Jess Phillips

Obviously, it was a manifesto commitment of this Government to ensure that there were specialist RASSO—rape and serious sexual offences—teams in every police force, for the exact reason that my hon. Friend has outlined. It is not in the gift of Ministers standing here to ensure that something exists in every police force, because—quite rightly—of operational independence. However, there is a need for standardisation. For example, we would not allow the same lack of standardisation in response to terrorism—a point that Lady Elish makes in her review—and yet we allow it with regard to crimes against women. That is fundamental. Of course, I want to see an increase in police charging and police reporting, but that is not how we will measure whether we are decreasing incidents. Only 10% of victims of violence against women and girls ever talk to the police, so that in and of itself would never be a good measure. Of course, I want to see rates increasing, but that does not mean that the crime is always going up; it might just mean we are getting better at detecting it.