Legacy of Jo Cox
Debate between Jess Phillips and Apsana Begum(2 days, 6 hours ago)
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Apsana Begum
I agree that we must take steps both online and offline with the same level of energy and commitment, and I thank the hon. Member for his kind words.
When Members first come to Parliament or enter politics, they know that they are ultimately taking a risk with their life, and that is not something we should have to do when we put ourselves forward for office. It is not easy for me to say that I have also contended with that scenario—perhaps I have to understand that it just comes with the job. There have been times when I have legitimately feared for my life, and that was particularly true during the last general election campaign. As I have previously informed the House, during that election the abuse and intimidation that I had long endured reached new heights. It was an election in which my abusive ex-husband stood as a candidate against me, after I had already faced several years of post-separation harassment. Even before that I had already endured a vexatious trial, and a reselection process in the Labour party, during which I experienced harassment from his associates. Alarm bells were rung by organisations in the domestic abuse sector, and representations were made on my behalf, but the situation is ongoing and unresolved. All of that has been a deeply harrowing experience that I truly do not believe any survivor of domestic abuse should be expected to endure.
I also feel a strong sense of duty and responsibility to other survivors of domestic abuse in this country, and over the years they have reached out to me, saying that they feel a strength when they see people in this House speak about their own experiences. I do not want to be a case study or a statistic sometime in the future, or for us to say that nothing could really happen in this situation, yet sometime down the line, one or two decades later, we will all look back and say, “Oh yeah—she was really failed. The system did not protect her as a survivor of domestic abuse. We are better now, but there were failings along the way.”
For that reason, along with Members across the House, I am working to try to secure better protection for candidates facing domestic violence, post-separation harassment, and hostility in the context of election campaigns. That is why I have provided testimony and participated in the work of the all-party group on women in Parliament, and given evidence to the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, which is developing a method for institutional action—MINA—to protect candidates standing in elections or those in elected office who suffer violence in politics.
Domestic abuse can affect people from all walks of life and in all forms of employment, including those of us serving in public office. All survivors should be able to have dreams and hopes, a life beyond domestic abuse, and play a role in national policy making and our democracy, just like anybody else who has not gone through those awful and horrific experiences. This is not just about me. As I have said, no survivor of domestic abuse should be prevented from standing or staying in office due to post-separation harassment.
Jess Phillips
It has been an honour and a pleasure to work with my hon. Friend over the years, and I absolutely agree with her. Does she agree that perpetrating domestic abuse or sexual violence should eliminate someone from being able to hold such office?
Apsana Begum
That is exactly the area that many of us are looking at in the Representation of the People Bill before the House, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her support. She has publicly said that my experiences were completely unacceptable and unjustified, and that we must all do better to ensure that no one who seeks to stand for public office or to represent their communities has to face what I have had to face. She and I both work with many organisations and activists across the tackling violence against women and girls sector. That entire movement was built on the backs of survivors who decided to do something for themselves and for others, and who became activists. Why should those people not be able to stand for office? Why should they not be policymakers? Surely that is almost a natural progression. Why should they look at situations such as mine and think to themselves, “No, I can’t do that; I can’t take it too far” because the perpetrator will target them?
It must be the duty of everyone in society, and of all political parties, to ensure that elected representatives who are survivors of domestic abuse are not exposed to further harassment in their roles. I wish to thank members of the Jo Cox Foundation, including Dr Hannah Phillips, who I have worked with, as well as Elect Her and other organisations, for their encouragement. I also thank many of my constituents who have stood and continue to stand with me throughout what I continue to endure. I am also grateful for the support of my independent domestic violence advocate, without whom I do not think I would have been able to go through many of the procedures and processes that I continue to endure, just to be heard and to ensure that the right protections are in place.
I was elected to this place three years after Jo’s tragic murder, but the impact that she had on those who had the privilege to know her is clear. I know how proud many of my constituents are to have called Jo a neighbour in Poplar and Limehouse, and once again I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley and say how I touched I have been by her words. I hope we can try to change politics for the better, build a society with dignity at its heart, and improve safety for women and survivors of domestic abuse.
Violence against Women and Girls Strategy
Debate between Jess Phillips and Apsana Begum(5 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Jess Phillips
I feel every moment of disappointment that the hon. Lady feels about the failures over the years. I recall working in a service during the coalition Government, when we had to cut our child rape service and get the money from the Big Lottery Fund, because the state, in an era of austerity under that Government, took away the funding that we had used for a child rape counselling service. There are many, many years to reset. We have to change decades—not decades, actually, but millennia—of the expectation that women are just meant to expect this violence.
