PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Hate Crime Law: Misogyny - 7 September 2026 (Commons/Westminster Hall)

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 746640 relating to crimes motivated by misogyny and hate crime law.

It is always a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward.

In February, Amara Relf wrote an excellent blog post called “Students need misogyny to be recognised as a hate crime”. This is how the post starts:

“When we began our roles as sabbatical officers, one priority was clear: improving student safety. Very quickly, it became apparent that while serious sexual offences can carry severe sentences, the everyday behaviours that shape women’s lives, catcalling, groping, sexually suggestive comments, and harassment, are too often minimised, overlooked, or left entirely unpunished.

Sexual harassment, as its own category, is rarely criminalised in practice. As a result, many students are left asking a difficult question: why report something when it feels unlikely that anything will be done?”

This lack of consequence not only enables harmful behaviour but also actively discourages reporting. This is why we—Lily, Amara, and Holly—have launched a petition calling for misogyny to be recognised as a hate crime.”

I thank Amara, Lily and Holly for the petition, which has attracted 114,927 signatures, including 123 from my own constituency. Amara and her colleagues also commissioned a survey among Russell Group universities that found that 67% of students would be more likely to report their experiences if misogyny were treated as a hate crime. Amara argues that

“Legal change alone won’t shift deeply ingrained attitudes—but without it, cultural change becomes even harder to achieve.”

The ingrained attitudes that the petitioner is talking about are reflected in the fact that, according to the Office for National Statistics, 23% of women aged 16 to 24, and 16% of those aged 25 to 34, have reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment in the previous year. That is compared with around 5% of women aged 35 and older. It is clear that younger women are bearing the brunt of this sexual harassment epidemic.

The petitioner is right that the law needs to change. Take the criminal offence of harassment, which is, broadly, unwanted conduct that causes a person harassment, alarm or distress. If the perpetrator of that harassment is motivated by hostility to the victim’s religion, it is a statutory aggravating factor, which in practice means the offender’s sentence is more severe. But if the perpetrator is motivated instead by hostility to the victim’s sex or gender, that is not currently an aggravating factor. That is, in my view, wrong.

Misogyny is not currently a centrally monitored hate crime characteristic in England and Wales, so data is not currently collected about offending with a misogynistic element specifically. I am pleased to say that we are seeing positive change with this Labour Government. Following an amendment tabled to the Crime and Policing Bill—now the Crime and Policing Act 2026—by my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor), the Minister agreed to bring forward a Government amendment in the Lords. The resulting clause on aggravated offences is now section 145 of the Act. That will extend the racially and religiously aggravated offences in sections 29 to 32 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which includes offences like assault, harassment and criminal damage, to also cover hostility based on sex, disability, sexual orientation and transgender identity. That means that the higher maximum penalties already available for race and religion are now available in those cases too.

I strongly support that change because tackling misogyny needs to be embedded in the Government’s approach to hate crime more generally. I also support it so that hostility based on misogyny is centrally recorded, and we can finally have a true national picture of the scale of this problem.

The petitioner has also called for tougher laws against online abuse and to tackle anti-feminist hate groups that target and radicalise young people online. As she said in her article,

“For students, the online dimension is inescapable—group chats where women are rated and degraded, anonymous platforms where harassment flourishes, social media pile-ons. The algorithmically-driven spread of ‘manosphere’ content means that young men are being radicalised into misogynistic worldviews at scale, and women students are experiencing the consequences in their seminars, their societies, and their relationships.”

Last October, Ofcom issued guidance to tech firms requesting that online platforms introduce measures, such as abusability testing, time-outs for repeat offenders, easier mass-blocking tools and the demonetisation of misogynistic content. I support those measures and they all sound good in theory, but the fact that the guidance is voluntary means that it is unclear how platforms will be forced to act. As the End Violence Against Women Coalition told the Women and Equalities Committee last year, nothing less than a binding violence against women and girls code of practice is required for us to stand a chance of turning the tide against the wave of online misogyny that we are seeing.

There is also the question of the capacity of the criminal justice system to respond sensitively and effectively to victims who are brave enough to raise a complaint. The Equality and Human Rights Commission tracker notes that there is currently no compulsory training for existing police officers on responding to rape and sexual offences; only new recruits are covered. The UN Committee against Torture specifically recommended that the UK provide mandatory training on the prosecution of gender-based violence to all justice officials and law enforcement personnel, not just new recruits. Extending mandatory refresher and specialist training to serving officers would close that gap.

Women’s Aid has also called for specialist domestic abuse training to be provided to all judges, not just those in jurisdictions that frequently see VAWG cases. My constituency caseload indicates that tackling domestic abuse and violence against women presents system-level challenges. I pay tribute to brilliant local organisations, such as Rising Sun domestic violence and abuse service, Home-Start Shepway and Beech House, as well as the local police force for everything it does to support victims in our community.

