Meeting of the Parliament 15 January 2026
First, I acknowledge unreservedly the significance of the issue that Ash Regan puts to me and, in particular, the significant increase in sexual violence and the reporting of sexual violence in our society. That is evidenced in a lot of the data that we have wrestled with in Parliament and it has resulted in the Government’s actions to ensure that more cases are pursued, more cases are taken to court and more prosecutions are successfully achieved.
However, that is not to suggest in any way that there is not more that we need to do, which is about education, advice and intervention to create a different culture in the attitude towards women and girls in our society—an attitude that is being fuelled by so much of the unacceptable material that is floating around on social media. I welcome some of the steps that the United Kingdom Government has taken in the course of this week alone to apply greater regulatory force to many of these issues.
Ash Regan asked me specifically about her bill. The bill is at stage 1 consideration, and the Government has engaged with that process. We will listen with care to the conclusions of the Criminal Justice Committee when its report is available to us.