Jess Phillips MP: speeches

Speeches

• 9 Dec 2025 · Grooming Gangs: Independent Inquiry · Hansard source

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  I would be happy to give evidence.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Angiolini Inquiry · Hansard source

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  The findings of the report will absolutely inform the strategy. I do speak to Lady Elish—but I am not waiting for Lady Elish’s various reports to do things or not. I cannot wait for reports if something absolutely needs to be done. With regard to policing in Rochdale, I will ensure that the new National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection looks into what my hon. Friend mentions. I look across the country at areas where police forces may have historically had quite public failings—as with the case of Sarah Everard—and it is really good to see the level of learning that there has been in lots of those places, but we want to see more. I only wish that we did not wait for terrible tragedies and total failings before we changed, so I stand again at this Dispatch Box and implore every agency and police force across the country to stretch every muscle to prioritise this issue.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Angiolini Inquiry · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his tone and his genuinely constructive questioning. The first thing to say is that, absolutely, Operation Soteria started under the previous Government—I worked on it alongside Ministers, as well as police forces, at the time—and in that spirit, I always welcome such cross-party working. It seems that Operation Soteria has been a game changer, as Lady Elish’s review certainly highlights. The review also states that it needs to be on a consistent footing, so we very much hope that putting it in the new centre will provide consistent footing to the very good work started under the previous Government, which I absolutely give them credit for. On the issue of data, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. What data we measure and how data needs to be improved will absolutely be part of the strategy. The Government have said that they are going to halve violence against women and girls within a decade—the first time that any Government have tried to put any numbers on it—and we cannot have numbers unless we have a lot of data, so looking at data will be very important. The hon. Gentleman highlights the issue, which Lady Elish herself talks about, that progress has not been fast enough. The recommendations for the Government in the previous report are being undertaken, but a clear issue throughout the report is the nature of the 43 police forces, as everybody will see when they read it. One of the reasons for having the new national centre for violence against women and girls is to try and do something about that. We also need fundamental reform with regard to policing and standards, so that we do not end up with a postcode lottery across our country. The Home Secretary has already announced some reforms around police and crime commissioners, but broader policing reforms will be coming in the new year, for the exact reason that Lady Elish outlines, which is the postcode lottery across police forces. How confident am I? I am always confident that we will undertake as much as possible. That will never be as fast as I or anyone would like it to be, because this is hard work, and we cannot just change things for good announcements. We have to change the culture, and that is going to take a lot.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Angiolini Inquiry · Hansard source

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  We owe it to Sarah and to Sarah’s family, and to every family in our own constituencies that we have met, to ensure that this work actually gets done. I hear my hon. Friend’s anger at what progress has been made. Obviously this Labour Government will legislate and are putting on a statutory footing the issues around vetting, with what can and cannot be allowed and who can and cannot be a police officer, and hopefully that will lead to a sea change. I have to say, though, that the idea that there are police forces in this country that are not undertaking the most basic work in this space, with what Lady Angiolini has found about numbers, is inexcusable. I say to every chief constable in the country that this is a priority—make it a priority. I say that from this Dispatch Box with as much power as possible and with the Home Office behind me. Of course the Home Office has a role, and of course funding on things like prevention is absolutely the responsibility of the Government, but the basics of keeping women safe—we are more than half the population—should be absolutely basic policing.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Angiolini Inquiry · Hansard source