There is always further that we can go, and the need for better specialist training is underlined by evidence given to the Women and Equalities Committee last year suggesting that police and safeguarding professionals often do not recognise manosphere-linked misogyny or incel ideology as a warning sign in the same way that they would with other radicalisation indicators. Training gaps often mean that genuinely concerning behaviours do not meet thresholds for intervention, such as through the Prevent programme, because they are misogynistic rather than linked to a proscribed organisation.

The petitioner is right to hope that stronger criminal laws, stronger awareness among criminal justice and safeguarding professionals, stronger support for victims and stronger online protections may help and are needed to help turn the tide of misogyny, but that is a whole-of-society effort that requires everyone, particularly men, to demonstrate what healthy attitudes to women look like.

The petitioner has made a compelling case: misogyny constrains women’s daily freedom, safety and willingness to participate fully in education, work and public life. I welcome the important progress made through section 145 of the Crime and Policing Act, but legislation must be matched by properly trained police, prosecutors, safeguarding professionals and judges; by meaningful support for those who come forward; and by enforceable action by online platforms against the abuse and radicalisation they too often enable.

We cannot wait until hatred escalates into the most serious offences before we act. We must recognise misogyny where it is present, challenge it wherever it appears and make it clear to every woman and girl that the law is on her side. I hope the Minister will set out how the Government will build on that important legislative framework so that women and girls, including students in Folkestone, Hythe and Romney Marsh, can live, study and participate in a public life—free from harassment, intimidation and misogynistic abuse.

I thank my hon. and learned Friend for making an excellent speech, which I agree with wholeheartedly. Before he finishes, does he agree that it is also important for us to reflect on the intersectional nature of hate crime? Women will experience hate crime for lots of different reasons, including being a woman who is gay or a woman who is black, Asian or minority ethnic. Would he say a little about that and its importance?

I defer to my hon. Friend and pay tribute to the work that she has done in this area over many years. It is important that she has raised that issue, because it is something that the petitioners wrote about in the article that led to the petition and this debate.

The way that discrimination and prejudice operate is not compartmentalised by protected characteristics in the Equality Act 2010. Quite often, a number of those characteristics are present at the same time. It is important that we have a system that understands that first and foremost, so that we can ensure that the way that victims are dealt with actually takes account of those different needs. We will not necessarily treat everyone the same, but we will treat them in the way that they need to be treated, having regard to their protected characteristics. I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point.

In her summing up speech, will the Minister address some particular questions? First, when will section 145 of the 2026 Act be commenced? I understand it is not yet in force. Secondly, what assessment have the Government made of the merits of introducing sex as an aggravating factor in respect of all offending, not just offences under the Crime and Disorder Act, which is the ask of the petitioners? Finally, do the Government have any plans to require existing police officers to undergo training on gender-based violence, given that it is currently only for those being brought into the system? I look forward to hearing from her.

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Edward. I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on introducing the debate so thoughtfully.

For months, I have been campaigning for legislation to combat the alarming trend of nightlife filming. Women are being filmed in public without their knowledge or consent, with the footage then shared online for millions to view. Collectively, such content has been viewed more than 3 billion times in just three years. Algorithms are not neutral; they elevate what captures attention, which is often what is extreme, polarising or degrading. Nightlife videos are accompanied by misogynistic comments and abuse, driving engagement and generating profits for the video creator. That means that misogynistic content is not just present; it is incentivised and rewarded.

For victims, the impact is devastating. They are ridiculed and humiliated, they face reputational damage, and they are left fearing for their safety in public. Yet, once again, the law is scrambling to catch up with emerging forms of misogynistic abuse. I saw this during my campaign to make the disgusting act of upskirting a criminal offence, which led to the Voyeurism (Offences) Act 2019. At the time, there was a clear gap in the law and an urgent need to act, but even then it was obvious that we were responding to one manifestation of a much wider problem.

Today, we are seeing increasingly sophisticated forms of online abuse, from artificial intelligence-generated deepfake imagery to co-ordinated harassment campaigns.

My hon. Friend talks about co-ordinated campaigns and harassment. Over the weekend, I, like many people, saw the manhandling of a female protestor at the Reform conference and the horrendous comments made about that individual on social media. Does she agree that that was completely unacceptable, that we should condemn it and that it is shameful that Members from some other political parties are not here to talk about violence against women and girls and misogyny is all its forms?

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that disgusting footage and the events that led up to the video being made. All of that reinforces the message that people act with impunity because they think that is the way they can behave towards women. Making misogyny a hate crime would ultimately, at its root, stop that. It will not change everything, but it will at least challenge the attitudes that some members of the public still display towards women or minority groups. On sex-based harassment and violence, my hon. Friend is right, and I thank him for raising the matter.

