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Sentencing bill plan for fewer offenders to go to jail will undermine VAWG strategy, victims' commissioner claims
Here are some more extracts from the statement about the VAWG strategy issued by Claire Waxman, the incoming victims’ commissioner for England and Wales. Here comments about funding were quoted at 9.25am. But other points are worth noting.
Waxman says that, while elements of the plan are welcome, it remains to be seen if, overall, it will provide what is needed.
While many individual initiatives are welcome, it remains to be seen whether the overall Strategy provides the scale, pace, and leadership required to match the government’s ambition - and truly tackle this emergency.
She specifically welcomes the plan to roll out nationally the Child House model for supporting child abuse victims.
In terms of specific measures, the national rollout of the Child House model - pioneered by Lighthouse in London - is a welcome step I have long called for. It marks vital progress towards delivering on the recommendations of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse.
There is more about the Child House model here, and more on the Lighthouse here.
She also welcomes the expansion of Operation Soteria, a police/CPS partnership to improve the prosecution of rape and serious sexual offences.
I also welcome initiatives such as the expansion of Operation Soteria to reduce the re-traumatisation too many victims experience in the trial process. Long after my 2019 rape review, ‘end-to-end’ reform of the justice system for serious sexual offences is finally in sight - but only if the government now delivers on its commitment to independent legal advice for rape survivors, and tackles the long waits for justice.
She says plans in the sentencing bill to limit the number of offenders being jailed will undermine the VAWG strategy.
Without clear, sustainable investment and cross-government leadership, I am concerned we run the risk of the Strategy amounting to less than the sum of its parts; a wish-list of tactical measures rather than a bold, unifying strategic framework.
The Sentencing Bill underlines this lack of cohesion. Victims need confidence that the system will protect them, yet under the proposals in the bill, the reality is that many abusers will avoid prison entirely or benefit from early release - undermining the very safety this Strategy seeks to guarantee.
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Phillips thanks government colleagues who have helped with this. She acknowledges that she may have been “slightly annoying at times” as she asked for support on these measures.
Phillips says she has only had time to sum up some of the items in the strategy.
But, taken together, they show a transformational approach to what the government is doing, she says.
Phillips makes statement to MPs about VAWG strategy
Jess Phillips, the safeguarding and VAWG minister, is making her statement to MPs.
She starts by saying the government is treating violence against women and girls as the national emergency that it is.
She says this strategy is different from previous ones because it will use the entire power of the state to tackle the problem.
It has three strands, she says: preventing violence in the first place; stopping re-offending; and supporting victims.
On prevention, she says the government is investing £20m to stop misogynistic views being embedded in the first place.
She says schools will be given more resources. And teachers will be taught to spot the warning signs.
The government wants to make the UK one of the places with the strongest laws protecting people online.
She says nudification tools will be banned.
Emma Reynolds says farming and food partnership board being set up to help make farming more profitable
Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, has announced that she is setting up a farming and food partnership board. In a news release, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs says:
Chaired by Emma Reynolds, with farming minister Dame Angela Eagle as deputy, the board will bring together senior leaders from farming, food production, retail, finance and government to take a practical, partnership-led approach from farm to fork to strengthen our food production …
The board will focus on removing barriers to investment, improving how the supply chain works and unlocking growth opportunities across different parts of primary production and processing. It will have a clear emphasis on supporting agricultural productivity, homegrown British produce and strengthening food security.
Reynolds made the announcement as she published the review by Minette Batters, the former NFU president, into farming profitability. It includes 57 recommendations that the government will consider.
UK willing to share with EU allies risks of using frozen Russian allies to help Ukraine, No 10 suggests
Downing Street has indicated that Britain is prepared to share the risks with European allies of using frozen Russian assets to aid Ukraine.
At the morning lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson was repeatedly asked if the government was willing to accept Belgium’s requests to share the risk of unlocking frozen Russian assets for use in Ukraine.
He indicated the Government would, telling reporters:
I think it’s evident within the government’s actions that what we want to see is those immobilised assets used to support Ukraine.
