Speeches by Phillips.

“Will the Minister give way?”

“I recognise that very few rapists went to prison under the previous Administration and that the increase in rapists, especially child rapists, going to prison under this Government has been huge. I congratulate the Government on that. It is, however, my opinion that there should be more exemptions within the release sc…”

“As somebody who was in some of the rooms where this policy was being discussed, I pay tribute to the Secretary of State. She has fought incredibly hard, and by no means has any of it been rushed for an announcement; she has worked incredibly hard on it. Last week, the Government announced that we would be age-verifying…”

“I do not have any notes written down, because when I tried to write things down this morning, I just kept crying, but I shall try to get through this regardless. Many brilliant things will be said about Jo today, and my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) has given us much insight. I want to start m…”

“She would have loved you, Zubir.”

“It has been an honour and a pleasure to work with my hon. Friend over the years, and I absolutely agree with her. Does she agree that perpetrating domestic abuse or sexual violence should eliminate someone from being able to hold such office?”

“I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute back to the Home Secretary, who has worked incredibly hard on the issues on which the Government made their announcement today. The BBC carries the headline that we will stop children sending and receiving images; can she say for the House that the change will also s…”

“The hon. Gentleman gives me an opportunity to say that in the documents, those who may have had disappearing messages or who deleted their messages are listed almost as nil returns. I was one of those people who was asked for my messages and had an actual nil return. It would be good to have more transparency about tho…”

“Agreed.”

“I am not from the Department that deals with legal aid.”

“It is an evergreen issue that there are 43 different police forces and very little power to tell them exactly what they have to do on certain things. That is why we set up the national centre specifically because I do not think that what the West Midlands police does on terrorism, for example, is wildly different from …”

“Yes. People are often quite keen. Other Government Departments are often keen to come along. I am like, “I’m not sure what you’re going to bring to the party,” but I am trying to come up with a way to make solar energy about violence against women and girls, so if anyone has one I am happy to hear it.”

“Yes, of course, otherwise we would not have set out to do it. You will not halve the incidence of rape unless you work very closely on the prevention of rape. The fundamental is: what makes men rape?”

“I agree. I find that to be a maddening truth. We digress, but part of the action plan about modern slavery is a really specific focus on the policing and the criminal charging of it, because after all these years it is still woefully low. It seems like the bar must be—there is a lot of work that needs doing on that.”

“I can only apologise if people feel left out. We undertook a huge series of—I think it was 12—roundtables in the build-up to the strategy and there were 100 different organisations.”

“You can go for it quickly, yes. Are you all right? People forget that they also have diaries and I am not the centre of the universe.”

“The progress that is undertaken, from the Home Office’s perspective of what our deliverables are within the violence against women and girls strategy, is monitored entirely through my ministerial post and all of the ordinary systems. I meet with the Home Secretary every single week and discuss it with her.”

“That is correct.”

“There is a case precedent where that is not taken into account. There was a case that was fought. I cannot remember the name of the case, but there is a case that was fought.”

“I am Jess Phillips. I am the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls.”