This is happening at a pace and scale that we have not seen before. Technology has made it easier to commit these acts, and social media platforms have made it easier for them to spread. However, the underlying issue has not changed: violence against women and girls is an epidemic in the UK and, to be honest, not just in the UK—it spans other countries and continents. One in four women in England and Wales will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime and one in four have been raped or sexually assaulted since the age of 16. Those are not isolated crimes; they are part of a wider pattern. We always use these numbers, but each instance is a tragedy—it is something that ruins a life.

In December, the Government published their new violence against women and girls strategy. Its focus on prevention, education and early intervention is welcome and long overdue. The strategy must remain a priority for the new Government. The Government’s amendment to the Crime and Policing Act to recognise misogyny as an aggravating factor in some crimes is a welcome step in the right direction, but they must go further. That means amending the Sentencing Act 2020 so that all crimes motivated by misogyny are classed as hate crimes. Not long ago, following the rape and murder of Sarah Everard, there was strong political momentum behind doing exactly that. The Labour party itself committed to making misogyny a hate crime, yet now it is in government, it has gone quiet. Instead, we are left legislating against each new form of technology-facilitated abuse as it emerges, without addressing the hostility towards women that underpins them all.

Misogyny must be recognised in hate crime legislation. This matters for three reasons. First, it would help us properly understand the scale of the problem. Without consistent recording, misogyny remains largely invisible in official data, despite being a common factor in many forms of abuse. Secondly, it would improve accountability. Where crimes are motivated by hostility towards women, that should be reflected in how they are investigated and prosecuted, just as it is for other forms of hate crime. Thirdly, it would recognise what many women already know: that these experiences are not random; they are rooted in attitudes towards women that continue to shape behaviour both offline and online.

Recognising misogyny as a hate crime would not on its own end violence against women and girls, but it would be an important step towards treating this as a connected problem rather than a series of unrelated offences. If we are serious about prevention, we cannot ignore the role that misogyny plays. If we continue to avoid naming it, we will remain stuck in a cycle of reacting to harm rather than preventing it.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on introducing the debate. I am grateful to the petitioners for bringing this important issue before the House, and to the more than 114,000 people who signed the petition, including over 100 from my constituency. Might I say, as a former sabbatical officer myself, that this is yet more evidence that the phrase “student politics” should be seen as a compliment in this place, rather than a criticism?

Misogyny and violence against women and girls are not inevitable, and they should not be dismissed as something that women and girls simply have to put up with, whether on the street, in the workplace, in school or, increasingly, as the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) said, online. I have spoken in this place before about the scourge of deepfakes and AI-enabled abuse. In the spirit of cross-party collaboration, I also commend the work of Baroness Owen in this regard.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to tackle violence against women and girls and halve it within a decade. Prevention, early intervention, relentless pursuit of the perpetrators and proper support for victims are the foundations that we absolutely need. We need to deal with the attitudes and behaviours that allow violence and abuse to develop in the first place.

That is particularly important when we consider the growth of misogynistic material online. Young people can now be exposed very quickly to content that presents contempt for women as normal, glorifies control and abuse, and can draw boys and young men into increasingly extreme communities. That is why the Government are right to put prevention at the heart of their strategy, including through schools, colleges and universities, and to recognise the particular challenge posed by online misogyny. However, there is much more to do, and the petitioners are right to ask us to recognise misogyny as a hate crime.

The fact is that our hate crime framework has developed unevenly, although we have seen some progress. As we heard from the hon. Member for Bath and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe, the Crime and Policing Act added sex to the characteristics covered by aggravated offences, which is a significant step forward. But the petition raises the wider question of consistency, and I hope the Minister will look carefully at whether hostility on the basis of sex or gender should be reflected consistently across the wider sentencing framework. There is also the question of stirring up hatred. The Law Commission has previously recommended extending such offences to cover sex or gender, in part because of the growth of extremist misogynistic ideologies and their potential to contribute to serious offending.

I heard today from organisations working on the frontline in my constituency, and what they told me should be part of this debate as well. My Sister’s Place supports women experiencing domestic abuse across Teesside. We have had some progress recently in the form of domestic abuse specialists now embedded in the 999 control centre at Cleveland police—something that the Government promised in their manifesto and are now starting to deliver. That is a positive step forward, but one issue that My Sister’s Place raised with me is that there are simply not enough refuge spaces or suitable move-on housing locally in Middlesbrough, so a woman who makes the extraordinarily difficult decision to leave an abusive relationship faces the question, “Where is it safe to go?” I would welcome the Minister’s saying a little about how the Government intend to improve the availability of safe accommodation and, crucially, the route from emergency refuge provision to decent and permanent housing.

