Violence Against Women

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

This report emphasises that we face a wide cultural challenge, which needs to be tackled at every level by everybody. The quality of teaching in schools is very important. The Department for Education is providing funding for the PSHE Association to work with schools to support them in developing their own curricula and improving the quality of teaching, which is clearly key. In addition, from September 2014, the new computing curriculum ensures that, for the first time, pupils aged five to 11 will be taught about online safety, including issues such as sexting and cyberbullying.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich]

My Lords, as people generally seem very reluctant to believe the extent of the abuse, is it not time for the Government to broadcast the figures in more dramatic terms? For instance, they could say that millions of men are smashing up millions of women and that millions of men are sexually abusing millions of children. These abusers are normally distributed throughout society, which might account for the fact that so few prosecutions occur.