Jess Phillips

Jess Phillips

Labour — Birmingham Yardley

Speaking in the House of Commons on 2 March 2026

Debate

Small Religious Organisations: Safeguarding

Contribution

With the mandatory reporting duty, a huge body of work will go into guidance about how to report. However small—however nervous—they are covered by the duty. I have only three minutes still to speak. To the issue of faith-based charities promoting misogyny, I hear the concerns raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire. The Charity Commission has apparently reviewed the National Secular Society report on religious charities promoting misogyny and confirmed that it has already assessed and responded to a number of incidents. I will follow up on that action, and I will gladly meet him once I have a fully robust answer. He invites me to annoy, I suppose, the Treasury—I do not think he used those words—but I agree with him that, as in the examples he gave, the idea that an organisation can promote the hatred of women or the supplication of people’s wives and also be considered a charity is an alien one. I will follow up on that. Furthermore, as the Prime Minister announced recently, the Government are already working with the commission on plans to give it additional powers to help tackle extremist abuse, which will bar anyone convicted of hate crimes from serving as a trustee and make it easier for the commission to act against anyone undertaking that. The changes will be made after a public consultation that is coming this month, which I invite everybody to take part in. I will speak to the Department of Health and Social Care on medical coercion. I do not lead on that as a Minister, but I do not disagree with my hon. Friend that people must be able to make those decisions in full view. I thank my hon. Friends for their contributions. I promise that we will continue to try to work together, because we all want the same thing. Question put and agreed to.

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