I thank the hon. Member for mentioning women fleeing domestic abuse. Their recovery should be subject to a longer-term strategy; it is not just about finding crisis accommodation. Often, women face their abusers for many years and do not get any support. Does he agree that we need to look at the longer-term effects, too?

I absolutely agree, and I thank the hon. Member for making that point.

That takes me to the next point I wanted to raise, from the second specialist organisation that I spoke to today. ARCH Teesside does vital work supporting victims and survivors of sexual violence and preventing harm before situations escalate; it puts wraparound support around an individual. It raised with me today a practical concern about what will happen to prevention funding, particularly when police and crime commissioners are abolished from 2028. They are often a main source of funding for local specialist violence against women and girls organisations. ARCH Teesside is concerned that the need for services will not change when the structures change, and it does not have certainty about the funding currently held by PCCs.

Organisations such as ARCH need to be able to plan ahead, retain specialist staff and know what funding framework they will be working with. I will be grateful if the Minister can give some reassurance that specialist local services will not lose dedicated prevention funding as responsibilities move away from PCCs, and tell us a little about the clarity that organisations will receive about the future framework into which they will need to bid.

The hon. Gentleman makes a really important point about certainty of funding. Some of the organisations that I have spoken to in my Chelmsford constituency that deal with victims of domestic abuse point out to me that often the funding is project-based. It is not about what they have tried before, have proven to work and want to continue with; they find that people say, “Oh, yes, but we’re starting this new project now, so we’re only accepting bids for new projects and things that haven’t been done before,” and all the great work that has been done before is forgotten. Does he agree that we are always going to be chasing our tails in that way, and nobody will be well served by it, and that we need certainty of funding for things that are proven to work as well as for trialling new stuff?

I agree. This is slightly tangential to this debate—I apologise—but when I was in local government, we set up a specialist team to work with families and young people at risk of exploitation, and we gave them that sort of long-term focus and freedom to approach things in a range of different ways, rather than giving them time-limited funding, say for three months. Chopping and changing can be very disruptive for families, and it is exactly the same here.

The petitioners are right to ask Parliament to take misogyny more seriously. The Government have taken some important steps, which I welcome, but I hope they will now build on that work, look carefully at the remaining gaps in the law and, above all, make sure that the ambition of halving violence against women and girls is matched by what women experience in communities such as mine.

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. I want to thank everybody who signed the petition, as a number of Members have thanked those in their constituencies who signed it; it is incredibly important that we hear from them in this manner. I thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for opening the debate and setting out so clearly the breadth of this issue and why it is so important.

The Government’s landmark violence against women and girls strategy was published last December. It stressed a whole-of-society approach to prevention, in which all of us have a responsibility to call out harmful behaviours and to role-model positive behaviours. That responsibility cuts right across the public sphere: our shared spaces, our workplaces, our institutions and, of course, online.

Online influencers hold a unique position in the public sphere, and their reach often goes further than that of our newspapers and broadcasters, yet their content is far less regulated. That is concerning given how social media platforms work: influencers profit financially from engagement, incentivising content that amplifies shocking images, awful videos and abuse, and that shapes the attitudes of impressionable young people. The platforms profit, too; they make huge sums of money from this.

According to Government figures, in 2025, 95% of young people had heard of Andrew Tate. Ninety-five per cent—that is unbelievable. It gets worse, though, because 40% of the young men in that figure had a positive impression of this individual. This is somebody with allegations against him of sex trafficking and all manner of horrendous crimes. It is deeply concerning that the online sphere has given those young people the impression that this is a good thing and that this person is somebody to emulate or look up to.

Exposure to content driven by that toxic masculinity starts very early, with 83% of teachers reporting concerns about their students holding extreme views on gender and a quarter reporting instances of misogynistic abuse in their own classrooms. I have heard from my teachers in Tamworth about how worried they are, how difficult this is to deal with, and how much the phones that many young people carry with them and have in the classroom are impacting their ability to see the world as many of us wish it really was, rather than as they are seeing it through this lens. This content is harming women and girls by normalising harmful rhetoric and behaviours, and it is harming boys by distorting their view of the world and their perception of what constitutes a healthy relationship with women and girls. As a female MP, I can attest to the sheer avalanche of abuse that I and many colleagues receive on a daily basis.

Children are not born with misogynistic views; these views are learned through socialisation. Sadly, sometimes they come from parents, and sometimes from peers, but increasingly—and as we all fear—they come through exposure to the manosphere, which happens to a great extent online.

It is pretty clear that young people fall into all sorts of traps, and we do not want our prisons to be full of young offenders who have displayed misogynistic behaviours and attitudes, but sometimes the law can act as a regulator of this type of behaviour. Does the hon. Member agree, therefore, that changing the law is a powerful tool in our toolkit for changing behaviour altogether?

