Jess Phillips: The trafficking of woman and girls for sexual exploitation is a truly horrific crime. We are determined to safeguard victims and to bring the ruthless perpetrators of this crime to justice. We are working closely with law enforcement partners and the devolved administrations to tackle the drivers of trafficking for sexual exploitation, including through operational intensifications to target...
Jess Phillips: Everyone has the right to live in freedom from fear. Women and girls are still facing threats of violence and abuse and we will not stand by and let this continue. This Government considers tackling violence against women and girls (VAWG) a national emergency, and we are committed to halving levels of VAWG within the next decade. This includes tackling public sexual harassment, which can have...
Jess Phillips: It is unacceptable that anyone should be subjected to harassment or intimidation for exercising their legal right to have access to abortion services. We will quickly review where these arrangements have got to and commence safe access zones around abortion clinics imminently.
Jess Phillips: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what flexibility (a) NICE and (b) NHS England have to approve for use drugs that (i) are used in combination with other drugs, (ii) are used for various (A) conditions and (B) lines of treatment and (iii) provide significant benefits for some but not all patients; and what tools those organisations use to ensure the effectiveness of...
Jess Phillips: The Minister has stood in front of us today and said, “It would never be any of the kind of crimes you’re talking about.” The Prime Minister said last week at Prime Minister’s questions: “No one would be put on the scheme”— the early release scheme— “if they were deemed a threat to public safety.”—[Official Report, 15 May 2024; Vol. 750, c. 249.] The Minister is...
Jess Phillips: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wonder if you could help me to get some answers. The Minister said during the urgent question that certain criminals who are a risk to the public would not be released, unlike Charlie Taylor, the inspector of prisons, who said that high-risk prisoners are being released under the scheme. I have heard of a case where it took the court 29 months to...
Jess Phillips: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of visas have been granted to the non-British dependents of (a) British Israelis and (b) British Palestinians that have been repatriated since 7 October 2023.
Jess Phillips: I fear the Minister is coming to the end of her remarks, but she has not addressed my new clause 44. Does she have any comment on it?
Jess Phillips: It is not that amendment.
Jess Phillips: I absolutely agree, and it can truly happen to anybody—we have seen how people even in this House can be coerced into things. It is dangerous. If there are criminal charges for blackmail, sexual violence or whatever against a person, grooming should be an aggravating factor, regardless of age, on the basis—as the right hon. Gentleman rightly says—of a differential of vulnerability....
Jess Phillips: I was not expecting it to be me—thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have tabled amendments. I am sure everybody in this House will be delighted to hear that I will not be pushing all of them to a vote, because we could be here all night if I did. Many people have put in a great amount of work, including the previous speaker, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison). I wonder...
Jess Phillips: It is a pleasure to see in the Public Gallery some of the families who have championed this issue in the west midlands. Am I right in thinking—I really hope that I am not—that this measure covers only those convicted of the rape of a child, not other sexual offences against a child and a child aged 13 or over?
Jess Phillips: Will the Leader of the House give way?
Jess Phillips: Of all the people who said that they had had loads of vexatious claims, how many ended in arrest? I imagine almost none. Is the right hon. Lady saying that because she has heard of cases where the police would never be called and there would be no arrest, we should make it charge, not arrest? I am confused by what she is saying. And if there is such a problem, what is she doing about it?
Jess Phillips: rose—
Jess Phillips: I just want to know who gave the right hon. Lady that advice about confidentiality, and what qualifications they have.
Jess Phillips: I rise, in an unusual moment, to agree with the hon. Member for Shipley (Sir Philip Davies), and with the point that the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) also laid out in a lot of detail. The reason why the proxy voting, the panel and the other things were originally in the motion was that the motion was originally based on arrest. This House did not get a chance to vote on that....
Jess Phillips: I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention, and I hope that he took the fact that I was seeking to correct him in the spirit in which it was intended. I will just point out that on the issues of arrest, sexual violence and safeguarding, I am usually right.
Jess Phillips: Yes. Today, just on this one day, I have spoken to two women who were raped by Members of this Parliament. That is a fairly standard day for me. I notice that they are not the people who have been mentioned much so far today. Some of them told me what they wanted me to say in this debate. I will just read out some of what was sent to me: that exclusion “at the point of charge sends a clear...
Jess Phillips: I guess it would entirely depend on the sexual offence, but even though I jokingly said earlier that I will be on the panel, I can recognise enough my own particular bias in this regard. I do think that exclusion would be the answer, but the truth is that so will most people. To address the point made by the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg) that this Chamber is...
