I start by commending the hon. Member for Stone for introducing the Bill. We will not seek to obstruct its passage on to the statute book. That includes not talking for very long, the Committee will be pleased to hear.

The hon. Gentleman does a real service to efforts to tackle violence against women and girls and to promote gender equality. By introducing the Bill, he gives greater confidence to Members across the House, men or women, to speak on the issue. One of the challenges of gender equality is that all too often it is treated as a women’s issue, but in an international development context, holding back women in a society does not just hold back women; it holds back societies. Certainly in my new role on the shadow international development team, I was keen to have this aspect of the brief under my name, not least because it might give confidence to other men on the Opposition Benches to speak out more clearly and more regularly. I also commend the Secretary of State for picking up the Bill and running with it, and making the parliamentary process a straightforward one.

One in three women worldwide will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, and in some countries violence against women is near universal. The World Bank identifies gender-based violence as one of the biggest risks facing women—more of a threat to their well-being than cancer or car accidents. Given all that, it is clear that one Bill will never be enough, but this Bill is a brilliant step in the right direction. It is surely a great thing to begin to look, to monitor and to place a responsibility on the Secretary of State to look at gender issues as she makes the decisions that she must make on funding programmes, and to be accountable to Parliament for doing so.

All too often gender inequality, reproductive and sexual health, child care, violence against women and girls and other issues are treated as women’s issues. We know that it is primarily men who perpetrate violence and engage in risky sexual and drug-taking behaviour—risks that all too often are passed on to their unknowing or powerless wives and girlfriends—but they are habitually missing from the debate. At the moment women and girls feature 81 times in DFID’s list of 69 projects aimed at tackling violence against women: men and boys do not feature once. There is a real piece of work to be done to change men’s attitudes and to look for ways to promote gender equality. I hope that the Bill will help to do so. It is also crucial that we shift the focus from prevention to cure. The mental and sometimes physical scars of being a victim are often incurable, but living with the fear of violence can be as psychologically and physically damaging as experiencing it. That is why the Bill is so important.

I have a couple of questions to ask about the amendments before the Bill continues its hopefully speedy progress. First, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will want to  allay my fears about the change of language. There seems to have been a weakening of language from,

“the Secretary of State shall have regard”,

in clause 1 to,

“the Secretary of State shall have regard to the desirability of” in the new clause. The words,

“to further sustainable development in the social, economic and environmental circumstances for women”,

are to be removed. I am sure there are good drafting reasons for this, which I hope the Minister will explain.

Thinking about some of the reporting requirement changes, we know that millennium development goal 3 is central to our global commitments, but we will soon be in a post-2015 world. What implications does this have? Also, will the Minister or the hon. Member for Stone speak to the broader commitment to mainstream gender equality across all future goals? With those brief comments, I wish the Bill well in Committee and look forward to debating it further should it pass today.