Sarah Russell MP: speeches

Speeches

• 20 Jan 2026 · Mobile Phones and Social Media: Use by Children · Hansard source

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  The Children’s Commissioner spoke to a group of 15 and 16-year-olds in 2024 and found that three quarters of them had been sent a beheading video. It is possible that a great number of children are protecting us from what they see online, instead of us protecting them. Can I emphasise strongly the importance of speaking to a large range of children from different backgrounds about this? Sadly, they do not always feel able to make us aware of everything that they are exposed to online.

• 12 Jan 2026 · Social Media: Non-consensual Sexual Deepfakes · Hansard source

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  The overwhelming majority of child sexual abuse imagery produced online is still, very sadly, produced by children themselves, who have been groomed by adults in order to do so. What steps will the Government take to ensure that there are device-level protections to prevent children from taking and sharing nude images of themselves?

• 20 Nov 2025 · International Men’s Day · Hansard source

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  First, let me say an enormous thank you to my hon. Friends the Members for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) and for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern) for talking so movingly about their own experiences. They are role models for us all. Speaking of role models, if one saw what was on the television and on social media about men, one would think that they were just a bunch of feckless teenagers who grew up into man-children. It is really distressing. I only know really good men. I am obviously fortunate, but the men in my life and my community are fantastic. They are great role models for their children, pillars of the community, businessmen and volunteers. My community is so much richer for the men in it, and my life is so much richer for the men in it. When I talk about men and boys, I would never want anyone to think that it was from a place of negativity, but I see so much negativity around me. It is fantastic, then, to see the work being done by my local boys’ school, which is having conversations with its year 7 group at the moment about masculinity, and about the different forms of social hierarchies among men and how that can work for them socially, or not. It is also fantastic that the Government have announced £60 million to rebuild large chunks of that school— I welcome that, as well as the men’s health strategy. So many fantastic community groups do mental health work and support the community in my constituency. I cannot list them all, but I give honourable mentions to Goostrey community shed; the Shed Crew in Holmes Chapel, which produces a lot of exciting things for the community; the Sandbach men walking and talking group; the Congleton Mentell circle; and the No Tier Snooker Society. None of them excludes women, but they all have an emphasis on ensuring that men can live their best lives. Enabling men to live their best lives includes increasing paid paternity leave, so I am campaigning for that alongside the Dad Shift, Pregnant Then Screwed and other organisations. It is extremely sad that self-employed men do not receive any paid paternity leave whatsoever, and it is incumbent on us as a Government to change that as soon as possible. Women get statutory maternity allowance, and I do not see any reason why the equivalent cannot be made available to men. Of course, I must also participate in the dad jokes. What do you call cheese that isn’t yours? Nacho cheese! And what do we call two weeks of paternity leave? Not nearly enough.

• 21 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

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  I will make some progress and speak to amendment 31 to clause 6. That clause is the one that I am most proud of. It was the result of cross-party work between the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) and the Government Front Bench and it needs to be given the prominence it deserves. For the first time, the clause will enable the recording and tracking of when domestic abuse is a factor in an offence. Amendment 31, which I support, discusses the ability to call for evidence as to whether there has been domestic abuse. I start from the fundamental position that we should believe women on domestic abuse—I add that victims are predominantly, though by no means exclusively, female. None the less, I also strongly believe in the rule of law and the importance of having evidence. That is why I have sponsored the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter). I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner) will more thoroughly address new clauses 28 and 29, which are about gambling treatment being considered on a par with treatment for drugs and alcohol in the courts. Those on the Conservative Benches have suggested that Government Members are in some way anti-punishment. We are not. I absolutely believe that crime should be punished, but I also absolutely believe that rehabilitation services are critical to preventing the recurrence of crime. When 80% of criminal offending is reoffending, we have to look seriously at how we break those cycles of offending. I welcome and applaud the clauses put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South. Gambling creates significant social problems in our society and when that extends to crime, we need solutions. New clauses 15 and 24 both address the potential abolition of the Sentencing Council. The language with which they have been addressed by Opposition Members today has been a bit more circumspect than some of what we have heard them say previously about the Sentencing Council in this Chamber. Our judges in the UK are some of the best in the world. The independence of our judiciary is an absolutely fundamental premise of our democracy, and the way in which it has been talked about recently treats it with complete disdain. That terrifies me. It is one of the most important principles that our country stands upon. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan) said that the Conservatives still respect the independence of the rule of law, but I have heard Members on those Benches refer to lefty activist judges as if somehow the judiciary in Britain were populated by radical Marxists. That is not the case. I am a lawyer and I spent 13 years in practice. I have never met a judge who was anything but genuinely committed to the apolitical upholding of the law. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] It is incredibly important that we continue to recognise and promote those principles. I say that partly from a genuine ideological position and partly from experience. Britain has exported £9.5 billion in legal services in the last year. One of the reasons for that level of success is that there is genuine belief in our judiciary—people in multiple jurisdictions across the world trust that our judges will hear disputes impartially. When we talk like Conservative Members have in a criminal or civil context, we damage not only our institutions but our economy. We have to understand the importance of the British rule of law and we need to promote and uphold it at all costs. Those who do not do so damage our country. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]