I absolutely agree, and I will go on to extol the virtues of what many people are calling for. It is imperative that there is real clarity on this, so that people take it more seriously than I think they do, and so that we are extremely clear about what is and is not accepted. There is this creep right across society whereby, as soon as you hear something online, it becomes okay, and therefore the more it is repeated. We really do have to make sure that the law reinforces that it is not okay and that we have to stop it happening.

Many parents hope to instil in their children the values of a good society, but they cannot do that if they are constantly being undermined by all these posts and by individuals such as Andrew Tate. The law must recognise that disproportionate influence; if an individual or organisation profits from the engagement of a larger audience, they must fulfil a duty to that audience by making sure that their content is fully reflective of the law. I hope that when we change the law, content will have to change as a result.

Classifying misogyny as a hate crime, as many Members might agree, would raise the degree of legal and social scrutiny of these influencers. To support that new framework, scrutiny must be proportionate to the size of somebody’s following, with influencers who have tens of thousands of followers given an enshrined duty of care for their audience. I advocate that even those with 500 or more followers are influential, and they need to recognise that. We need this to be supported by legislation that tackles online individuals and the way they communicate with their audiences.

What I am suggesting would bring regulation of the new media more in line with that of traditional sources. Social media outlets must be held responsible for the algorithms they push and the weighting they give to the information they are ultimately distributing. More than 20 years ago, Ofcom was created in recognition of the power that our broadcasters had over the culture and norms of our country. In the 2020s, Parliament must bring forward a new framework fit for this new media landscape. I hope that the Minister has some good news about how we will be able to tackle these new outlets and platforms, where a huge number of people now get their so-called news.

I also agree with the calls to make binding codes of practice rather than simple guidance. That is really important, and I hope that the Minister can outline some of the thinking behind and trajectory for that, as well as how we will scale up our efforts to protect women and girls from violence and hatred. I support calls for the Government to amend the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 to record crimes motivated by misogyny as hate crimes; to introduce tougher laws for online abuse—as I have already stated, that should apply to the individual and to the platform much more forcefully; and, as has been mentioned, to fund the training of police officers and prosecutors so that they are better able to handle this and understand their response. The future of our country depends on a much tougher stance being taken, particularly on this subject. I really fear for the future if we do not do this.

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Edward. I thank those across the country who signed this petition to ensure that we had this really important debate. Violence against women and girls is a national emergency. As others have said before me, it is really important that we underline that: it is an emergency. This is affecting a whole generation, and I am terrified of what that means for society if we do not deal with it.

Liberal Democrats have long called for misogyny to be made a hate crime so, while we very much welcome the Government’s amendment to extend the list of aggravated offences under hate crime legislation to cover sex or presumed sex, and while I was proud to sponsor the amendment that extended that to LGBT people and disabled people in the last parliamentary Session, my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I agree with the petitioners that Ministers should go further and amend the Sentencing Act to ensure that all crimes motivated by misogyny are classed as hate crimes. I also want to highlight that the extension of aggravated offences to cover sex, disability, sexual orientation and transgender identity has not yet been brought into force, so I hope to hear a timeline from the Minister on when that will be brought forward by the required secondary legislation. Hatred is just as unacceptable no matter its type; that means that there must be zero tolerance for misogyny.

As the petitioners noted, misogyny can fuel crimes including sexual violence. The need to make misogyny a hate crime and the importance of tackling it early on is borne out by the data: studies have confirmed what women, from our own experiences and those of our friends, know to be true: that the majority of us have, at some point, encountered some form of abuse in outdoor spaces, and that this is so commonplace that very few ever bother to report such incidents to the police. That is why, in a similarly themed Westminster Hall debate at the start of this year, I pressed the Government to accept and begin implementing all 13 recommendations of part 2 of the Angiolini inquiry, set up after Sarah Everard’s murder. That has not happened, I am sad to say.

One recommendation yet to be taken up was to “immediately” improve national data collection and sharing on sexually motivated crimes against women in public spaces. The inquiry found that data is fragmented and inconsistently documented across police forces. Given that making misogyny an aggravated offence under hate crime legislation should allow for greater information gathering, I ask the Minister here today how she anticipates making use of that if data on more serious sexual violence is not being effectively collected right now.

The petitioners also called on the Government to act on anti-feminist hate groups and the harassment and online abuse that they perpetrate. I am sure that many of us are aware of the abbreviation IRL, meaning “in real life”, which differentiates between the online space and in-person, so-called real spaces. However, there is increasingly less distinction with what is happening IRL and, instead, a blurring of boundaries between our digital and in-person experiences. Both cross over into the other’s realms with relative ease. That is why it is as important as ever to take decisive action to tackle misogyny wherever it originates, including online, as other Members have said.

