal justice outcomes—it is a political thing that we do—but in the vast majority of cases I have handled in my life, that is not actually what people are seeking. They are seeking safety usually for them, but more importantly, safety and access to support for their children. She is talking about supporting children who have been sexually abused as part of a pattern of sexual violence and domestic abuse, and the issue of children and childhood sexual abuse in whatever form will absolutely be part of the strategy.

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

  More

  Absolutely. I would say, as would anyone who has ever worked on the frontline, that there is a time-honoured tradition of the police blaming the CPS and the CPS blaming the police—it is a sort of roundabout. The Attorney General and the Solicitor General—a brilliant feminist, who wrote much of what went into the Labour manifesto on violence against women and girls, alongside me and others—have been absolute allies throughout this, and making sure that our every part of our justice system and every part of our system is better is vitally important.

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

  More

  Regarding access to pornographic content, I was pleased this week to hear that access to the Pornhub site has gone down by 77% since age verification checks were introduced, so there have been steps in the right direction. Many of us worked on the Online Safety Act 2023, but it took 10 years to get to the point where we could say there is good data. There is no doubt that we need to look to see what is being done elsewhere in the world and make sure that the UK is the safest place to be a child.

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

  More

  The hon. Lady makes a very good point. When I say that the strategy has to be for everybody, I truly mean that. It has to be for employers as well. It is for businesses, charities—everybody in society. The hon. Lady is right to raise the point about employers. Thinking back to Rachel Williams, whose case has been cited, she was at work when she was harmed. There is a huge job of work for employers to do, and I urge the hon. Lady to wait for the strategy.

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

  More

  Absolutely. We cannot just end the presumption of contact on its own because perpetrators will often just find a new tactic. We have to ensure that our family courts are fit for purpose and will keep the children, and the non-abusive parents, in our country safe.