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  With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the Angiolini inquiry. I cannot begin anywhere else than with acknowledging the abhorrent crime that led to the establishment of this important inquiry in the first place. Sarah Everard’s murder by a serving police officer was a betrayal of trust so wretched that it defies belief. None of us will ever forget the collective sense of sorrow, outrage and revulsion that swept across the country in the aftermath. There were far-reaching implications for policing and the public’s confidence in those who are meant to serve and protect our communities. Let us always remember that this began with a young woman losing her life: a beloved daughter, sister and friend gone because of an act of pure evil. Today, I am thinking of Sarah, of the years denied to her and of her loved ones. They are all in our hearts, as are the other victims of violence against women and girls who have lost their lives. As the Justice Secretary said, I have been with some of them this morning and we hold them—I am sure I speak for the whole House—very closely in our hearts. Part 1 of the Angiolini inquiry focused on the career and conduct of Sarah’s killer, while part 2 was commissioned to examine broader issues in relation to policing and the safety of women. The first of two reports that will make up part 2 of the inquiry has been laid before the House and published today. It examines what more can be done to prevent sexually motivated crimes against women in public spaces. The report starkly highlights that many women do not feel safe due to the actions and behaviours of predatory men, and that they are assuming the burden of their own protection themselves through avoidance measures such as not going out at night, avoiding dark streets and modifying their use of public transport. This is, as we all know, utterly unacceptable. As the inquiry chair, Lady Elish Angiolini, puts it so clearly in the report: “Somehow, we have simply come to accept that many women do not feel safe walking in their streets.” This is a substantial and significant report, and I urge all Members to read it in full. It acknowledges that there is a range of ongoing work which seeks to prevent these terrible crimes and disrupt predators, but it also highlights that there is no quick fix and demands a more consistent approach across the whole of society to address and prevent this violence. At this point, I would like to place on record my heartfelt thanks to Lady Elish and her team for their work. They have approached, and continue to approach, their task with skill, sensitivity and determination. Today’s publication underlines why it is so vital that every agency and every sector does more to protect women from harm. This Government are resolute: the fact that women do not feel safe going about their everyday lives is a national emergency. The House will also be aware of our landmark commitment to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, which will require us to address the root causes of abuse and violence to prevent offending and relentlessly pursue those who perpetrate these appalling crimes. Since the general election, we have played a more active role to ensure that women and girls receive more consistent protection from policing. We have provided £13.1 million to deliver a more co-ordinated approach and national leadership to drive up investigative and operational standards through the National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection. The new centre is ensuring that expertise, including from programmes such as Operation Soteria and Project Vigilant, is put into practice in forces across the country. They were both highlighted in Lady Angiolini’s report. We are also clear that those who commit these heinous crimes have absolutely no place in policing. To address that, and to help fulfil recommendations from part 1 of the inquiry, we are putting police vetting standards on a statutory footing, which will enable forces to exclude those with a caution or conviction for VAWG offences from policing. We are also strengthening requirements on forces to suspend officers under investigation for these crimes. I know there is a great deal of interest in our upcoming VAWG strategy. I was in No. 10 with the Prime Minister and stakeholders working on it today. It will deliver a bold step change in how we, as a Government and a society, address VAWG over the next decade. As the inquiry’s report highlights, we cannot address entrenched issues in isolation. We must draw on all of society and I place emphasis on this being a truly cross-Government strategy. Prevention is fundamental to our approach, alongside strengthening our response to target perpetrators and stop them causing harm. Having lived and breathed its development over several months, I am as eager as everyone else to get it out there. It will undoubtedly answer some of the issues raised in this important report. It is on its way very soon and I am confident that it will live up to expectations. As Lady Elish highlights, too little has been done to deliver consistent protections for women and girls, and progress has fallen short. We find ourselves at a moment of reckoning. As someone who has spent their working life trying to secure real lasting change, I know it will not be easy, but in honour of the victims and their families, and for the sake of women and girls across England and Wales, we must succeed. This Government will not stop until we have. I commend the statement to the House.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Angiolini Inquiry · Hansard source

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  Okay, I will say “very soon”—that is the answer to that. When all hon. Members get to read Lady Elish’s full report, as I have—I obviously get it sooner—they will see that she particularly criticises Ministers or the police service standing up after part one of the report and saying, “Yes, we will just do everything,” and then going away and thinking, “Hang on—a bit of this, a bit of that.” I am going to give Lady Elish the respect that she deserves by taking away all the recommendations before I say exactly what I am going to do. When others get to read the strategy—I was interviewed by Lady Elish as part of this review—it will answer many of the questions in the report. The timing is awkward: had the strategy come out at the same time, I would be able to answer the question more fully. But Lady Elish deserves the respect of our actually looking at what is possible, rather than just going, “Yes, I will take them all,” and then not being able to deliver on them.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Angiolini Inquiry · Hansard source

