The comments made by Jess Phillips, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, on Twitter on 21 October 2022.
I’m not lying, I’m rattled for sure at the state of the country. I don’t fear Johnson, he would make the conservatives a far greater laughing stock than they already are which is hard to imagine. He is the one I fear the least. He’s deeply unpopular.
The comments made by Jess Phillips, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, on Twitter on 19 October 2022.
Massive Tory row going on in the lobby, literally trying to force people through. Lots of anger.
The tribute made by Jess Phillips, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, in the House of Commons on 9 September 2022.
Very much like the Prime Minister, I was not raised in a house of monarchists. Yesterday, when the first news came of the Queen’s ill health, I was in the National Security Bill Committee. I was surprised by how deeply affected I felt by the news—I was extremely emotional immediately. It felt like that phone call that almost everybody who has lost somebody close to them gets, that says, “Get here soon. Now is the time.” That made me wonder, “Why do I feel like this?” It is because it feels as if the Queen was a member of every one of our families—even a family like mine. We can project our own life on to hers. No matter how different that life is from the one that the Queen had, her universal experience feels like ours, and she feels like she is with us all.
That made me reflect on all the stories we have all been reading. There is a story for everybody about the Queen’s grace. Anyone—no matter what their political persuasion or religion, and whatever floats their boat—can find a story going around at the moment about the Queen that leads to their bias.
Alison McGovern
She was clever like that.
Jess Phillips
Yes, she was clever like that. It is an incredible skill, and shows what an icon and a diplomat she was.
You can see the Queen as a traditionalist, you can see her as a modernist, you can see her as somebody with deep faith, you can see her as somebody who represented well people without a faith, but what I have found is that the Queen was a feminist. The brilliant story about the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia being driven quite roughly by the Queen around the Balmoral estate when women in Saudi Arabia were not allowed to drive is one of my top stories. But I saw a story that said:
“When HM Queen came to open the Rolls Building, she was ushered into a room in which were waiting all the judges. She looked at the ermine-clad…ranks of Chancery judges, smiled, and said crisply ‘Where are the women?’ A look of panic crossed multiple faces, until someone saw three female chancery…district judges in a dark corner. ‘There they are!’ he shouted. So the Queen went to talk to them.”
What a woman, what a leader—who, no matter what sort of family they grew up in and no matter in which bit of the world, everybody feels they have a tiny little bit of her with us. God rest the Queen.
The speech made by Jess Phillips, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2022.
It is an unusual thing to be in the Chamber listening to all this praising of the Prime Minister from the people who have just got rid of him. I wonder whether they have buyers’ remorse. One reason why our Prime Minister was got rid of, with heartfelt letters from Conservative Members, has been completely forgotten about since the leadership hustings started—it is as if it did not happen. The reason I do not have any confidence in the Government, and the reason I do not have any confidence in the Conservative party, is because of the dreadful record they have overseen on sexual harassment and violence in their own ranks.
Since I was elected to this House, two Conservative Members have gone to prison for perpetrating sexual crimes. In one of those cases, I repeatedly begged various Conservative Members with power, including the Chief Whip, to intervene, to stop and not to give him the Whip back, telling them how serious were the accounts I had heard. Every single time, that was ignored—[Interruption.] If hon. Members would like to intervene on me, I would be more than happy to explain the very fine details.
A victim of child sexual abuse came forward to the Conservative party and said that they had been abused by the candidate in Wakefield, after which the Conservative party lost the complaint, or it went somewhere. That candidate was then elected, and he is now in prison for sexual crimes. This is deeply serious. The hon. Member for Delyn (Rob Roberts)—I have informed all the people I will be mentioning that I will be mentioning them, Madam Deputy Speaker; I imagine there are some Members checking their inboxes right now—was cleared by the Conservative party’s processes. Then the Prime Minister was toppled because he promoted somebody who he knew had undertaken sexually harmful behaviours. While everybody here is now dancing on the head of a pin about how great the Prime Minister was, and how he got all “the big calls right”, they should remember the reason that every one of those Members wrote those letters. Where, from every single one of the candidates—[Interruption.] If the Justice Secretary would like to intervene, I am more than happy to take an intervention.
