Rachel de Souza, the children’s commission, has issued this statement about the VAWG plan. While she welcomes many elements of it, she says she is “deeply concerned” that it does not contain enough measures to protect girls under the age of 16. She says:

This strategy is an important step in our shared ambition to end violence against women and girls. I’m pleased to see many of my recommendations included, especially a new network of ‘Child Houses’ [see 10.01am], which are hugely valuable services bringing highly skilled professionals together under one roof to care for child victims of abuse and give them a voice.

I’m also delighted to see a move to ban nudification tools as I have pushed for, which strip people naked in images against their will. [See 1.37pm.] There is simply no reason for these tools to exist and I’m grateful to the government for responding decisively to this growing threat in children’s lives.

The focus on evidence-based relationships education that addresses the realities of teenagers’ lives today is welcome, as is the move to prioritise better training for teachers and experts to shape children’s views early on – but this must be done with sensitivity, without demonising young boys or pitting them against girls.

However, I remain deeply concerned that too much of this strategy will only protect girls who are 16 or over. We need robust data measures to see if the strategy is working, but this cannot be at the expense of listening and responding to the risks facing every girl from a young age.

In her opening statement to MPs, Phillips said that nudification tools are going to be banned. The Home Office has set out more detail on this in a news release.

More women and girls will be protected from deepfake abuse as new laws will ban ‘nudification’ tools that use generative AI to turn images of real people into fake nude pictures and videos without their permission.

As part of the government’s strategy to tackle violence against women and girls, ministers have pledged to make it impossible for children in the UK to take, share or view a nude image using their phones. The government will join forces with tech companies so we can work together to make this a reality and better protect young people from grooming, extortion, bullying, harassment and sexual abuse …

The government will work with tech companies to develop solutions to image based abuse, expanding on technology already being implemented by British safety tech company Safe To Net, and nudity detection filters already on smartphones …

The new legislation will allow the police to target the firms and individuals who design and supply these [nudification] tools.

Worryingly, these apps allow users to strip clothes, and produce intimate videos without the consent of those depicted – with devastating and long-lasting consequences to victims. Highly realistic, this technology has led to a scourge of financially motivated sexual extortion and even suicide in some cases. In Spain, the town of Almendralejo was devastated after several perpetrators used these apps to create nude images of twenty children walking to school.

Government has also already legislated to criminalise the creation of non-consensual sexual deepfakes, ensuring that offenders face the appropriate punishments for this atrocious harm.

The Home Office has now published the VAWG plan. It comes in two parts – the strategy, and the action plan.

In response to Lam (see 1.02pm), Phillips said that she agreed that data collection about these crimes has not been good enough.

She said the government was increasing the number of foreign offenders being deported.

But she suggested Lam was ignoring the main problem.

What I would also say to [Lam] is, if the only crime that I had to concern myself with halving was that was committed by people who arrive in our country, my job would be considerably easier because the vast majority of the data that I am talking about is around people who were born in our country abusing other people who were born in our country.

From every culture, from every creed, I have yet to come across any community where violence against women and girls does not happen.

Lam gave the official Tory response to the VAWG announcement when she replied in the Commons to Phillips’ statement. Lam devoted almost all of her time to talking about the alleged risk to migrants posed by migrants.

Katie Lam, a shadow Home Office minister, is responding on behalf of the Tories.

She says truly protecting women and girls will involve difficult conversations.

Not every culture in the world believes that women are equal to men, she says.

And when those cultures come to this country, that can cause a problem.

She quotes what was said in court by the defence when an Afghan sex offender was being tried. The court was told that the defendant did not understand the concept of consent.

She claims that the government has not published full data on crime as committed by people from different nationalities, and by immigration status. She says there are “shocking” variations by nationality.

She calls for a debate on whether mass migration is making the situation worse.

Jess Phillips, the safeguarding and VAWG minister, is making her statement to MPs.

She starts by saying the government is treating violence against women and girls as the national emergency that it is.

She says this strategy is different from previous ones because it will use the entire power of the state to tackle the problem.

It has three strands, she says: preventing violence in the first place; stopping re-offending; and supporting victims.

On prevention, she says the government is investing £20m to stop misogynistic views being embedded in the first place.

She says schools will be given more resources. And teachers will be taught to spot the warning signs.

The government wants to make the UK one of the places with the strongest laws protecting people online.

She says nudification tools will be banned.

Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, has announced that she is setting up a farming and food partnership board. In a news release, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs says:

Chaired by Emma Reynolds, with farming minister Dame Angela Eagle as deputy, the board will bring together senior leaders from farming, food production, retail, finance and government to take a practical, partnership-led approach from farm to fork to strengthen our food production …

The board will focus on removing barriers to investment, improving how the supply chain works and unlocking growth opportunities across different parts of primary production and processing. It will have a clear emphasis on supporting agricultural productivity, homegrown British produce and strengthening food security.