From cyber-flashing to sharing intimate images without consent, or the more recent development of AI-generated sexual images, it is crucial that the Government do all they can to keep pace with the rapid technological changes that pose particular harm to women and girls. We need legislation that tackles that in advance of it happening. It is important that we are a bit more prescient as to what might come next, rather than constantly playing catch-up, because when we are playing catch-up, the harm has already been done.

For example, 98% of deepfake intimate images reported to the revenge porn helpline are of women. As organisations such as Internet Matters have underlined, given that not every case that I have mentioned reaches the hate crime threshold, taking strong measures against them is crucial to ensure that misogynistic attitudes are dealt with early and the tools that misogynists may use against women and girls are disrupted. Research by Internet Matters found that a shocking 14% of children aged between 13 and 16 had experienced some form of intimate image abuse and harassment, such as cyber-flashing or having a non-consensual image of them shared. The organisation states that

“these behaviours are becoming normalised”.

For those of us who grew up a few decades ago—let us not go into it too much—that was not the norm back then. Things are changing rapidly, and we must recognise that.

On that note, when the violence against women and girls strategy was announced to Parliament last December, I pressed the then Minister to tackle harmful, misogynistic online content, highlighting the fact that Ofcom’s official guidance was only voluntary and that waiting until 2027 to strengthen it would be far too late. Tomorrow marks the deadline that the previous Minister set for tech companies to implement on-device safety measures to protect children from taking, receiving or viewing nude images—exactly the kind of harm that Internet Matters found children are increasingly being exposed to. I would therefore be grateful if this Minister confirmed whether the Government will uphold the previous Prime Minister’s deadline to big tech—and if not, whether and by which date they will take action on this matter. Liberal Democrats are clear that the Government’s first duty must be to tackle online harms and misogyny, not to prioritise the profits of big tech.

More broadly, I and Members from across the House would very much welcome a recommitment from the Minister to the violence against women and girls strategy published at the end of last year and, in particular, the goal of halving violence against women and girls within a decade. I very much welcome that, and Members from across the House have been welcoming it, too. With data showing that more than four in 10 people arrested during the 2024 riots had previously been reported for domestic abuse, taking on violence against women and girls is not a stand-alone aim; it is inherently linked to facing down the normalisation of extremist, far-right rhetoric and policies. We cannot allow this VAWG strategy to fail where others have failed before. It must be a top priority for this Government. We must not accept a world that tells women and girls to expect violence and abuse.

I thank again all those who brought forward and signed this petition. I expect the Government to consider their calls very carefully and, most of all, to recognise and indeed take confidence in the strength of feeling and breadth of public support that exists for tackling violence against women and girls.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward, and I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for opening this debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee.

I pay tribute to the organisers of the petition, including several student unions, whose commitment and hard work have helped to ensure that this important issue receives the attention it deserves. Sadly, their report, which highlights the scale of the problem, is only reinforced by other surveys and research. We know that people aged between 16 and 24 are more likely to be victims of sexual assault, and that those aged 16 to 19 experience higher levels of harassment than any other age group. As has been mentioned, we also know that non-contact abuse strongly leads to contact abuse. In addition, we know that behind every statistic is a daughter, a niece, a friend, a colleague or another loved one.

To the petition organisers, to those who have signed the petition, and to the women and girls whose experiences lie behind it, I want to be clear that misogyny, harassment and violence against women and girls have no place in our homes, on our streets, where we study, where we work or anywhere in our society, and that tackling this is and will remain a Government priority. My hon. and learned Friend has my personal commitment to the violence against women and girls strategy, and everything that it seeks to deliver. For me, it has a particular focus on prevention.

The petition calls for misogyny to be considered within the hate crime legislative framework, alongside wider action against harassment, assault and online abuse of women and girls. I recognise that for many people who signed this petition, this debate is about so much more than legislative frameworks; for them, it is about whether women and girls feel safe, whether their experiences are taken seriously, and whether the law adequately recognises the harm caused by misogynistic behaviour and abuse. Like too many women, I have personally experienced it, and I am determined to do all I can to ensure that my daughter does not grow up in a world where feeling unsafe or being harassed purely because you are a woman is the norm.

As Members know, the Government have already legislated to recognise sex-based hostility within the aggravated offences framework, and we are taking action to tackle violence against women and girls. I will take each of those points in turn before addressing the petition’s calls directly, and I will respond to questions asked throughout the debate.

As Members know, when talking about hate crime legislation in England and Wales, we are referring not to a single Act, but to a framework. Therefore, calls to recognise misogyny as a hate crime may refer to different parts of the framework, each of which covers different protected characteristics and serves a distinct legal purpose. Broadly speaking, the framework operates through three main mechanisms: aggravated offences, enhanced sentencing provision and offences that criminalise the stirring of hatred against particular groups.

