Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls — House of Commons, 2022-03-02
Topic: Law and Crime
Rachel Helen Maclean (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing time for this important debate. I thank all Members who have contributed. I also thank Members for the tone in which most of the contributions have been made, because I have a real sense that this is a collective effort we are all engaged in. Our colleagues in the police force, local police and crime commissioners, and local authorities, with whom Members engage, also bear that responsibility, and that has come over loud and clear. I want to start by addressing the points made to me by individual Members. I have made copious notes and I hope I can give due credit to the points that have been made. I thank the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, for her points. We will, absolutely, commit to publishing the perpetrator strategy within the legislative timelines that we have set out and legislated for very clearly. I hope that will command some welcome from the Opposition My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the Chair of the Justice Committee, made, in his detailed speech, some extremely useful comments and challenges for us. I listened carefully to his points, as did the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins). He highlights a very important matter that the House should reflect on, which is that we are now prosecuting rape in a digital age. We are grappling with challenges on phones that simply did not exist a few years ago. We are setting out how we will tackle some of those challenges in our rape review and the end-to-end taskforce My hon. Friend mentioned specialist rape courts. We are looking at those as part of the report and will come forward with our response to that. Members will be interested to know—this was also referenced in the debate—about domestic abuse courts. We are taking steps on that matter. We have set up domestic abuse courts pilots to look at how we reduce the re-traumatisation of survivors of domestic abuse. We are taking a more investigative and less adversarial approach to limit the trauma victims have to go through in family court proceedings. Pilots are ongoing and we will report on them I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for all her fantastic work on the menopause. She is absolutely right to highlight the link between domestic abuse and traumatisation. My colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care are bringing forward the women’s health strategy, which, largely down to her, will reference that I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) for all her points and for her very balanced comments about the somewhat fraught issue of misogyny as a hate crime. She highlights how complicated the situation is. Members need to reflect that the House voted overwhelmingly against making misogyny a hate crime, but that is not to say there are not steps we need to take to tackle misogyny in society. The Home Secretary is carrying forward that work with Maggie Blyth and the National Policing Board The hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) spoke very sensitively about the constituency case that I think we are all aware of. She has represented her constituent and her family extremely well. I want to highlight the funding that is going into refuge spaces. I announced just last week an additional £125 million for specialist support to go into refuges to help victims to rebuild their lives after the awful experience they have suffered The hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) highlighted the rise in reports. Obviously, we want to stamp this out and we do not want victims, but all of us recognise the issues around reporting and recording crime. She mentioned that, and said that those crimes have gone up. It is important that we continue to capture those crimes and that people come forward. There is a positive sign there, although obviously we recognise that there is much to do The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) talked about the Istanbul convention. We are already virtually fully compliant with the Istanbul convention. We already have those protections for women and girls. There are some legal technicalities, which we are resolving with our friends in the devolved Administrations, and we will be able to fully ratify it soon.