Reynolds made the announcement as she published the review by Minette Batters, the former NFU president, into farming profitability. It includes 57 recommendations that the government will consider.

Downing Street has indicated that Britain is prepared to share the risks with European allies of using frozen Russian assets to aid Ukraine.

At the morning lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson was repeatedly asked if the government was willing to accept Belgium’s requests to share the risk of unlocking frozen Russian assets for use in Ukraine.

He indicated the Government would, telling reporters:

I think it’s evident within the government’s actions that what we want to see is those immobilised assets used to support Ukraine.

We believe that delivering these funds sends a very clear signal to Putin that he cannot outlast the support of the UK and our allies, that is what we remain focused on.

Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.

Ash Regan, a former Scottish National party minister who defected to Alex Salmond’s nationalist party Alba, faces a two-day suspension from the Scottish parliament for breaching its code of conduct in a row over gender recognition.

Holyrood’s standards committee has recommended Regan, who now sits as an independent after quitting Alba some months after losing a leadership contest, be suspended on a Wednesday and Thursday – its busiest two days. That needs to be approved by a full vote in parliament, after the Christmas recess.

It ruled she had breached the MSP’s code by posting a claim on the social media site X which attacked the Scottish Green MSP Maggie Chapman, over remarks Chapman made about the UK supreme court ruling on the definition of woman.

Chapman has been one of Holyrood’s most vociferous supporters of trans rights; Regan is one of its most vociferous gender critical activists.

Regan said on X: “I’ve formally reported Maggie Chapman MSP to the presiding officer and standards committee following her dangerous dismissal of the supreme court’s ruling on the Equality Act as a ‘political attack’. MSPs have a duty to uphold the law, not undermine it.”

After considering a report from Holyrood’s ethics commissioner, the committee unanimously agreed this was a breach of part 9.1 of the code of conduct, which bars MSPs from disclosing, communicating or discussing complaints about other MSPs before a report on that complaint has been published.

In interviews last week, Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, played down the prospect of the UK following Australia and banning under-16s from having their own social media accounts. She did not rule out the idea, but she said she did not believe it would be easy to enforce.

But, in her interviews this morning, Jess Phillips, the minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls (VAWG) sounded much more positive about the Australian experience, saying the government would consider it “very closely”. She told Times Radio:

What I would say is that you cannot have a violence against women and girls policy that doesn’t look at the online environment, or certainly one that looks at misogyny and the behaviours of boys who grow into men without looking at an online world …

The government will be looking very, very closely at what is happening in Australia, and we would always take the best of what is available around the world with regard to the safety and security of children.

But Phillips also said the UK had been a “trailblazer” for online safety.

Today, when the full policies are announced in the violence against women and girls strategy, you will see that online harm, online harms to children, are very, very much part of that.

The employment rights bill has received royal assent, which means it is now the Employment Rights Act and it is law, Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, told the Commons this morning. Labour MPs cheered when they heard the news.

Richard Adams is the Guardian’s education editor.

The British public supports the government’s decision to rejoin the Erasmus youth education and work experience programme, according to snap polling released by YouGov.

The pollsters asked 7,300 adults about one element of the scheme – UK students spending “a year at European universities as part of their UK degrees courses without paying extra fees, and vice versa for European students” – and found that 65% would support it and only 12% were opposed, while 22% answered “don’t know”.

The good news for the government is that younger people aged 18 to 24 – those most likely to take part – were even more enthusiastic.

However the question didn’t note the £570m cost to the UK for one years’ membership, which shadow education secretary Laura Trott described as “nuts”. It also didn’t mention that the Erasmus+ programme includes far more than university students: before the UK left in 2020 schools were its most active participants.

The question’s mention of studying “without paying extra fees” suggests that the higher education element will operate as it did prior to 2020, although that remains to be set out, according to university leaders.

The crown court backlog in England and Wales has risen to nearly 80,000 cases in a new record high, PA Media reports. PA says:

Data published this morning showed the open caseload was 79,619 at the end of September, up 2% from 78,096 at the end of June.

It is also up 9% from the same point a year earlier, according to Ministry of Justice figures.

The number of cases open for a year or more passed 20,000 for the first time at 20,155 at the end of September, which is up 25% year on year and up 6% from the end of June.

Open caseload refers to the number of outstanding cases.

Ministry of Justice projections published earlier this month suggested the crown court backlog could reach a high estimate of 125,000 by the end of this parliament under current conditions. David Lammy, the deputy PM and justice secretary, says his plans to limit jury trials will help to reduce this.

Commenting on the figures today, Lammy said:

This Government inherited a system on the brink of collapse.

