UN International Day: Violence against Women

Debate between Jim Shannon and Sarah Newton

Thursday 8th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sarah Newton)]

Today is a really important day that marks one of the UN’s 16 days of action to eliminate violence against women and girls. This vital debate has shown our utter and united determination across the House to end these terrible crimes. I want to start by paying heartfelt thanks to the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Michelle Thomson). To hear her talking about her rape when she was 14 years old, breaking the taboo by talking about it in this place, was truly remarkable. It was incredibly brave of her to talk, as she so eloquently did, about what happened to her. I am sure that her mother would be incredibly proud of her, because she will be helping so many women who are suffering in silence. If after listening to her just one women picks up the phone and gets the support that is available, the hon. Lady will have saved someone’s life. I am sure that many women will draw courage and inspiration from her today.

I also thank the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin) who bravely talked about a serious sexual assault. She made a powerful speech, highlighting what she says are widespread attitudes towards and abuse of women in the industry in which she served. I give every power to her elbow and give her every encouragement to carry on talking about this to help women in that industry today not to have to suffer in the way that she did.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies), who also gave a moving, powerful speech about her dreadful personal experience of being a victim of stalking. I commend her for using that experience to campaign strongly since she became a Member. She played such an important part in bringing in the anti-stalking measures that were announced yesterday.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) for securing this debate and for the approach she took in her speech. I also thank my friend the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), with whom we work so closely. She is right that it is absolutely essential that work must be cross-party and done across the House. There is simply no room for politics in this. We must keep the issue at the top of the political agenda by working together to get the cultural changes that we all want.

I commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for reminding the House of the Prime Minister’s strong, persistent leadership on keeping women and girls safe at home and around the world. The Government appreciate the valuable work done by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke and the Women and Equalities Committee, not least the report that we have discussed today.

Our goal remains simple: no woman should live in fear of abuse, and every girl should grow up knowing that she is safe. As we have heard today, violence and abuse can affect anyone, and while we do think that the prevalence of violence against women is going down, we are working to ensure that we have the right data. We published more data just yesterday to help us be sure about that, but we have a long way to go to reach our goal. While it is encouraging that more women feel able to come forward and that more prosecutions and convictions are being secured, we are absolutely not complacent.

Since 2010, we have done more than ever before to tackle violence against women and girls. In March, we launched the new violence against women and girls strategy and pledged over £80 million of funding to support that in the UK. We have strengthened the law and provided agencies with the tools they need to support victims, bring perpetrators to justice and prevent such crimes from happening in the first place. We have introduced new offences of coercive and controlling behaviour, stalking, forced marriage and FGM, and have banned revenge porn. On top of that good work, I am delighted that we announced yesterday some important new measures to tackle gender-based violence.

As we have heard, stalking is a devastating crime and can have serious consequences. Yesterday, we committed to introduce new civil stalking protection orders to protect victims and stop perpetrators at the earliest opportunity, before their behaviour becomes entrenched. We also launched a £15 million, three-year VAWG transformation fund to aid, promote and embed the best local practice that exists today and to ensure that early intervention and prevention become the norm, so that we can stop the awful gaps in services about which we heard today. Although we have a national framework and strategy, it is vital that local areas take ownership of and responsibility for the services in those areas, and that they put the victim at the centre of their approach to providing services, working together to incorporate the needs of a wide range of people. To help areas to do that, we published our national statement of expectations, on which we worked in partnership with a great many civil society organisations and the Local Government Association, to ensure that commissioning is the best it can be. We want good examples from across the country to be available to every community and every woman.

Included in the data we published yesterday was the domestic homicide review, which for the first time considered all the learning from examples of when things have gone badly wrong and individuals did not get access to services, and of when the statutory sector did not do everything possible to keep women safe, including the worst outcome of that leading to a death. By publishing this review and a series of recommendations, we will be able to make real progress. Included alongside that was better training for the chairs of domestic homicide reviews and funding to enable this work to carry on.

[Jim Shannon]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sarah Newton]

I am not going to give way, as I want to cover all the questions put to me.

Our new £15 million VAWG service transformation fund is just one part of the £80 million package that I talked about. This is the most central funding that any Government have put into tackling these terrible crimes, and it includes provision for rape support centres, national helplines and refuges. I am sure that our actions are backing up our strong words, and if more resources are needed, we will always keep that under review.

The police transformation fund has also funded programmes that support our work to end VAWG, and other sources of funding are available across the country, at the local and national levels. These sources include money from the troubled families programme; for victims’ services; for dedicated mental health provision; for the tackling modern slavery programmes; and £15 million from the tampon tax fund. I am particularly pleased that this year that fund recognised the incredibly important role that grassroots organisations play in addressing VAWG and they have a particular spot in the fund.

I was asked some very direct questions and I wish to answer them directly today; the red folder is on the Bench. First, let me say that abusive behaviour online is treated the same as such behaviour offline. The same prevention orders and the same tools to prosecute offenders for that behaviour online should be pursued. So please, Members, go out into your communities and spread the word that we must get law enforcement agencies to use those new powers.