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  With regard to my hon. Friend’s comments on trust in policing, what I would say is that nobody dislikes a bad copper like a good copper. When I go all over the country, the ones I meet are the those who are doing innovative and brilliant things in their local police forces—that is why I go out and see them. To her comments about the women in her constituency, the women who I have worked with do not have any choice but to trust the police, as it is a life-and-death situation. The best thing that we can do across the board to improve trust in policing is to make sure that the response to the crimes highlighted by my hon. Friend is good and responsive. We are not going to get what we want in every single case—where somebody gets thrown in prison—but we have to make sure that our systems have options for safety and security for every woman wherever they come forward. That is what the violence against women and girls strategy is about.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Angiolini Inquiry · Hansard source

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  I can give an example from this morning, when I met around 60 stakeholders from organisations that work with children, with women and girls, and with perpetrators—lots of civil society organisations and businesses. We were in Downing Street with the Prime Minister, but it was not an event that was about drinking warm wine and eating nibbles; it was a working event to look at how we actually implement things. I know that people criticise the delay in the strategy, and that is fair enough, but the strategy is a piece of paper. How we actually make it work is much more important to me, and that is why we are working on it with stakeholders and providers. I genuinely welcome engagement with Members in this House, but I have learned something over the years; if you don’t mind me saying, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have felt slightly gaslit when people tell me that the sky is blue but then every case I handle tells me something else.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Angiolini Inquiry · Hansard source

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  It certainly does. There will not be a woman sitting in the Chamber today who has not experienced this—we have all felt unsafe. Lady Elish speaks for every single woman in the country when she says that. Actually, in my years of experience both personally and from working in this field, I have found the most frightening moment is not the moment of impact or the moment somebody gropes you; it is the things that lead up to it that leave you scared and leave you waiting. It is the leering that is frightening, actually—it is more frightening than the fact. That is the experience of literally every woman in our country at some point or another. Of course, we must not undermine that. As the mother of teenage sons, I stand here and say that while I want boys and men absolutely to be part of this, I do not feel that they have been included. Somebody else spoke to them when we did not, and that somebody else—those somebody elses—did not have their best interests at heart. So absolutely, like with the White Ribbon campaign, we should talk to our men and boys about this, because they want to help.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Angiolini Inquiry · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. In part 1 of the Angiolini inquiry, Lady Elish made recommendations with regard to psychological testing prior to police recruitment, based on that exact issue. She also references heavily in this part 2 report Baroness Bertin’s review into violent and misogynistic pornography. This absolutely is an issue. The police faithfully said that they would undertake all of the part 1 report recommendations, and the next stage is to look not just at Wayne Couzens and vetting but at the case of David Carrick and his vetting as well. Undoubtedly, Lady Elish is already thinking about psychology in this regard, and it is at the forefront of her mind.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Angiolini Inquiry · Hansard source

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  I only wish that writing things on to the statute book changed the culture—it has been illegal to rape someone for quite some time, and it has been illegal to murder for even longer. I only wish that simply putting things on to the statute book made a difference. I would say to my hon. Friend’s police force that I always encourage good communications, including with the women involved. Policing is based on consent, and that is something we hold dear in our country. I implore the police to have discussions with my hon. Friend and the local community—about the community’s concerns and about what the police are going to do. I have seen this work all over the country. Project Vigilant by Thames Valley police is a brilliant example of work done with local businesses and local women’s groups to do exactly what my hon. Friend is talking about; I implore her force to implement a similar scheme. My hon. Friend mentions the use of community protection notices. In her review, Elish Angiolini has some interesting things to say about what police should be doing in public spaces using certain orders, so I ask my hon. Friend to have a look at some of those things. We will be talking in the violence against women and girls strategy about some of the issues that she has raised today. However, as I have said, just putting things on the statute book does not necessarily mean that, operationally, they will be brilliant. My job is to make sure that before I commence anything, it can actually work in practice.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Angiolini Inquiry · Hansard source

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  Obviously, it was a manifesto commitment of this Government to ensure that there were specialist RASSO—rape and serious sexual offences—teams in every police force, for the exact reason that my hon. Friend has outlined. It is not in the gift of Ministers standing here to ensure that something exists in every police force, because—quite rightly—of operational independence. However, there is a need for standardisation. For example, we would not allow the same lack of standardisation in response to terrorism—a point that Lady Elish makes in her review—and yet we allow it with regard to crimes against women. That is fundamental. Of course, I want to see an increase in police charging and police reporting, but that is not how we will measure whether we are decreasing incidents. Only 10% of victims of violence against women and girls ever talk to the police, so that in and of itself would never be a good measure. Of course, I want to see rates increasing, but that does not mean that the crime is always going up; it might just mean we are getting better at detecting it.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Angiolini Inquiry · Hansard source

