This week, to mark International Women’s Day, Labour’s commission on women’s safety, Everywoman Safe Everywhere, is publishing its first report.
I’ve been proud to serve as a member of the commission, alongside Vera Baird QC, who’s chaired it so ably, and my brilliant parliamentary colleague, Stella Creasy.
I first became aware that women were becoming uneasy about their personal safety at a ‘listening event’ in my constituency last summer. Women spoke of their anxiety at the loss of evening bus services, worries about their safety at night when out and about, and concerns about cuts to police numbers.
So I was very pleased when Yvette Cooper asked me to be a member of the commission, though prepared to be concerned at what we’d uncover. Yet even so, I’ve been shocked at what we’ve learnt about the cumulative impact of spending decisions and other government policies that threaten to massively undermine women’s safety.
Cuts to public spending are disproportionately affecting services that protect women. Local authority budgets face cuts of up to 27 per cent, but a report from Sylvia Walby and Jude Towers last month showed that women’s organisations are taking a bigger hit, of 31 per cent. The commission’s been hearing what that means in practice: refuges turning away women for lack of space, specialist services for trafficked women and young women being lost.
Further, legal aid cuts will prevent women getting the advice they need and specialist domestic violence courts are closing. Even the Daily Mail’s reported that half a million streetlights are being turned off at night to save money.
And we’ve only been able to scratch the surface of what’s happening. That’s why we’re demanding the government urgently carries out a full audit of the impact on services for women.
Chaotic changes in commissioning arrangements, meanwhile, are putting vital services at risk. The NHS has previously funded a range of services, including for Sexual Assault Referral Centres. But there’s no guarantee that the new clinical commissioning groups will prioritise continued spending on protecting women. And when the new police and crime commissioners take over, they’ll be making spending decisions on everything from funding for rape crisis services to the deployment of community police officers – but will women’s safety be top of their agenda?
Participants in the hearings we held around the country told us that this chaos is leading to a worrying loss of expertise. Commissioners don’t understand the need for gender-sensitive services, or for specialist services, they don’t help organisations to work effectively together, and they’re putting price before everything else. In one discussion, we were told of a commissioner of services that had scored bids 85 per cent on price, but just one per cent on quality. In another, we heard about a non-specialist organisation that had been commissioned to provide services and advertised for new staff in the local paper, including publishing the address of the local refuge.
Women across the country also told us that they don’t believe the criminal law properly protects their safety, or adequately punishes perpetrators of violence. So the commission’s consulted on a number of measures to strengthen the law, including a specific offence of stalking, the right to appeal a bail decision to release an alleged violent offender, and Clare’s Law, which gives the right to be informed if partner has a history of violence.
The government’s implementing some of these proposals, but in a decidedly half-hearted manner. And it doesn’t help women’s confidence when the lord chancellor can talk of some rapes being ‘more serious’ than others.
It was depressingly clear to all the women we talked to that, in every way, the government’s record on women’s safety simply reveals yet again that they’ve got a blind spot when it comes to women. The commission will therefore be continuing its work – if the government won’t act, Labour will. We want to work with women’s organisations and our local councillors to develop good practice, and with campaigners to keep pressure on ministers. We will not stop until we achieve our goal: everywoman safe, everywhere.
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Kate Green MP is shadow equalities minister