My Lords, I was very happy to put my name to this amendment, and I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, for the eloquent and detailed way in which she has introduced it.
At Second Reading on 5 January, I mentioned that I would raise the issue of misogyny and probably put forward an amendment in Committee. First, those of your Lordships who, like me, laboured through the Second Reading—there were no less than 90 contributors —were brave, but, secondly, it is interesting to note that, of all the contributors, I think I was the only one to actually mention the dreaded noun “misogyny”. I was not surprised when the Minister, in her summing up of so many contributions, also did not mention misogyny.
We fast forward to Committee, and on 8 February—the fifth day in Committee—I put forward an amendment, ably assisted by the noble Lord, Lord Young, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Bull and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, to all of whom I am extremely grateful. As the noble Lord, Lord Young, said, the Minister basically said, “We can see it is quite a good idea, but we have asked the Law Commission to look at this, and we will wait and see what it recommends”.
Now we fast forward to today—17 March—the fourth day of Report, and Amendment 87B. Harold Wilson once said that one week is a long time in politics. I do not know about the rest of your Lordships, but, for me, the last 10 weeks since Second Reading have felt like a lifetime in politics. But more to the point, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, said very movingly on Monday, the last 10 weeks have not only seemed like a lifetime, they have also seen the loss of no less than 30 lives—30 women killed by men, whose names she read out on Monday.
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I pay tribute to the police forces that have decided, on their own initiative, to start recording incidents of misogyny as perceived by women and have started tabulating that properly, listening to the women and taking note of what they say. I especially pay tribute to Nottinghamshire, which was the pioneer in this, starting in April 2016, and to the chief constable at the time, Sue Fish, who was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy. Coincidentally, she happened to be on “Woman’s Hour” yesterday. I would like your Lordships to listen and reflect on what Sue Fish, the retired chief constable of Nottinghamshire, said. She said that while for herself reporting a crime against a property would not be “an issue” if she was going to the police, for a crime committed against herself, she would “probably struggle” reporting that to the police because she would be concerned about how she would be judged. She said:
“I also know in terms of conviction rates and the challenges of going through the criminal justice system, as a woman, it’s thankless … Endless repeated humiliation, telling your story over and over again, worrying whether you’re ever going to be believed, putting yourself through that repeatedly, as well as the shame of what’s happened to you.”
Turning to the police forces in general in England and Wales, while admitting that many of our police are wonderful in every way and are completely aligned with what we are trying to achieve in this amendment, she also said:
“I think there is still significant parts of policing where there is a very toxic culture of sexism, of misogyny that objectifies women”.
That gives us something to reflect upon.
I pay tribute to the person who has been the most vocal in Parliament raising this as an issue over several years: Stella Creasy. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, and thank her for taking on the baton from me from Committee. I also thank the Minister, who has been, as usual, extremely helpful during this process. I know she has been listening. I know this is something that she feels personally, and I am looking forward very much to her response. If it is positive, I will jump up and down with joy.
I would like to leave your Lordships with one other thought. It comes from earlier on today, after Prime Minister’s Questions in another place. Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC’s chief political reporter, wrote on BBC online:
“From a political point of view, there is no agreement on how to tackle the issue of violence against women, and what the next steps should be.”
As I am a Cross-Bencher, noble Lords would expect me to take a rather dim view of that. But I really do think that the issues we are discussing about violence against women—predominantly male violence against women—have absolutely nothing to do with politics whatever. They are to do with fundamental human rights, dignity and respect for one another.
Every single one of us in this Chamber was born of a mother; many of us have daughters, sisters, nieces and grandchildren. It is unacceptable. We have to start moving forward, and I think this amendment would be an excellent way for the Government to indicate that they are really listening and for the majority of the police forces that I am sure are considering this to actually take the plunge and do it.