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  Although I am an expert in this particular field, I am by no means an expert on rural communities, with the disparity and the need for better “by and for” services; we have “by and for” services for other under-represented communities. I really feel that there needs to be a considerably greater lobby around rurality and violence against women and girls; I am not the person to do this, so I implore the hon. Lady to act. I am totally here to hear it and to work alongside her, because what she says is absolutely the case. On the idea that stresses faced by a particular community cause violence against women and girls, I must point out, though, that the vast majority of people face stresses in their lives—and the vast majority of men—do not go on to abuse. The causes of violence against women and girls—Lady Elish points out there is little prevention, and I very much hope to change that; that is my main focus—are actually rooted in something quite different.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Angiolini Inquiry · Hansard source

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  The Minister for Policing is in the office right next to mine. I get up in literally everybody’s grill, but I am very welcome in her office. Policing reform has to be rooted in exactly what we are trying to do around violence against women and girls, because the issue is endemic, as are other failings to do with postcode lotteries across the country. I am heavily involved in the violence against women and girls strategy, which will also coalesce with policing reform.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Angiolini Inquiry · Hansard source

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  Do I think I will get enough money? Any Minister who stands before the House and says yes to that question is lying. Look, I would, of course, always want more money, but actually there are fundamental problems in our system and in the culture of organisations that more money will not solve. Take us having more police—we have more police now, let us say, than we did 100 years ago, and that has not stopped this happening. There are absolutely fundamental things that need to change. I suppose I am here for a long time, not a good time, in that regard. We have to change absolute fundamentals. When the Justice Secretary was here before me giving his statement, he announced the £550 million—half a billion pounds—three-year settlement for victims funding, which will increase year on year with the rising rates of inflation. I was very heartened to hear that level of security and those increases. Do I think I will have as much as I would want? Never. Do I think I will have enough and that I will make do? Yes, I do.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Angiolini Inquiry · Hansard source

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  I do not want to give too many trails on the strategy, but yes. For a long time, I have spent my career trying to put nicer, better plasters on cuts that do not get any smaller. That work is vital, but I want to stop the cuts from happening—I do not want to make nicer plasters any more—and that means doing things that have never been done before. Lady Elish said brilliantly in the report that plenty of things have been allowed, whether in policing or other areas, to try to make progress without the need for a completely solid evidence base. I want that for this area.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  As the mother of somebody in that age bracket who works in a pub, I just wanted to stand up on his behalf and say thank you to the Chancellor.