As mentioned throughout the debate, through the Crime and Policing Act, the Government legislated to extend the aggravated offences framework part to cover sex and presumed sex, alongside disability, sexual orientation and transgender identity. Under the Act, offences motivated by hostility towards those characteristics will be treated on the same basis as those involving race or religion. As my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West and Mid Berkshire (Olivia Bailey) said, it is all interconnected. That means that for the first time, the courts will be able to recognise hostility based on sex and reflect the additional harm caused when someone is targeted because of their sex.

The new legislation also targets nudification tools, which several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman), raised. Such tools use artificial intelligence to generate intimate images of individuals without their consent. The legislation criminalises making, adapting, supplying or offering to supply such tools, and helps to tackle a growing form of online abuse that disproportionately affects women and girls, as mentioned throughout the debate. Those measures build on wider action to combat image-based abuse and ensure that those who create or facilitate such harmful content can be held to account. In addition, the Government have commenced the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act 2023, which has already seen perpetrators brought to justice.

In response to the question about the commencement of the Crime and Policing Act, I assure Members that the Government are going as quickly as possible. We are working across Government, particularly with the Ministry of Justice, and hopefully we can get that through as quickly as possible.

The Minister is listing a series of measures, which we all welcome, but I do not hear her actually committing to making misogyny a hate crime. It does not sound like the Government are really considering that. Could she explain why?

As I said earlier, it is useful for Members to understand the context—what is already happening and how we built to that—before I directly address the call from the petition.

To further support our collective efforts, our cross-Government violence against women and girls strategy was published in December 2025. Actions include making the UK one of the hardest places for children to access harmful online content and misogynistic influences. We are doing that through our online safety regime and by banning under-16s from major social media platforms, backed by one of the toughest enforcement regimes in the world. We will always seek to go further where we can, with a focus on preventing rather than just reacting.

The Ministry of Justice will launch a call for evidence to better understand online misogynistic image-based abuse. In addition, the Department for Education has updated relationships, sex and health education curriculums, which now include teaching on online safety and awareness, healthy relationships and positive role models. Hon. Members talked about a whole societal shift. It is important that we focus on prevention, so I welcome that. Guidance and resources will be provided to support hard-working teachers to recognise the signs of ideologies so that we can intervene swiftly and effectively.

The higher education regulator has introduced strict new requirements that will ensure that every university works to prevent, address and investigate any incidents of sexual harassment and abuse affecting its students. To help address the issue that many people who engage in harmful behaviour do not always recognise their actions as abusive, we have developed a cross-Government behaviour change campaign called Enough. A few Members mentioned people not recognising what is not okay, and also the evidence gap and lack of reporting. It is really important that this campaign explicitly helps people in all walks of life—both victims and perpetrators—to recognise what is and is not acceptable.

I will directly address the petition’s call for misogyny to be recognised more broadly in the hate crime framework beyond the changes already made through the Crime and Policing Act. Although I cannot commit the Government to such changes today, we must always ensure that the hate crime framework is fit for purpose. It is right to mention alternative views, such as those from the Law Commission’s 2021 review, which concluded that adding sex or gender to the existing hate crime framework would not necessarily provide the most effective response in tackling violence against women and girls, and cautioned that reform in this area could have unintended consequences.

Hon. Members will be aware that the Home Secretary commissioned Lord Macdonald in October 2025 to undertake an independent review to consider whether public order and hate crime legislation remains effective. The review engaged extensively with stakeholders from across civil society, academia and community organisations to ensure that a wide range of perspectives informed its conclusions. Lord Macdonald has submitted his final report, which the Government is currently considering, and a response will follow in due course. It is right and fitting that the review’s conclusions help to underpin decision making on any further changes to the hate crime framework and how best to protect women and girls.

On the broader calls from petitioners about tackling violence against women and girls, we know that legislation is an important part, but only one part, of the solution, and cannot tackle violence against women and girls on its own. We must also prevent offending, challenge harmful attitudes, support victims and improve criminal justice responses. We want women and girls to have the confidence to come forward and report crimes while knowing that they will be taken seriously, treated with respect and supported to secure justice. This Government are meeting the petition’s request to fund support for victims and the training to support it. A few Members mentioned training and funding, and I reassure them that training is being expanded and that specialist VAWG teams are being rolled out to all local police forces. The deadline for that was brought forward by the Prime Minister only a couple of weeks ago.

