The country is facing an epidemic of violence against women and girls. If the first duty of a government is to keep its citizens safe, then the former Tory government failed that test utterly and completely.
Just 2.6 per cent of rape cases see a charge the same year. Domestic abusers are being released from prison early because the Conservatives lost control of the prison system. And many girls face torrents of abuse both online and in person; the previous government simply failed to tackle the scale of misogyny, including the online radicalisation of some boys and young men.
Keir Starmer understands the scale of this problem. As the former director of public prosecutions, he worked to change the law and to secure justice for John and Penny Clough, whose daughter Jane was tragically killed by an abusive ex-partner who had been granted bail after being charged with rape. Last year, Labour’s mission to make Britain’s streets safe included an ambition to halve the level of violence against women and girls.
This will not be an easy task and will not happen overnight. We will tackle the misogyny which is the root of this violence, enable police to respond effectively, support courts so victims can get justice, and stop abusers from moving from household to household, destroying lives with impunity.
That is why we will establish new specialist rape courts to clear the scandalous backlog in rape cases. It’s why we will put domestic abuse experts in 999 call centres to ensure that police respond effectively to such cases, and specialist rape units in every police force. It’s why we will empower Ofsted to carry out safeguarding checks and will reform the curriculum to tackle the scourge of misogyny in schools. It’s why we will introduce legal advocates to ensure that victims in rape cases can uphold their rights and stop their personal information being used inappropriately.
And it’s why we are proud of Labour’s Equality Act and the vital protections for women it contains.
Nowhere has the former government’s failure to keep women safe been more evident than online. The Online Safety Act was delayed and delayed amid endless Conservative turmoil. All the while, women and girls are facing a deluge of extreme misogynist content, from violent pornography and deepfakes to abuse and “cyber flashing”.
Labour continually called for the Conservatives to take tougher action and to stop the delays to vital protections being brought forward. This included our pleas for loopholes to be closed so that making intimate deepfakes would be classified as an illegal act.
Now in government, Labour will build on the Online Safety Act, bringing forward provisions as quickly as possible, and exploring further measures to keep women and girls safe online, particularly when using social media.
We will work with Ofcom to toughen up its guidance on protecting women and girls in online spaces and we will finally ban the creation of sexually explicit deepfakes.
And we will embed digital literacy in schools to help combat online hate, including misogyny, and to tackle the insidious influence of individuals like Andrew Tate.
Labour is the only party with a serious plan to address the threats to women’s safety. The new government has a plan to deliver meaningful change, and to keep women and girls safe from violence, harassment and hatred.
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