A bold new mission
And the day that changed everything for me.
Second Edition
First of all, I wanted to say a welcome to all of my new subscribers.
I have just been on the TV show Loose Women, and while there I was talking about our new strategy to reduce Violence Against Women and Girls. In particular, two steps that help us protect children from the impacts of online misogyny.
Those steps are:
Partnering with tech companies – we want to make it impossible for children to take, share or view a nude image.
Banning “nudification tools” that allow people to create deepfakes – fake sexual images that are created without the consent of the person featured.
For young people growing up in an online world, these actions will have a significant impact on their safety and wellbeing.
But this is just one part of a wider strategy. Today’s post is a more detailed look at this challenge and an explanation of why tackling violence against women and girls is such a personal issue for me.
Thank you.
Keir
Jane Clough’s Story.
I still remember it so vividly. I always will. It’s a day which changed everything for me. The way I see justice. The way I see Britain. And the moment I realised I needed to change both. I was the Director of Public Prosecutions, leader of the Crown Prosecution Service. And I was preparing to meet John and Penny Clough for the first time.
My office advised against it. “You can’t get emotionally involved in cases,” they said. But I didn’t see it like that at all. I remember being firm with them. I said “if I haven’t got time to see the parents of a young woman who has just been murdered, then what am I doing in this job?”
However, just before the meeting, my own life was turned upside down when my daughter was born. And so, rushing to the hospital, I had to push the meeting back. Yet, perhaps because of that coincidence, when I did return to work, Jane’s story hit home.
Jane Clough was a nurse. She was a mother. She was 26 years old. She worked at a hospital in Blackpool. And she was the victim of horrific domestic abuse. A victim who, against the grain of intimidation and violence, found the immense courage to report her partner. Who was then arrested, remanded in custody, and charged with multiple counts of raping her.
But then came the injustice. Because, against her wishes, Jane’s perpetrator was bailed pending trial. And this terrified Jane. She lived in constant fear for her safety, making sure she never travelled to work alone. Because of course work was the one place she knew he could find her.
And then, on the first day she did arrive at work unaccompanied, Jane was murdered. Stabbed to death in the hospital carpark. By the man on bail for her abuse.
As I listened to John and Penny recounting this horrific story, I remember being overcome. Yes, by the sheer scale of the injustice they had endured. But also by their selfless determination. They knew nothing could bring Jane back and right the wrongs they had suffered. Yet they had chosen to meet this incomprehensible pain with the resolve to help other victims. And so I gave them my word that I would do everything I could to help them. And not just them, also all the other Janes, the other Johns and Pennys that our justice system was failing.
Now, this Substack is not the place to go into all those changes. But I am proud of the difference we made together. Most of all, I’m proud that we changed the law so that prosecutors do have the right to appeal against a bail decision. Because women like Jane, who are brave enough to come forward and press charges, should be protected from their perpetrators.
But we need to do more. We needed to do more then and we need to do more now. It’s one reason I came into politics – there are only so many ways to make a difference in justice before you run into politics. And so today I am launching the most ambitious strategy to reduce violence against women and girls (VAWG) of any Government in British history.
Halving violence against Women and Girls
Because while society has broadly become less violent over recent decades, we have not seen anything like the required change when it comes to violence against women and girls.
The statistics tell the story. Police in England and Wales now record a domestic abuse related crime every 40 seconds. Fourteen per cent of women are estimated to have suffered sexual abuse by the time they are eighteen – in other words when they are children. And this violence kills too. Every spring, my colleague Jess Phillips – the Minister for Violence against Women and Girls – reads out a list of all the women killed by men in Britain that year. For the year ending in March 2024, that list will be 156 victims long.
There is no other way of putting it – this is shameful. And so the strategy commits us to a bold new mission: to halve violence against women and girls within ten years.
Now, the first thing to say about this is that is a hugely ambitious target. It’s not just the biggest effort from the state on this issue in British history. It also aims for a reduction in the levels of violence that hasn’t been achieved anywhere. And so while today’s strategy is just the first step on a longer journey, it probably also helps to explain briefly why we have chosen to take it on. There are two main reasons.
First, because there is a bad habit in contemporary politics of deliberately setting targets you already know you can meet. You see this in Westminster all the time – it’s something that really frustrated me in opposition. After all, surely the point of any target is to harness the power of scrutiny and political accountability to galvanise action towards something that currently feels infeasible? To set a stretch target, a higher ambition. To paraphrase that famous quote, we have set the target on VAWG not because it is easy, but because it is hard – that’s the point. And you can see this ‘mission-led’ approach to government across our wider agenda – from building 1.5m homes this Parliament, to decarbonising the energy system and meeting the 18-week NHS standard.