• 25 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls: London · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. First, as everybody else has done, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) who, at some personal cost to herself, always speaks up on these issues, and does so with clarity, brilliance and bravery. She always approaches the issues with solutions in mind. People across the political divide want to see solutions and to work with the Government, and that is what we should seek to do. I will go through every one of the issues raised by my hon. Friend, and then cover as many of the others as I can. I cannot promise to be completely detailed, but I can follow up with a level of detail. I suppose I should start with the criticism that has come to me around the delay to the violence against women and girls strategy. Last week, the hon. Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam) asked me in the main Chamber about the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) writing to me to ask when the strategy will be published. My answer is simple: it will be out imminently. About now, I am satisfied that the strategy is as good as it could possibly be. That has taken lots of detailed work across every Government Department. It is not just tokenistically saying, “Enough is enough.” But I did not need to wait for a piece of paper or something to be published on a Government website. Since I have been in this position, and since this Government have been in power, we have announced that we are providing £53 million in funding over four years to roll out the Drive project across England and Wales. We are introducing a range of measures on sex offender management and stalking through the Crime and Policing Bill. We are investing £13.1 million in a new policing centre for VAWG and public protection. We have launched the new domestic abuse protection orders—raised by a number of Members—on which the previous Government passed the legislation then did nothing for four years. We are investing nearly £20 million for frontline support to victims and in other projects, including increasing investment to organisations such as Southall Black Sisters, who have been mentioned, and specific increases to ensure that women can remain in refuge if no recourse to public funds is an issue. In 2024, we announced a funding increase of £30 million, making a total investment of £160 million for the domestic abuse safe accommodation grant. As others have said, we have also banned strangulation in pornography and made fundamental changes to the family court—something that many in this Chamber, including myself, campaigned for a decade to get across the line. I apologise for the delay in ensuring that every Government Department was doing absolutely everything it possibly could to get to where it needs to, but that did not stop me from cracking on with as much as I possibly could in the meantime. When I had the job of the hon. Member for Weald of Kent, sitting on the Opposition Front Bench, I spent my time, almost week in, week out, with the then safeguarding Minister—the previous Government did not call it VAWG—looking at solutions and at different places. As I said in my letter back to the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford—and I say this to the hon. Member for Weald of Kent now—my door is always open. Not once since I have been in this role has anyone from the Opposition Front-Bench team come to talk to me about possible solutions or things we could work on together, but I absolutely send out that message. I have met with Lib Dems and Conservative Back Benchers. I feel like I see the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) more than my husband, such is our life in this place. I have met Members of every different political hue on my own side. On this we are united. The hon. Member for Weald of Kent is welcome in my office with solutions, ideas about the frontline and detail. I extend that offer with great respect, and I truly mean it. I had great relations with my counterpart before, and I never ever sought to make headlines rather than helping the frontline. As someone who has been in her position, I offer that advice. My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse spoke clearly about the need to go beyond the criminal justice system. She and other Members, including the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor), mentioned the Charing Cross incidents. What can I say? It was absolutely horrifying. I do want to speak up for some, though: a female officer featured in that documentary was trying to fight for the remand of a violent offender. It is easy to forget that some brilliant people were shown in that documentary—brilliant police officers who were trying to fight for the right thing. We need to make sure that those are the people who rise to the top of the ranks in our police forces. To do that, the Government plan to lay out, I think at the beginning of next year, a whole-systems reform of policing. Much of that will be about violence against women and girls because, for example, for the last 10 years or however long the police have never been asked to have any performance framework on violence against women and girls. We can talk about collecting data and which metrics we will use; well, based on the last decade the starting point is zero. We will take an overarching measure from the crime survey, which has been undertaken for the first time this year. The hon. Member for Weald of Kent might know that the data on which we will measure the metric was released earlier in the year. On stalking, my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse talked about the review by Richard Wright, who I met this week. He was the prosecuting barrister in the case of Alice Ruggles—a very tragic and famous stalking case. I very much look forward to his work in respect of the legislation, which I imagine will be relatively quick. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam and I have spoken before about what is currently wrong with the legislation for a section 2A stalking charge. I very much hope to come back and talk about that. Domestic abuse protection orders have been hailed today in the newspapers—the photo they used of me made me realise I need to get a haircut. I cannot stress enough how I am often a bit cynical, including when we were writing domestic abuse protection orders into the law under the previous Government, who wrote nice words on goat skin. I have been a cynic about all protection orders, as a person who has them, and as a person who has worked with them and watched breaches not be followed up by policing. That leads to some of the issues everybody has spoken about in terms of confidence in policing. If an order is breached and no one does anything, you do not call the police the next time, and that might be the time you get murdered. So I went into it trepidatiously when we came into government. The orders are now used in both the Metropolitan police area and in Greater Manchester, and they have already started to roll out to three other police forces. The plan is absolutely to roll them out across every area—I certainly want them for the women where I live. I am seeing cases of a breach of an order leading to nine months’ imprisonment within a week of the incident happening, and with the woman never having to step inside a courtroom. That is what I want to see from an order regime.

• 25 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls: London · Hansard source

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  Oh yes—the pilot is in the hon. Gentleman’s area.

