Violence against Women and Girls Strategy

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Jess Phillips

Monday 15th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. Minister.

[Jess Phillips]

Okay, I may have to stand corrected, but all I can say is that a huge amount of what is being cited on police numbers is being taken from the previous Government’s figures. In my area, we have not got up to the level of police funding that we had in 2010, so I will not take lectures from the Conservatives, given the hollowing out of the police over their era. [Interruption.] The shadow Minister may not like what he hears.

Brilliant work has been done under a number of people who have held the same position as me, and I can see one of them on the Opposition Front Bench. Throughout the progress of the Bill that became the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, when we were in opposition, I worked very closely with Ministers. I see that the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley) is present. I worked incredibly closely with her in opposition to ensure that the Bill was good enough. Not once has any Member on the current Opposition Front Bench sought a meeting with me to discuss anything that they actually want to see in the strategy, but they would be very welcome to do so.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. To prevent any further confusion, I should point out that this is not a debate but a response to an urgent question, and Members do not intervene on the Minister.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister for coming to the House to respond to the urgent question. I know that this is an issue that she cares passionately about, and I can sense her frustration about the fact that such an important strategy is to be announced in the House on the last day before the recess, when many Members will not be here to respond and give their feedback. I hope that we will have another opportunity in the new year. I also hope that the strategy will confirm that there will be cross-departmental work, and that a big part of it will relate to where these vulnerable women and girls are to be housed. Did Ministers from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government attend the advisory board meetings, and will housing feature in the new strategy?

[Jess Phillips]

Ministers from MHCLG are key partners, and housing is a huge part of the issue of, specifically, domestic abuse-related crimes. Today the MHCLG announced refuge funding of £499 million over the next three years, which represents a huge increase on what was previously being offered, as well as an extra £19 million in support of part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act, which places a statutory duty on local authorities to house victims of domestic abuse.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

My hon. Friend shares my passion for this subject, and has done over many years. She is absolutely right: the data shows that nearly half of all teenage relationships between those aged 13 to 17 experience issues of control. What does that mean for both the victim’s group and the perpetrator’s group? As the mother of teenage boys—although one of them is no longer a teenager, because I am getting old—I can say that the idea that we should not support boys in this circumstance has led us to the terrifying statistics that she and I have cited. The strategy will focus very heavily on prevention, because I am sick of just putting bigger, better plasters on scars, rather than trying to stop the scars coming in the first place.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.