The Deputy Prime Minister (Dominic Raab)
Total rubbish.
Jess Phillips
The Justice Secretary says it is total rubbish. Would he like to get to his feet and tell me what I have said that is total rubbish? No, he would not. Shall I tell him what’s total rubbish? The rape statistics that he has overseen as Justice Secretary. That is what is total rubbish, and it is not a surprise when his political party turns a blind eye.
Dominic Raab
Does the hon. Lady recognise the fact that in the last year, the volume of rape convictions has increased by two thirds? A simple yes or no.
Jess Phillips
That is the convictions, but how is the charging, Secretary of State? Again, I am happy to take an intervention. Has the charging gone up or down? Currently, 1.3% of rapes that are brought forward result in a charge. That does not surprise me, when the institution that is currently in government constantly turns a blind eye to sexual misdemeanours.
A lot of people have mentioned antisemitism in this debate, because they are all desperate to make it about something wrong with the Labour party. However, when the Labour party was holding a leadership election, every single candidate was asked, “What will you do to stamp out antisemitism?” and rightly so. It is vital that we were held to account. So what did any one of the candidates do when the Member for—I can’t remember where, but Pincher by name, pincher by—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. I have given the hon. Lady quite a lot of leeway. We are discussing matters that are or perhaps will be sub judice, and I think the hon. Lady knows that. Let us guide this in a different direction.
Jess Phillips
I would like to know what the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time did when the right hon. Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) was given that position. I would like to know what the Foreign Secretary did. Did they all sit back? I wouldn’t have. I would never have sat back. I want to know what every one of the candidates who wants to be Prime Minister did when that happened. I want to know what the Conservative party is going to do about its institutional problem, when it cannot deal appropriately and independently with complaints about sexual harassment. I have absolutely no confidence.
The comments made by Jess Phillips, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, on Twitter on 12 April 2022.
Once again my inbox is filling up with emails from constituents telling me they have no confidence in our Prime Minister, so I suggest once again that people email their MPs because it works and we read them.
The comments made by Jess Phillips, the Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding, on 24 November 2021.
Staggeringly, this Government has overseen yet another rise in the number of victims experiencing domestic abuse. Police recorded cases have doubled in the last five years and yet prosecutions for this crime continue to plummet. We are seeing women and girls being failed at every step of their journey by this Government.
These figures are a damning indictment of the inaction by this Conservative Government which show that while the number of victims rise, fewer perpetrators are being brought to justice.
The Government must stop making excuses and immediately implement the measures in Labour’s Violence Against Women and Girls Green Paper including making misogyny a hate crime, increasing the minimum sentence for rape and stalking, and introduce a new law on street harassment – as well as implementing the urgent recommendations of the recent HMICFRS inspection.
The comments made by Jess Phillips, the Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding, on 23 June 2021.
For the Prime Minister to describe questions about rape convictions as ‘jabber’ is disgraceful. But this is the man who once said investigating child sexual abuse was ‘spaffing money up the wall’ – he simply doesn’t care about tackling sexual violence. He should apologise for his comments and his government’s appalling record.
The comments made by Jess Phillips, the Shadow Domestic Violence and Safeguarding Minister, on 16 March 2021.
These figures underline that violence is not a rare occurrence but the sad reality for too many women and girls across the country.
We need a step change not just in the criminal justice system but throughout society – and that needs real Government backing.
The Tories need to stop wasting time on gimmicks and get serious about tackling the epidemic of violence women and girls are facing.
This legislation is the equivalent of a get out of jail free card – it should be called the Abusers Charter.
The speech made by Jess Phillips, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, in the House of Commons on 11 March 2021.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and thank you to all in the Speaker’s Office for their consideration. It shows that Parliament is very committed to this issue.