Victims’ lives are being put on hold as cases are kicked several years into the future.

The scale of this crisis means tinkering at the edges is not enough. We simply cannot spend our way out of this mess – only fundamental reform can give the brave survivors of crime fairer and faster justice.

Kemi Badenoch has vowed to scrap green spending to pay for a multibillion-pound fund to rearm the UK, PA Media report. PA says:

Accusing Labour of failing to invest in the UK’s armed forces, the Conservative leader has proposed reallocating £17bn to “accelerate” Britain’s “war readiness”.

She said: “We must ensure our armed forces are equipped and ready to defend our country, because defence of the realm must be the first priority of any government.”

The money includes £11bn from the national wealth fund that is currently allocated to net zero projects, with the fund itself turned into a new national defence and resilience bank.

Another £6bn over three years would be taken from the government’s research and development budget and given to the Ministry of Defence to invest in new technology.

Alongside investment from the private sector, the Tories said they expected their plan to mobilise £50bn for defence.

Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge said the money would “deliver the drone revolution our armed forces require” and create a “more lethal” military.

As well as investing in UK defence firms, the money is expected to be used to build more resilient supply chains, reducing Britain’s reliance on “hostile states” such as China.

Labour has previously pledged to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP from 2027 and to 3% by the end of the decade.

The Tories claim that, together, these measures would fund a £50b “sovereign defence fund”. In a briefing, this is how they explain it.

-£6bn (£2bn per annum over the course of this parliament) would be reallocated from the Research and Development (R&D) budget in the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology to the MOD. It is well known that defence technology and innovation can have spillover effects into other sectors, like communications and transport, causing a multiplier effect.

-£11bn ringfenced from the national wealth fund (NWF) – which will become the national defence and resilience bank (NDRB). This funding is currently allocated to many of Ed Miliband’s costly eco-projects. We would leave the remainder of financing in the fund for national resilience like water and transport.

-Approximately £33bnn of private finance via NDRB mobilisation. The existing NWF target of mobilising £3 of private investment for every £1 of public investment would remain for the SDF – so this could unlock tens of billions of pounds in private investment.

In response, a Labour party spokesperson said:

The Tories are gaslighting the British public on defence.

These are yet more fantasy figures from a Conservative party that cut defence by £12bn in their first five years in power. Look at their record: their time in office starved our forces of funding, drove down morale and left Britain less safe. They did it before, and they’d do it again.

Almost 40 Labour MPs have signed an open letter to Keir Starmer describing the government’s plans to limit access to jury trials as madness.

In the letter, organised by Karl Turner, who is normally a loyalist, the MPs say:

The drastic restriction of the right to trial by jury is not a silver bullet. To limit a fundamental right for what will make a marginal difference to the backlog, if any, is madness and will cause more problems than it solves.

The government has a working majority of 167 and so, even if all 39 MPs who have signed the letter were to vote against the government when it legislates for its plans next year, they would not be enough to see it defeated.

But there are other Labour MPs who share the concerns of this group, and the government is already under strong pressure to a sunset clause on the plans – meaning the jury trial restrictions were time-limited for just a few years – as a compromise.

Ben Quinn has more on the story here.

Schools have warned of growing misogyny from pupils towards teachers and a lack of avenues to seek help about concerns over sexually aggressive behaviour, Jess Phillips, the VAWG minister, has said. Jessica Elgot has the story.

Here are some more extracts from the statement about the VAWG strategy issued by Claire Waxman, the incoming victims’ commissioner for England and Wales. Here comments about funding were quoted at 9.25am. But other points are worth noting.

• Waxman says that, while elements of the plan are welcome, it remains to be seen if, overall, it will provide what is needed.

While many individual initiatives are welcome, it remains to be seen whether the overall Strategy provides the scale, pace, and leadership required to match the government’s ambition - and truly tackle this emergency.

• She specifically welcomes the plan to roll out nationally the Child House model for supporting child abuse victims.

In terms of specific measures, the national rollout of the Child House model - pioneered by Lighthouse in London - is a welcome step I have long called for. It marks vital progress towards delivering on the recommendations of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse.

There is more about the Child House model here, and more on the Lighthouse here.

• She also welcomes the expansion of Operation Soteria, a police/CPS partnership to improve the prosecution of rape and serious sexual offences.

I also welcome initiatives such as the expansion of Operation Soteria to reduce the re-traumatisation too many victims experience in the trial process. Long after my 2019 rape review, ‘end-to-end’ reform of the justice system for serious sexual offences is finally in sight - but only if the government now delivers on its commitment to independent legal advice for rape survivors, and tackles the long waits for justice.

• She says plans in the sentencing bill to limit the number of offenders being jailed will undermine the VAWG strategy.

