I would like to briefly respond to this excellent Second Reading debate. I thank all colleagues for coming in, and we have heard powerful contributions from all parts of the House. As the Minister said, it is particularly good not only that we have heard from the accomplished Women and Equalities Committee Chair, my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), but that a galaxy of former holders of office are represented here. I welcome the Minister stepping into her new responsibilities, and she clearly has plenty of good advisers.
I will not comment on every speech, as some Members want to get on to the business to follow, nor will I add to the long list of organisations outside this place that
have been mentioned, but I do want to emphasise one that was mentioned, the Soroptimists. They are very active and important members of the Tunbridge Wells community, and they are represented in the Public Gallery, today so I emphasise my welcome to them.
It is clear from the speeches made today that there is universal recognition that public sexual harassment is an all too frequent experience that women and girls, especially, endure every day in all parts of the country. The most powerful change we can and must make is cultural—it must become as obviously unacceptable to abuse a woman on the streets of our country on the basis of her sex as it is to abuse someone on the basis of their race or sexuality—but the law can play an important role in accelerating that cultural change. As we heard, the lack of any specific crime of public sexual harassment can contribute to uncertainty on the part of victims as to whether it is worth reporting it to the police, as well as to uncertainty, I dare say, in the minds of perpetrators who might commit these crimes that this is a crime. They should be well aware of that. The Bill will make a significant step in establishing that deliberately intimidating and abusing women is a crime.
Good suggestions have been made about how the Bill might be improved and I hope that the Bill Committee will provide that opportunity. That said, I am conscious that, for a private Member’s Bill that does not have the luxury of Government time attached to it, what might be the Bill’s ideal scope and coverage has to be proportional to the opportunity that we have, which is to change the law to make public sexual harassment an offence for the first time in our history, and to do so before the summer. Future Bills, whether they are Government or private Members’ Bills, could make further reforms, and I hope that Members will have that in mind in Committee.
I want to end by thanking the Home Secretary and the Minister for their support and for the hard work of their excellent officials in advising me on the Bill’s contents. I am grateful to the Government Whips Office and its officials. In particular, my hon. Friend the Comptroller of His Majesty’s Household is very effective, and she is assisted very ably today by my equally honourable Friend, the Vice-Chamberlain of His Majesty’s Household. I also thank the superb Clerk of Private Members’ Bills in the House Service, Anne-Marie Griffiths, and the print team for its patience and responsiveness when the deadlines for printing the papers for the Bill sometimes went close to the wire. In the hope that we might make the first big step towards safety and confidence for women and girls right across the country, I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).