In this place, we count what we care about—we count the vaccines done; we count the number of people on benefits. We rule or oppose based on a count, and we obsessively track that data. We love to count data about our own popularity. However, we do not currently count dead women. No Government study is done into the patterns every year of the data on victims of domestic abuse who are killed, die by suicide or die suddenly. Dead women is a thing we have all just accepted as part of our daily lives. Dead women are just one of those things.
Killed women are not vanishingly rare; killed women are common. Dead women do count, and thanks to the brilliant work of Karen Ingala Smith and the Counting Dead Women project, and the academics and charities working on the femicide census, these women’s lives and the scale of male violence against women can be known.
Since last year on this day, these are the women killed in the UK where a man has been convicted or charged as the primary perpetrator in the case: Vanita Nowell; Tracey Kidd; Nelly Moustafa; Zahida Bi; Josephine Kaye; Shadika Mohsin Patel; Maureen Kidd; Wendy Morse; Nageeba Alariqy; Elsie Smith; Kelly Stewart; Gwendoline Bound; Ruth Williams; Victoria Woodhall; Kelly Fitzgibbons, who was killed alongside her two daughters; Caroline Walker; Katie Walker; Zobaidah Salangy; Betty Dobbin; Sonia Calvi; Maryan Ismail; Daniela Espirito Santo; Ruth Brown, Denise Keane-Barnett-Simmons; Jadwiga Szczygielska; Emma Jane McParland; Louise Aitchison; Silke Hartshorne-Jones; Hyacinth Morris; Louise Smith; Claire Parry; Aya Hachem; Melissa Belshaw; Yvonne Lawson McCann; Lyndsey Alcock; Aneta Zdun; Nikoleta Zdun; Mandy Houghton; Amy-Leanne Stringfellow; Bibaa Henry; Nicole Smallman; Dawn Bennett; Gemma Marjoram; Karolina Zinkeviciene; Rosemary Hill; Jackie Hoadley; Khloemae Loy; Kerry Woolley; Shelly Clark; Bernadette Walker; Stella Frew; Dawn Fletcher; Deborah Jones; Patrycja Wyrebek; Therasia Gordon; Esther Egbon; Susan Baird; Balvinder Gahir; Lynda Cooper; Lorraine Cox; Suzanne Winnister; Maria Howarth; Abida Karim; Saman Mir Sacharvi; Vian Mangrio; Poorna Kaameshwari Sivaraj, who was killed alongside her three-year-old son; Louise Rump; Julie Williams; Rhonda Humphreys; Nicole McGregor; Angela Webber; Carole Wright; Sarah Smith; Ildiko Bettison; Kimberley Deakin; Marie Gladders; Paula Leather; Caroline Kayll; Lauren Mae Bloomer; Hansa Patel; Helen Bannister; Marta Vento; Andreia Rodriguez Guilherme; Joanna Borucka; Azaria Williams; Catherine Granger; Eileen Dean; Sue Addis; Carol Hart; Jacqueline Price; Mary Wells; Tiprat Argatu; Christie Frewin; Souad Bellaha; Ann Turner; N’Taya Elliott-Cleverley; Rose Marie Tinton; Ranjit Gill; Helen Joy; Emma Robertson; Nicole Anderson; Linda Maggs; Carol Smith; Sophie Moss; Christina Rowe; Susan Hannaby; Michelle Lizanec; Wieslawa Mierzejewska; Judith Rhead; Anna Ovsyannikova; Tina Eyre; Katie Simpson; Bennylyn Burke and her two-year-old daughter; Samantha Heap; Geetika Goyal; Imogen Bohajczuk; and Wenjing Xu.
There has been much debate over what I would say at the end of the list. Her name rings out across all our media—we have all prayed that the name of Sarah Everard would never be on any list. Let us pray every day and work every day to make sure that nobody’s name ends up on this list again.
The speech made by Jess Phillips, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, in the House of Commons on 14 January 2021.