• 25 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls: London · Hansard source

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  Honestly, police officers in the Met and in Greater Manchester, where I have visited them undertaking these orders, are so very grateful. Some tweaks have come out of the pilot, which is the reason for doing a pilot. Some of them are legislative, some are about resources and some are about offender management. The fundamental thing is that they allow the police to do proper, good old-fashioned policing. It means they are responding. We are not waiting on a victim to say, “This person breached it.” They are going out, talking to them and finding out if the order has been breached. I really want to see the state taking the administration off the woman. It was shared with me that in just one part of the Greater Manchester pilot—I will definitely get the colloquial thing wrong if I say which bit of Greater Manchester—there had been a 76% reduction in repeat offences just in the cohort that had been given domestic abuse protection orders. Anyone who looks at the Government’s mission and who knows anything about domestic abuse and violence against women and girls will know that we cannot halve anything unless we stop the repeat. The repeat is a massive problem, so seeing a 76% reduction in that cohort already is very good. People have spoken about employers and the need to make sure that they are included in the strategy. There was a great mention of the brilliant work done by USDAW, and organisations such as Lloyds giving staff two weeks’ paid leave. There are brilliant examples. We cannot keep saying that this is everyone’s business and not expect employers to take part. I have to say, actually, that there is quite a lot of enthusiasm—my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) said that the businesses in her area really want to take part. On the ringfences in respect of refuge accommodation, part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 created a ringfence for housing-related statutory support. This Government have increased the amount of money in the last year by £30 million. My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse gave a good example of it being done well in London, and some of the money being used for specialist “by and for” services. She identified the fact that we really need to bottom out where services are commissioned well and where they are not. It is a different story across the country, so it is nice in this debate about London to be able to say that I have seen good practice undertaken in London in this regard, through the Mayor’s office working with local councils. I have seen bad practice elsewhere. We need to make sure that there is a standard in the country, no matter where someone is. It is the same for policing and for the CPS. As I said, I see the hon. Member for Strangford more than my husband; I feel like he has always been in the room. I have a special place in my heart for Northern Ireland and will continue to work with the devolved Administrations over there. Many people, including my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) very clearly, mentioned the issue of David Carrick, and other issues of trust in the Metropolitan police. The first part of the Angiolini review has already reported, and reporting on the second part is imminent. The Metropolitan police promised to follow up on the Louise Casey review. I speak to Mark Rowley many times—he is actually from Birmingham—and the Home Office is making sure that the Metropolitan police is following up on all those things. More broadly, we need to change the regime and reform police vetting and standards, and disqualify people when they commit some of these crimes. Apologies that I did not respond to everybody, but I want to give my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse her minute to wind up. I promise I will answer all questions in writing—to which everyone behind me thinks, “I wish she had not said that!”

• 17 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  There is absolutely no reason why historical cases should not be brought forward and reviewed. As part of the work following on from the Casey review—certainly in cases of historical child sexual abuse—the opening of “no further action” cases has been worked on at pace through Operation Beaconport. More broadly, there are review systems, and I will send the hon. Member information about the organisations that the Home Office works with and that work alongside the police to look into the review systems that might be needed for people in cases such as hers and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Tulip Siddiq) that have not been picked up.

• 17 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  I can absolutely confirm that the part of the police and crime commissioners’ role that involves commissioning local victims’ services will be brought into the new system. It will not be that that money is gone from the centre; this is about how it will be given out. I cannot say for certain that all organisations that currently have that money will have it on the basis that they currently have it, because nobody could commit to that. That is the commissioner’s job. We look forward to the violence against women and girls strategy, because there will be a huge amount on victims’ commissioning in that.

• 17 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  We recognise the vital role of specialist “by and for” services in providing tailored support to victims and survivors. It has been my personal pleasure over many years to work alongside the brilliant women at Sikh Women’s Aid, who operate so furtively in our local area. I meet regularly with Imkaan, the umbrella lead for such “by and for” services, to seek solutions to exactly the problem of ensuring that there is not a postcode lottery and that everybody can have specialist support.

• 17 Nov 2025 · Violence against Women and Girls · Hansard source

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  I very much look forward, no doubt, to coming to the right hon. Lady’s Committee to discuss the strategy on its publication. It is not for the Home Office to tell law enforcement exactly what the definition is in this regard—there are obviously definitions of domestic abuse and sexual violence in the law—but we will lay out clearly what we mean by “violence against women and girls”, and police operational matters will be corralled, like I say, by the new centre, which has had £13 million of investment to ensure that there is standardised practice across the country and we are all singing from the same hymn sheet.

• 17 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, and our mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade has begun. We will deliver a transformative cross-Government approach that is underpinned by the new strategy, which we will publish soon.