Speeches by Phillips.

“Obviously I was not responsible for previous strategies, but more broadly, strategies in the past—and certainly ones that I have worked under as both a frontline worker and as an Opposition politician campaigning in this space—were much more focused on domestic abuse initially, and then moving into the space of violenc…”

“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. We report to No. 10. The Prime Minister takes a very keen interest in it. He has held a series of Cabinet-level meetings—of which there is one this week—where he gets the relevant Cabinet Secretaries from the different Government Departments and talks to them about progress against the strategy.”

“I have to say, funnily enough, when going through my correspondence in the car on the way down and signing it off, I thought, “Has Karren Brady taken over?” Then, when I saw it was your name at the end, I just thought that I must have read it wrong at the beginning. I apologise for that.”

“I have attended one where that was the case. VAWG is only one part of the overarching mission of the Home Office’s safer streets mission.”

“When the safer streets mission board chooses that it is focusing on VAWG, VAWG has absolutely been discussed there.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“Not the whole of it.”

“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.”

“That is the VAWG board, yes. I am never bored on that, actually. I like to give out gold stars and whatever the opposite of gold stars is. That has representation from 14 different Government Departments, including those in the devolved Administrations as well. That is where we track the progress of the violence agains…”

“Agreed.”

“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.”

“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?”

“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.”

“The consultation is complete and work is being done to analyse that. I do not wish to get ahead of the King’s Speech.”