I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement. We in the Labour party are really pleased to hear about the launch of the Ask for ANI scheme today, which will be a real innovation in helping victims come forward. Can the Minister tell the House what work her Department has done to ensure that in launching this brilliant scheme, when a victim comes forward there will be support beyond an initial phone call available, especially in cases where victims are not ready to inform the police?
We are now eight days into a third national lockdown, with a “Stay at home” message that we have become incredibly familiar with. It was welcome in this third lockdown that the Prime Minister clarified that individuals who wish to leave their homes to escape domestic abuse could do so. That message was not given back in March, and I welcome that being rectified and that the right thing has now been said.
We on the Opposition Benches welcome what the Minister has said today about the measures being taken to tackle domestic abuse and hidden harms. Back in April, the shadow Home Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) wrote to the Home Secretary urging her to act on this important issue. He also raised concerns from the sector, including the need to bring forward urgently a package of emergency financial support for organisations doing the vital work on the frontline which the Minister has talked about.
It was the Labour party that urged the Government to put in place £75 million of financial support for the sector. When the Government announced that they would do that, we welcomed the support, but the Home Secretary confirmed back in June, months into the crisis, that only a staggering £1.2 million had been spent. Today, the Minister’s statement tells us that 11 months into this crisis, still only a third of that funding has reached the frontline. Can she explain that? Will she tell us when the £51 million unspent will be allocated? Will she confirm that the £11 million extra that she has announced today is in excess of the £75 million already announced?
The Minister has also mentioned refuge capacity, and we thank all those who struggled very hard under very difficult circumstances to create urgently needed beds that should never have been missing. We must now ask: is that still enough? I have myself this week tried to get a refuge bed and not been able to find one. Will the Minister tell us today and in the coming weeks what contact she has had with refuges about capacity? Can she today say that she is confident that there is capacity to meet the demand? Can she tell the House what specific provisions have been made for specialised services for those victims who are black, Asian and minority ethnic, migrants, LGBTQ, male or disabled?
As the Minister has mentioned, children are often the hidden victims of domestic and sexual abuse in the home. Can she tell us what work her Department is doing to ensure that vulnerable children who are out of school are safe? What, if any, detached youth work and proactive targeting of children—at the very least, those on child protection plans—has she asked for in order to reach children living in dangerous and violent homes?
The Minister mentioned the £11 million of funding to the brilliant “See, Hear, Respond” scheme, but as she said herself, it will target 50,000 children, not the three-quarters of a million children today living in dangerous homes. Can she tell us whether any of the schemes that she has announced for children cover every child in our country, so that all child victims can benefit, not just those in some areas, where a postcode lottery determines whether we fund a child’s safety?
To continue on a theme, the Minister mentioned the support of independent child trafficking guardians—a brilliant scheme that we welcome. Can she confirm that that scheme is available to all children trafficked in our country, as was promised some years ago by this Government, or is it still, as I understand, just a pilot for some areas, leaving some trafficked children without support?
Domestic abuse and community support services are currently planning for redundancies in March—quite unbelievable in the middle of a global pandemic and a national lockdown. The sector, the Labour party, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and the Victims’ Commissioner have all called repeatedly for sustainable funding for at least the next year. The staff being made redundant are the very people the Minister needs for Ask for ANI to have any chance of success. Can the Minister confirm whether there have been any discussions with the sector or the Treasury about multi-year funding, and an end to the dangerous year-on-year short-termism in community services for adults and children?
The Government were too slow to act in the first and second lockdowns. I am very pleased that now, in the third lockdown, they are more alert to this issue. Labour, the shadow Home Secretary and I have been saying to the Government since April that they need to do more to protect those who cannot leave home. It is not enough to say that victims should reach out; we in this House, especially the Government, have a responsibility to ensure that when they do that there is help for them. If there is not, we risk losing them for good.
With the thought of the lockdown carrying on until March, it is imperative that the Government act, and act fast. All Members across this House need to assure their constituents that all, not just some, victims suffering from domestic abuse and other hidden harms can leave that abuse and access safety. There are people waiting and willing to help. That is the message that we need to send, and it is on all of us to ensure that that is the case.