We believe that delivering these funds sends a very clear signal to Putin that he cannot outlast the support of the UK and our allies, that is what we remain focused on.
Part of the VAWG strategy being announced shortly will involve getting schools to teach their pupils more about consent, misogyny and healthy relationships. One person who might not approve is Nick Gibb, the former Tory schools minister. In a memoir published recently, Reforming Lessons: Why English Schools Have Improved Since 2010 and How This Was Achieved, written with Robert Peal, he is critical of interventions like this. He says:
On the question of adding non-academic subjects to the national curriculum, calls in the media that ‘schools should really teach [insert favoured issues here]’ are the bane of life of any school reformer interested in raising standards … In 2018, Parents and Teachers for Excellence (a campaign group sympathetic to our reforms) decided to monitor this phenomenon, which they termed ‘curriculum dumping’. That year, they identified 213 such calls for the school curriculum to incorporate new topics, including knife crime, obesity, gambling, litter picking, bushcraft, sadomasochism, Love Island, sign language, the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, revenge porn, tree climbing, trampolining, and, rather extraordinarily, ‘how to swear’. In individual cases, all of these issues (well, almost all) had merit in being known, but taken together, no school in the country has enough hours in the year to cover such a panoply of fleeting media fancies.
Many ex-ministers write books, but mostly they focus on politics. Gibb was unusual because he did the same job, on and off, for more than 10 years, and he became a proper expert in his portfolio. As a political memoir, his book is exceptional because it’s a serious book about policy. For anyone at all interested in education, Reforming Lessons is a good read.
Ash Regan faces two-day suspension from Holyrood over code of conduct breach during gender recognition row
Severin Carrell
Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.
Ash Regan, a former Scottish party minister who defected to Alex Salmond’s nationalist party Alba, faces a two-day suspension from the Scottish parliament for breaching its code of conduct in a row over gender recognition.
Holyrood’s standards committee has recommended Regan, who now sits as an independent after quitting Alba some months after losing a leadership contest, be suspended on a Wednesday and Thursday – its busiest two days. That needs to be approved by a full vote in parliament, after the Christmas recess.
It ruled she had breached the MSP’s code by posting a claim on the social media site X which attacked the Scottish Green MSP Maggie Chapman, over remarks Chapman made about the UK supreme court ruling on the definition of woman.
Chapman has been one of Holyrood’s most vociferous supporters of trans rights; Regan is one of its most vociferous gender critical activists.
Regan said on X: “I’ve formally reported Maggie Chapman MSP to the presiding officer and standards committee following her dangerous dismissal of the supreme court’s ruling on the Equality Act as a ‘political attack’. MSPs have a duty to uphold the law, not undermine it.”
After considering a report from Holyrood’s ethics commissioner, the committee unanimously agreed this was a breach of part 9.1 of the code of conduct, which bars MSPs from disclosing, communicating or discussing complaints about other MSPs before a report on that complaint has been published.
VAWG minister Jess Phillips says UK will consider results of Australia's social media ban for under-16s 'very closely'
In interviews last week, Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, played down the prospect of the UK following Australia and banning under-16s from having their own social media accounts. She did not rule out the idea, but she said she did not believe it would be easy to enforce.
But, in her interviews this morning, Jess Phillips, the minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls (VAWG) sounded much more positive about the Australian experience, saying the government would consider it “very closely”. She told Times Radio:
What I would say is that you cannot have a violence against women and girls policy that doesn’t look at the online environment, or certainly one that looks at misogyny and the behaviours of boys who grow into men without looking at an online world …
The government will be looking very, very closely at what is happening in Australia, and we would always take the best of what is available around the world with regard to the safety and security of children.
But Phillips also said the UK had been a “trailblazer” for online safety.
Today, when the full policies are announced in the violence against women and girls strategy, you will see that online harm, online harms to children, are very, very much part of that.
MPs cheer as speaker tells them employment rights bill has received royal assent
The employment rights bill has received royal assent, which means it is now the Employment Rights Act and it is law, Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, told the Commons this morning. Labour MPs cheered when they heard the news.