I could have made a document that, like all the documents that went before, did not do that reset. The delay—I am going to do something rare for a Government Minister—is my fault. It is entirely my fault because, with every iteration, the strategy was not ambitious enough. I could have done it more quickly, and then it would not have been as good. I apologise that the hon. Lady has to wait till Christmas, but there have been decades of failure. The metrics that we will be measured against and the plans for how they will be measured will all be released on Thursday. The hon. Lady will be able to hold me to account. I will not be dragged kicking and screaming; she is welcome to come into my office at any point and have a meeting with me.
Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
It is important to acknowledge that there have been delays, as the Minister has said, but it is also important that the next strategy is comprehensive and has multi-departmental and cross-departmental working embedded within it. Will the Minister, who was formerly an active member of the all-party parliamentary group on domestic violence and abuse, of which I am the chair, meet jointly with us and the all-party parliamentary group on perpetrators of domestic abuse in the first week back from recess, so that we can discuss the strategy in detail and how it can be successfully implemented?
Jess Phillips
I absolutely will do that. I commit to that here and will make sure that is noted down, because the strategy is not the end and it does not have all the answers. It is something that will have to be changed and worked on, and it will take everybody to do it. It is a fundamental shift. I absolutely commit to doing that. Just to say, I have always worked alongside my hon. Friend, and Members of Parliament who reach out to me and want to work together on this issue are always welcome.
Palestinians: Visa Scheme
Debate between Jess Phillips and Apsana BegumWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
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Apsana Begum
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, and I hope that the Minister addresses that point in his response.
How can it be that there are no safe routes for Palestinians to reach sanctuary in the UK, even if they have family here? In fact, humanitarian visa routes are rarely available to Palestinians in any form, despite one in six of the world’s refugees being Palestinian. I have asked repeatedly in this House why Palestinians are all too often treated differently. The dehumanisation and devaluation of Palestinian life has been stark and, to be totally frank, utterly appalling. History teaches us that a people are dehumanised so that they can be killed, displaced and starved with impunity, and indeed, so that they can be denied assistance and asylum when they are clearly in need. I know that many of my constituents have been utterly shocked at the racism, Islamophobia and double standards. Something has been fundamentally broken or revealed, however we look at it.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
My constituents feel very similarly to my hon. Friend. We have rehoused a number of people from Gaza who came as family members of British Gazans when the war broke out, and I have seen the open-hearted nature of the help for those families. There has been concern about there not being resource for what is actually a relatively small group of people who this visa scheme would apply to, but in fact, all the Gazans we have resettled into Birmingham, Yardley were actually doctors, and are bringing huge amounts of resource. Our communities, even in the face of the racism my hon. Friend talks about, are ready with open arms to help.
Apsana Begum
I agree with my hon. Friend that we are a place of sanctuary, and we welcome refugees.
The political establishment has been totally out of touch with the majority of British people on this. That will not be easily forgotten. As young people across east London ask me, how is it that the Government condemn certain countries for their human rights records and crimes, but not others? Why does the right to self-determination seem to be spoken about for some, but not others? Why are some national flags celebrated but others denigrated, or even effectively banned? Why are some deaths mourned and others explained away? Why is it that, for the Government, too many Palestinians have been killed or are starving, but there is no condemnation of those who killed them or are starving them?
Like many across the UK and around the world, I have always been opposed to the bombing and displacement of civilians, but this Government have supported it in Gaza. What did they think would happen when they supported the openly declared intent to reduce the entire Gaza strip to rubble? Whenever this Government have been asked about the long-term plan for millions of civilians in Gaza, they have been unable to answer. Instead, it was this Government who withdrew funding from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency shortly after the International Court of Justice’s interim ruling. It is this Government who help to ensure that Israel has the weapons to kill women and children. Indeed, it would be helpful if the Minister could update us today on the latest assessment of whether weapons from the UK have been used to kill children. Whenever asked about how UK-traded weapons are used, the Government provide pro-forma, general lines about ongoing reviews and the licensing criteria. If those reviews are actually happening, why can we not know what they reveal? Especially now, when those living the reality of this horror are reaching out for support to survive, it is this Government who turn their back on humanity.
For some time now, parliamentary political discourse has used migration—even the absolute horror of people dying in the English channel—cynically and as a political tool. It is the age-old phenomena of scaremongering and scapegoating. As the Government erode our civil liberties and democratic rights, as they disenfranchise and disempower, and as they attack the very fabric of our communities through austerity, they foster fear and division and they falsely point to migrants as the cause of our alienation. In truth, it is overwhelmingly clear that the global drivers of refugee movements are intrinsically connected to the legacies of colonialism and empire, which live on to this day. There is no doubt the British Government have a responsibility to step up for the people of Gaza fleeing collective punishment, and yet, shamefully, there is no doubt that they are still choosing complicity rather than compassion.