There was a revealing moment in today’s Liaison Committee session with Keir Starmer where the Prime Minister was asked about violence against women and girls. The government’s VAWG strategy is ‘due’ this week – in fact, it has been ‘due’ since the summer – and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood did the Sunday morning broadcast round heralding it yesterday. But when Home Affairs Committee chair Karen Bradley asked Starmer about the strategy itself, he still couldn’t say when it would actually be published. All he would say was that it would come out ‘as soon as possible’, adding: ‘I was in Downing Street when we brought together all the various bodies that are helping, working with us on that, the week before last, and so now we are looking at very shortly in the future.’ That ‘very shortly in the future’ sounds more like the kind of thing a journalist behind on their column might tell a comment editor, rather than a prime minister whose home secretary has already given interviews about a major and overdue strategy.
Bradley complained that given Mahmood had been ‘talking about things that would be in the strategy, I expected we would have a statement today on it.’ Liaison Committee chair Meg Hillier then pointed out rather dryly that Starmer had spent some time earlier in the session telling another chair, Alberto Costa, that he agreed that it was important to make statements to parliament first. Bradley continued, telling Starmer that she knew of three rape crisis centres that had closed because they could not commission services while the strategy was delayed. ‘I do want the strategy to be out as soon as possible,’ insisted Starmer again, adding that ‘we just need to finalise it’.
Why hasn’t the government finalised something it was already announcing at the weekend? I understand that things are even more fluid than just some last-minute spellchecking: sources working in the sector tell me that they have been warned to expect more cuts to their services. One says: ‘The sector is deeply concerned that we are being sidelined in the government’s new violence against women and girls strategy. In the same week that they strategy is due to be published, the Home Office has informed us of fresh cuts to funding for vital support services. We’re now worried that more services will be forced to close their doors.’
There seems to be a shift away from the current way of tackling violence against women and girls, and a belief among ministers and advisers that this current way isn’t working, so there needs to be a big shake-up. That’s always difficult for figures in any sector to take, but they have been left a long time wondering what exactly will be expected of them. (I wrote about this back in July.) Bradley pointed to this shift in her next question, telling Starmer that ‘£53 million has been committed to perpetrator programmes for highest risk perpetrators. There hasn’t been a similar amount of money for victims’ services. And there’s a real disquiet in the sector that the victims are being forgotten.’
Starmer disagreed: ‘Certainly the victims are not being forgotten. They are at the centre of the strategy on violence against women and girls.’ Bradley replied: ‘There’s no money that’s been committed for them so far.’
‘Well,’ replied the Prime Minister. ‘I’ll look at the money commitments again and make sure that we’ve got that right. This is a commitment of the government in relation to violence against women and girls. It’s a personal commitment of mine, I’ve been working on this since I’ve became the director of public prosecutions…’
This exchange was the most revealing: Starmer is someone who has a high regard for his own ethics and mission, though the problem with this is that he often forgets to check he’s living up to his opinion of himself. He has determined that the government is doing a good job in tackling violence against women and girls, but hasn’t checked whether that’s really the case. Currently, it isn’t, or at least there is no real evidence either way because a strategy that’s been due for months still doesn’t have a firm publication date, there has been total confusion over funding behind the scenes, and in the meantime, services have been closing. That Starmer doesn’t quite want to say that the strategy will even come out this week should make him question his deeply personal commitment, rather than continue repeating it.
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