Second, because we have listened. I mentioned this in my last Substack. I am determined to approach big policy challenges with a new approach. So, just as we did with our Child Poverty Strategy, we have drawn up our VAWG strategy alongside people with experience – of misogyny, of abuse and of violence. Therefore, while it is ambitious, our strategy is grounded firmly in this experience. And the hope that, with a truly society-wide effort we can significantly reduce violence against women and girls.
Prevention, pursuit and support
To this end, the strategy focuses on three objectives.
First – prevention, which includes work with young people to stop dangerous attitudes developing and harmful behaviours escalating. Our actions on this include:
Making sure every school in England can offer education about healthy and respectful relationships.
Making the UK one of the hardest places for children to access harmful, misogynistic content online, including working with tech companies to stop the exchange of nude or sexual images.
Launching major advertising campaigns that will help people to spot the signs of abuse.
Second, the relentless pursuit of perpetrators. Our actions on this include:
Making sure domestic abuse specialists are available to first responders across the emergency services, including in 999 control rooms.
Creating a unit in every police force dedicated to fighting rape.
Improving the vetting and disbarring process to root out perpetrators within our police forces.
Driving cultural change across our police forces so VAWG has equal status with other serious crime.
Strengthening stalking protection orders.
Introducing a new criminal offence for spiking.
Rolling-out new Domestic Violence Protection Orders, which give the police new powers to protect victims from their perpetrators.
Third, beefing up the currently inadequate support for victims and survivors. Our actions on this include:
Investing around £20m extra funding for domestic violence refuges.
Investing £45m for therapeutic support so victims of child sexual abuse can rebuild their lives.
Expanding the world-leading Child House model so that children and young people affected by horrific crimes can access the specialist care they need.
Reforming the court system based on a trauma-informed approach, so that the exercise of justice is not an experience that will deter women from coming forward.
Taken together, I believe this can make a difference to the lives of millions of women and girls now. And that the strategy forms a strong basis for future action as we target that ten-year goal.
The new frontier
But speaking as a parent, there is one issue that looms large across the whole strategy: technology. And I’ll be honest, as a father to both a daughter and a son – both teenagers – it can be terrifying. You are constantly torn between two impulses. On one hand, the natural desire to protect your children from harm and teach them values of respect in their relationships. But on the other, the realisation that you cannot hide them from the realities of the world and that technology is such a powerful shaper of their reality.
We’ve seen this powerfully illustrated across the arts. Most notably by the award-winning TV show, Adolescence, which highlighted the almost banal nature of misogynistic attitudes on the so-called ‘manosphere’ and how they are attractive to some young boys seeking status and belonging. The message of that show was powerful and bleak. It said: this culture is here, it is shaping our children’s lives, and it could lead to violence against women and girls anywhere.
I believe we can be more optimistic. I remain convinced that education is the best antidote to this and we are investing in that approach, as part of this strategy. And I also believe we must be more optimistic about young men. Of course we should be ruthless in pursuing any perpetrator, regardless of age. The number of young girls who suffer sexual abuse from their peers is completely unacceptable. But we must also make sure that we do not automatically put young boys into a ‘problem’ box. That as parents and politicians, we offer young boys and men a positive, aspirational vision for how they can contribute to Britain’s success today.
In partnership with technology companies we have banned the creation of sexually explicit deepfakes. But now, as generative AI starts to grow in its power and potential, it is becoming possible to turn images of real people into fake nude pictures and videos. In fact, there are now whole apps dedicated to this ‘nudification’ process. And one does not have to be an expert in coercive abuse, to understand how such tools could be deployed to embarrass, extort or control vulnerable people.
Clearly, there is no place for this kind of app in our society. They should be banned. And the companies who profit from them should be targeted. So, as I said on Loose Women, that is exactly what we will do – we will ban ‘nudification’ apps.
Changing our core
Now, no doubt new technological challenges will develop during the ten years we have to hit our target. Nonetheless, I remain optimistic. I truly believe that if can challenge misogynistic attitudes in the very core of our culture, then we can halve violence against women and girls. As I said above – there are precedents for significant reductions in violence, we have seen that across society more broadly. Take children, for example. If I were to ask people when they thought corporal punishment in schools was banned, I would be willing to bet most people think it was earlier than the real answer – 1986. That’s because our values have completely changed, not just our laws. Hitting children in school isn’t just illegal now. It’s now utterly unthinkable.
That’s the sort of mindset and values shift we need on VAWG. And just think of the difference it would make. Think of the lives saved. The lives no longer bruised by trauma. Or just the lives that are lived more freely. The beautiful walk home that you wouldn’t ordinarily take. The bar that you wouldn’t ordinarily visit that late. The completely ordinary freedom to move through our streets, our towns, our schools and workplaces, without fear.
I talk regularly about a Britain being truly built for all. But when half the people in our country are denied this basic freedom, Britain is not built for all. So let’s come together to tackle violence against women and girls. Let’s honour the courage of victims, survivors and their families – people like John and Penny Clough. And let’s finally create a Britain that is truly built for all.