Jess Phillips: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many disclosures of domestic abuse his Department’s Ask for ANI scheme received in its pharmacy sites in (a) 2022 and (b) 2023.
Jess Phillips: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many disclosures of domestic abuse his Department’s Ask for ANI scheme received in (a) Jobcentre and (b) Jobs and Benefit Office sites in 2023.
Jess Phillips: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his Department plans to publish the evaluation of the Ask for ANI scheme.
Jess Phillips: Were you born then?
Jess Phillips: The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland did not ask me to press new clause 50. However, I can see from looking through the list of supporters that she has managed to unite me and the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson)—she may be the only person ever to have managed that. I hope he doesn’t take my ribbing too seriously and change his vote on something. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland...
Jess Phillips: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. I did not know until moments ago, when the Minister was speaking, that we were allowed props. My phone is not a prop, but I inherited the moving of this motion about an hour ago and the prop I have is some messages that the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) has sent me. I signed her new clause 50 mainly because of many...
Jess Phillips: Is the Minister still talking about murder? I am not denying that it would be taken into account in murder, but it would not be taken into account in theft or the car incidences. It would not be taken into account like any offence would be for a victim of modern slavery. I am not talking about murder; I recognise the environment for that.
Jess Phillips: Terrible defence.
Jess Phillips: I am afraid all the Minister is doing is identifying that this change is needed. So that woman did not tell her mother what her cocaine-fuelled partner, who her mother probably hated, was doing to her? Her mother has probably been isolated from seeing her daughter. She did not tell her mother? Has the Minister told her mother about every terrible thing that has ever happened to her? This is...
Jess Phillips: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Jess Phillips: It may very well be a “fact” that that woman was not successful in getting the defence of duress. In different circumstances, would she have been able to get the defence that I am talking about today? That would be easier to prove, because cases of duress require relevant characteristics to be established, including “battered woman syndrome” and “learned helplessness”. Those are...
Jess Phillips: I will just quote the Minister to herself. Earlier, when we were discussing spiking, she said that it was all too well and easy to say, “This already exists. We shouldn’t do anything about it.” I am just quoting her back at herself. These defences already exist.
Jess Phillips: Apart from the Post Office.
Jess Phillips: I will just read the first bit of my speech again and then sit down, because we have to get through proceedings today. More than six years ago, in 2017, the Home Office Minister for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability said there needed to be “a root and branch review of how women are treated in the criminal justice system”. I will welcome it when it eventually comes. I beg to ask leave...
Jess Phillips: Does the Minister know how many cases of that were convicted last year, or in how many life has ever been given?
Jess Phillips: Fewer than 10.
Jess Phillips: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Jess Phillips: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Jess Phillips: Over six years ago, in 2017, the then Home Office Minister for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability said: “There needs to be a root and branch review of how women are treated in the criminal justice system when they themselves are victims of abuse”. However, no such review has ever taken place, and the criminal law still fails to protect those who experience abuse that drives them to...
Jess Phillips: I recognise all that good work, and I was pleased to see that, but that is specifically about murder and killing, not offending per se, which is what I was talking about. The Law Commission will not come back to the example I gave, with duress defences being used. I was talking about magistrates court cases, where medical evidence of domestic abuse needs to be produced to get a duress defence.
