Jess Phillips vows ‘change is coming’ with violence against women strategy

The government is ‘rising to the challenge of the national emergency that we face’ with its long-awaited strategy to halve violence against women and girls, Home Office minister Jess Phillips has said.

She told MPs it ‘does something that none before it ever has’ by deploying the full power of the state to tackle the scourge rather than leaving it solely to the police and courts.

Outlining the three main goals, Ms Phillips said it will aim to prevent boys and men from ever becoming abusers, bear down on those who do become perpetrators, and support victims to get justice.

Tackling the ‘epidemic’ of violence against women and girls will be challenging, she said: ‘But I have never felt more confident that we can rise to it than I do today, because change is coming.’

It will be backed by £1 billion in funding, split between victims services and providing safe housing for survivors who escape their abusers.

One on eight women in England and Wales experienced domestic abuse, sexual assault or stalking in the year to March 2025, according to Office for National Statistics figures.

The police record an average of around 200 rapes each day, with many more going unreported, while more than 150 women are killed each year.

‘Behind every one of these figures is a woman or girl whose life has been shattered, and behind every crime lies a perpetrator who all too often gets away scot-free,’ Ms Phillips said.

‘For too long we have accepted these statistics as simply a fact of life. Today this government says no more.

‘We are calling violence against women and girls the national emergency that it is.’

Schools in England will be given £20 million in funding to ‘tackle radicalisation and confront concerning behaviour long before it grows into abuse or violence’.

Children in in secondary schools will be taught about healthy relationships, and teachers trained to spot harmful attitudes in young men early on.

Parents and frontline professional will also be given the support they need ‘to spot the warning signs of misogyny and act on them’, Ms Phillips said.

The government will also crack down on deepfake abuse online with new laws banning AI ‘nudification’ tools that turn pictures of real people into fake nude pictures and video without their consent.

She said: ‘We must stop these images being created and shared while tackling the root causes of negative influences on young men in their schools, homes and online.

‘That’s why we will join forces with tech companies to stop predators online and prevent the next generation from being exploited by sexual extortion and abuse.

‘Nudification apps are not used for harmless pranks. They devastate young people’s lives, and we will ensure those who create or supply them face real consequences.’

The strategy also aims to bear down on perpetrators with specialist rape and sex offences investigators introduced to every police force.

The DNA database will also be expanded to include Y-STR male profiles ‘allowing us to reopen cold cases and bring perpetrators to justice many years after they thought they had got away with it’.

Domestic abuse protection orders will also be rolled out across England and Wales.

Under the orders, courts can set conditions for as long as needed to protect victims of all forms of domestic abuse, including economic, coercive behaviour, stalking and ‘honour’-based violence.

Perpetrators could be subjected to tagging or behaviour change programmes under the stronger, more flexible measures and those who breach the orders could face up to five years in prison.

Ms Phillips told the Commons: ‘This strategy is more than a document, it is a call from a government that recognises this as a national emergency, a government that is willing to back up its words with action.

‘Ending violence against women and girls is the work of us all.

‘Those who might spot a young boy at risk of turning down a darker path, those who might see troubling signs of behaviour in their friends, or perhaps even themselves. It will take all of society to step up and end the epidemic of abuse and violence that shames our country.

‘The challenge is great, but I have never felt more confident that we can rise to it than I do today, because change is coming. We can make women and girls safe at last.’

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch criticised the strategy as a ‘big mess’.

She also said that anti-misogyny classes for teenage boys are only being rolled out because ‘some people in Labour’ watched the Netflix drama Adolescence.

Mrs Badenoch said: ‘They need to do the right thing, put police officers on the street, stop people who come from cultures that don’t respect women coming into our country, foreign criminals removed as soon as they commit crimes.’

Domestic abuse commissioner for England and Wales Dame Nicole Jacobs said the commitments ‘do not go far enough’ to see the number of people experiencing abuse start to fall.

She added: ‘Today’s strategy rightly recognises the scale of this challenge and the need to address the misogynistic attitudes that underpin it, but the level of investment to achieve this falls seriously short.’

Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza welcomed the range of measures, which included many of her recommendations, but raised concerns ‘too much of this strategy will only protect girls who are 16 or over’.

She added: ‘We need robust data measures to see if the strategy is working, but this cannot be at the expense of listening and responding to the risks facing every girl from a young age.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.