International Women’s Day

Baroness Hyde of Bemerton Excerpts

Friday 6th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hyde of Bemerton (Lab)]

I congratulate my noble friends, my sisters on these Benches, on their stellar maiden speeches. I declare an interest: I am the executive member for health and social care at Islington Council.

My Lords and Ladies, like other sisters in your Lordships’ House, I have a range of appalling personal experiences and those of my family and friends that I could draw on to make illustrative points in these debates. Instead, today, I am lighting a candle rather than cursing the darkness. I want to celebrate some extraordinary women and their work to end male violence against women and girls. We need to share these stories of hope, sisterhood and solidarity to nourish us all as we persist in the costly fight to eliminate violence in all its forms against all women.

I want to tell your Lordships’ House about the incredible work of Catherine Briody and Karolina Bober at Islington Council, who, funded by their fabulous Labour council—I refer your Lordships to my earlier declaration—have overseen the development of a multi-agency, daily safeguarding meeting replacing the monthly MARAC. That has enabled it to support 728 survivors in the last year. Over four years of operation, it has reduced its repeat referrals to 18%, increased engagement with survivors from 18% to 88%, and enabled a sevenfold increase in civil and legal protection orders. Because it is daily, Catherine and Karolina are also able to check that those proposed actions are actually completed and to track their outcomes, so they know that their work is life changing.

Catherine and Karolina have also pioneered work in Islington with She Is Not Your Rehab, in particular working with young men to prevent the occurrence and recurrence of violence against women. Their model with men acknowledges, “Your childhood trauma wasn’t your fault, but your healing is now your responsibility”. It works through building relationships and accountability. When founder Matt Brown spoke to 300 boys at a school locally, 100 of those boys contacted him afterwards to share their stories and their pain. Boys need and want this invitation to talk and to be seen. This emphasis on preventing perpetration in the borough is also bolstered by this Labour Government’s huge investment in perpetrator work, getting upstream and preventing new victims.

The other trailblazer I want to celebrate today is Natalie Collins, survivor and founder of Own My Life, a programme that has enabled 20,000 women to recover and live their best lives following violence and abuse. The first time I met Natalie, we were in a very austere boardroom at a pretty traditional Christian charity, and she was monologuing loudly about vaginas. “I like Natalie”, I thought. Beyond her gregarious, joyful exterior, I discovered Natalie as an ally, a person with huge heart and an utterly razor-sharp mind who thinks constantly about how we can structurally and strategically eliminate violence against women and girls, so I want to celebrate today the women courageously taking back ownership of their lives, supported by Own My Life practitioners. I want to celebrate the female police officer in London, abused by her partner, who not only stayed at the Met after feeling she should resign but has now been promoted and is seeing CPS decisions changed so that more perpetrators are charged, and the woman in the south-west who was suicidal but is now living her best life.

Natalie sent me some quotes from participants. One said:

“Own My Life is effective and life-changing in ways I can’t think anything else would be. I have spent more than 30 years in a coercive relationship that I couldn’t leave, despite multiple professionals advising me to do so. I’ve now done it in the space of 12 weeks”.


Another woman simply stated:

“This course gave my children their mum back”.


As well as her astonishing work through Own My Life, Natalie worked with other survivors of her rapist ex-husband’s abuse to bring joint cases to ensure a successful prosecution for the repeated rapes and domestic abuse. Their story has recently been told in the BBC documentary, “Lover, Liar, Predator”. It is not an easy watch, but it is a recommended one.

Humans are wounded in relationships, and yet that too is where we experience healing. Natalie, Jenni, Shannon and Robyn enabled a successful prosecution of that serial rapist because they did so together. She Is Not Your Rehab’s work is effective because of the relationships and group work that allow accountability and ownership, rather than engendering shame.

This painful, profound work is always collaborative. This International Women’s Day, I want to celebrate these awesome sisters, Kathryn, Karolina and Natalie, and remind us that the path to eliminating violence is a path trod in solidarity, led by survivors and never a solo pursuit. As Shannon states powerfully at the end of that documentary,

“That’s how we break his power over us, by being together”.