This year, the Home Office is investing more than £13.9 million in the national centre for VAWG and public protection to help ensure that all victims receive the right response. That is part of the Government’s wider investment of over £1 billion to support victims of VAWG, including nearly £500 million for local authorities to provide support in safe accommodation to victims of domestic abuse in Middlesbrough and across the country—I thank the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer) for raising that issue. More than £550 million will be invested across justice to pay for counselling, court guidance and children’s services to support victims. Up to £50 million will also be invested in therapeutic support for child victims of sexual abuse, alongside a further £5 million to support victims of VAWG.

As the Home Secretary said during her statement to the House last week, it will form part of the ongoing policing reform. That will naturally have an impact on how regional and local areas are funded, and that is right and proper.

PCCs will be abolished in 2028, but the reforms will take much longer than that. In many parts of the country the PCC role will easily transfer over to a mayoral role, but that will not be the case in Cleveland, where the boundary of the police is not coterminous with that of the combined authority. The Minister mentioned that one of my councils is very advanced in this work. Can she take away the proposals for some of the funding and powers to go straight to the local authority level in cases where there are such tensions between different government boundaries and bodies?

I am more than happy to arrange a meeting with the relevant policing Minister to ensure that that is explored fully.

Before I conclude, I want to cover the other issues that have been raised. On data gaps and reporting, I want to highlight that the Enough campaign is bearing fruit, but it is obviously a big piece of work. Specialist VAWG teams are also going into local areas, and a part of their role is ensuring that local police forces work with local communities so that there is an uptick in reporting, which must be taken more seriously to help address data gaps, because we know that is an ongoing concern.

I was asked about conversations with police forces, and those are ongoing. The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon) has left the Chamber, but he mentioned what happened to the female protester at the Reform conference. That was disgusting and unacceptable, and I know that the police are encouraging the victim to come forward; I feel we should all do the same to ensure that justice is done.

I thank the Minister for her response, but I want to highlight the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Sarah Edwards) about cracking down on platforms that facilitate misogynistic abuse. Forgive me if the Minister has covered this, but Ofcom has come out with voluntary guidance that suggests various mechanisms for providers to follow. Ultimately, however, if they are not mandatory requirements in the same way as Ofcom’s amended codes of practice, how will that ever force these platforms to stop the monetisation of misogyny and the sorts of practices that are leading to the mass indoctrination of young people? Can she say something about how we might be tightening that up?

On online abuse and harm, it is right and fitting that we work with tech companies because, fundamentally, we all have a responsibility. Where they are failing to come forward, legislation must always be the backstop. Of course, legislation is not the solution and the answer to everything, and working proactively should always be the first step, but we must ensure that we use all possible levers. The VAWG strategy makes it absolutely clear that we will continue to do that.

To conclude, I thank all Members who have participated today. The Government share the determination behind this petition. As I have set out, we have already taken significant action in this area through the Crime and Policing Act, and any further changes to hate crime legislation will be informed by the findings of Lord Macdonald’s independent review on public order and hate crime legislation. More broadly, our work to tackle violence against women and girls continues at pace. The VAWG strategy sets out a blueprint, and this Government are determined to deliver on our mission.

Tackling violence against women and girls is everyone’s business, and it is one of the biggest challenges of our time. The Government recognise that it is far too serious and important an issue for us not to act firmly on it, and we will continue to do so until women and girls—whoever they are and wherever they live—feel safe and can live free from fear.

I thank Amara, Lily and Holly for creating the petition that resulted in this debate, and for the opportunity to ask the Minister a lot of important questions about this vital issue. I also thank the Members who spoke in the debate, all of whom supported tightening up the current laws through the amendment to the 2026 Act. The online dimension to this problem came across particularly strongly in Members’ contributions. On the one hand, the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) talked about the horrendous practice of nightlife videos; on the other, my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Sarah Edwards) rightly underlined the critical importance of cracking down on platforms that facilitate and promote online misogyny. As the Minister said, non-contact abuse does lead to contact abuse, which is why it is particularly insidious. My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer) also rightly raised the important question of ensuring that support is available for victims as the systems change.

I thank the Minister for all her remarks. The petitioners will have heard them: Lord Macdonald is a former Director of Public Prosecutions and he knows the system; I do not know what he has recommended, and neither does anyone else apart from the Minister, perhaps, but it will contain the answer to the petition regarding misogyny as an aggravating feature in all cases. As the Minister has said, it is important that changes to the law have the intended effect and that is something that has to be looked at carefully. It was also encouraging to hear from her that there is expanded specialist training for police officers and that the Prime Minister has recently sped that up.

I again thank the petitioners for their petition. I also thank all those Members who have attended this debate and I thank the Minister and the Government for the significant and strong range of measures that we are taking to tackle VAWG. There is always more that we have to do. We have to go faster and we have to go further to address this issue; as the Minister says, it is one of the most important issues of our time, and we owe it to the young people here and listening across the country to succeed.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 746640 relating to crimes motivated by misogyny and hate crime law.