Without clear, sustainable investment and cross-government leadership, I am concerned we run the risk of the Strategy amounting to less than the sum of its parts; a wish-list of tactical measures rather than a bold, unifying strategic framework.

The Sentencing Bill underlines this lack of cohesion. Victims need confidence that the system will protect them, yet under the proposals in the bill, the reality is that many abusers will avoid prison entirely or benefit from early release - undermining the very safety this Strategy seeks to guarantee.

Jessica Elgot is the Guardian’s deputy political editor.

Keir Starmer is planning for a new king’s speech after the crunch May elections as a reset moment for the government amid speculation over the prime minister’s future.

Senior sources in parliament said planning was under way to end the parliamentary session the week after local elections in England, making it a significantly longer session than normal, and nearly two years since Labour first set out its legislative agenda.

Labour is facing a potentially devastating set of results in England, Wales and Scotland, with the possible loss of hundreds of council seats to Reform and the Greens in England as well as defeat for the first time in Wales, where Plaid Cymru and Reform are leading in the polls.

In Scotland, the Scottish National party are polling on course to maintain power despite pre-election hopes that Labour’s Anas Sarwar could become first minister. Critics of Starmer’s leadership have repeatedly named May as the moment when would-be leadership challengers could call for him to stand aside.

The last king’s speech was in July 2024, weeks after Labour won the general election, but a combination of parliamentary rebellions, international and economic turmoil and defeats in the House of Lords has meant the government needs more time to complete the legislation.

The relatively late end to the session will raise some hopes among supporters of assisted dying that it may be possible to complete the bill, which will fall if it does not pass by the end of the session. They expect many opponents will try to use procedure to talk out the private members’ bill and bar it from progressing.

Further changes to the House of Lords are among a number of measures expected in the king’s speech, including introducing a mandatory retirement age of 80.

Good morning. The government is finally publishing its violence against women and girls (VAWG) strategy. In its manifesto Labour said it wanted to halve VAWG within a decade, and so this is a vital policy area. Publication of the strategy has been delayed three times. In the Commons on Monday, in response to an urgent question on this, Jess Phillips, minister for safeguarding and VAWG, said the delays were down to her. “It is entirely my fault because, with every iteration, the strategy was not ambitious enough. I could have done it more quickly, and then it would not have been as good,” she said.

Although the document is being published today, the VAWG strategy is being promoted via a budget-style, week-long media strategy. We have already had announcements form the Home Office covering extra spending for abuse victims, specialist NHS help for abuse victims, and all police forces introducing specialist rape and sexual offence teams.

And, overnight, the government has been briefing on plans to tackle misogynist behaviour in schools. Alexandra Topping and Rajeev Syal have the details here.

Phillips has been giving interviews this morning and she has described these measures as particularly important because, while other aspects of the strategy deal with the consequences of VAWG, this aspect deals with prevention. She told Times Radio:

I’m a bit sick, I have to say, as somebody who’s campaigned on this for many years, of just trying to put nicer plasters onto ever growing scars, and so we’ve got to – the government is really, really focused on the prevention.

But how good is the strategy overall? Claire Waxman, the incoming victims’ commissioner for England and Wales, has issued a statement saying that, while the plan contains many welcome measures, potential lack of funding is “deeply concerning”. She says she is worried it could end up as “less than the sum of its parts”.

She says:

Ultimately, the success of this strategy hinges on whether delivery partners are equipped to succeed. Early indications around funding are deeply concerning. The strategy introduces welcome measures in schools and the NHS which will, by design, drive up disclosures and referrals to police and victim services. Yet frontline services are already overstretched and struggling to meet need, and the criminal justice system remains in crisis.

Funding is critical. Driving up demand without increasing capacity puts victims at risk and threatens to destabilise the very partners the strategy relies upon. This concern is heightened by the lack of meaningful consultation. Victim services are not an optional extra to this strategy - they must be the backbone of it.

Without clear, sustainable investment and cross-government leadership, I am concerned we run the risk of the strategy amounting to less than the sum of its parts; a wish-list of tactical measures rather than a bold, unifying strategic framework.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: The Ministry of Justice publishes its latest figures on the courts backlog.

9.30am: Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

11am: Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, and John McDonnell, the Labour MP, speak at a press conference held by relatives and supporters of the Palestine Action-lined hunger strikers.

After 11.30am: Jess Phillips, the VAWG minister, makes a statement to MPs about the government’s plan to tackle violence against women and girls.

Morning: Kemi Badenoch is on a visit in east Hampshire.

Noon: The Bank of England announces its decision on interest rates.

The government is also making announcements via 13 written ministerial statements, covering police funding, the cost of the government’s response to the Covid inquiry, the Minette Batters review of farm profitability, and the inquiry into conditions at the Manston asylum centre.

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