Rebecca Smith

In 2021, Plymouth, part of which is in my constituency of South West Devon, had two horrific tragedies affecting a number of people. We had the Keyham shootings, which were incel-linked, hence my question about that earlier, and the tragic murder of Bobbi-Anne McLeod. I know that both Ministers are well aware of those cases. What came out of those tragedies was an opportunity to shine a light on VAWG in the city in a way that had never happened before, as well as to see what was already being done, and what more could be done to make things even better, and ultimately to make women and girls safe, and feel safe. The Plymouth violence against women and girls commission was established in response, and I had the privilege of leading it. It took us six months, but we worked cross party, and we reported back with 15 recommendations, which were supported by organisations and businesses right across the city. Hon. Members may be interested to know that we deliberately called it the “Male Violence Against Women and Girls Report”. At the time, it felt as though we were breaking ground, but we have moved on a long way since then. In January 2023, one of the recommendations, which was for a Westminster Hall debate, came to fruition, so my name was mentioned in Hansard. The Ministers both took part in that debate, which my predecessor, Sir Gary Streeter, organised, and it enabled us to share our learning, which we were really keen to do. We all know that violence against women and girls is a huge topic, and it is very difficult sometimes even to figure out the best way to approach it. That is why we approached it through the lens of public health. We recognised that there are no quick fixes, and that multiple factors influence the likelihood of someone being a perpetrator or a victim, and that was key to what we did. We wanted to change culture and behaviour in the city, and to support women and girls by being victim-focused and trauma-informed. I pay tribute to the organisations that were already working hard to do that in the city, including Trevi, First Light, Ahimsa, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and our police and crime commissioner, Alison Hernandez, as well as the police and the city council. In particular, I want to name Hannah Shead, who has worked for Trevi for a number of years and is now moving on. I thought it would be nice to get her mentioned. We also recognise the importance of creating safe spaces and the building blocks for the future. That was two years ago, and I will briefly update the House on what we have done since. A key thing we did was appoint a strategic lead in the city, and there are now four women—Meghan, Verity, Tracy and Lisa—whose job it is to bring everything that is happening across the city together. If any Members want to take a good example back to their constituencies, I would highly recommend that one. On changing culture, there was a focus on allyship and education for those of all ages. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has done fantastic work in schools focusing on pornography, and we have seen the establishment of a group called Man Culture, which wants to work collaboratively on reducing VAWG in the city. It received funding under the serious violence duty, and has delivered workshops that facilitated conversations about healthy and positive masculinity, a subject raised today. A huge amount is being done to support women and girls and to make it easier to access support. Since 2022, the city has been pursuing co-ordinated community response accreditation. It is working with Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse, and we want to ensure that we have an assessment of how we deal with all this multi-agency work. There has been a review of the city’s multi-agency risk assessment conference, which has led to improvements and a new steering group, which is ongoing. It is looking at developing a multi-agency tasking and co-ordination process in the city, and the working group for that was launched in autumn 2024. We want the council, police, probation and local charities to work with perpetrators, engaging with them, disrupting their behaviour, and seeing high-harm domestic abuse perpetrators tackled. A huge amount has been done on creating safe spaces. Of particular note is—the House will have to bear with me; it is a long name—Plymouth’s evening and night-time economy predatory behaviour disruption partnership. It is working on a pilot looking at how we can bring together civic and criminal justice tools to tackle predatory behaviours. Criminal justice tools are often not enough, or do not hit a trigger point. In the past 12 months, we have had 12 community protection notice warnings served, one antisocial behaviour stage 2 warning served, and five meetings at police stations with words of advice. That is cracking action. We have brought together those criminal justice actions to tackle that predatory behaviour. Well done to everyone involved. The key is working together and holding each other to account. Still on the theme of safe spaces, I will touch on single-sex spaces. I ask the House to hear me out, as I say this with a real spirit of gentleness. I appreciate that there are a lot of women out there—some are my constituents—for whom this issue is particularly important, and it is important that their voices be heard. There is a concern among women about the lack of clarity over language and guidelines, and that is why my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch), when she was Women and Equalities Minister, called for examples of guidance that might wrongly suggest that people have a legal right to access all single-sex spaces and services on the basis of their self-identified gender. The new Government responded to that in December, and we are concerned that it has led to a lack of clarity about whether a single-sex space can be used by those who self-identify, or is specifically just for women.