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Hello there, I'm Alicia McCarthy.

Thanks for downloading the Yesterday in Parliament podcast.

On Thursday the 18th of December,

the Conservatives called for an honest debate

about whether mass migration was making violence against women and girls worse.

Some statistics speak for themselves.

Last year, one in every eight women was a victim of domestic abuse, stalking or sexual assault.

Every day, 200 rapes are reported to the police and many go unreported.

That's the safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips,

setting out the government's strategy for tackling violence against women and girls.

Much delayed and much trailed, it was finally revealed to a sparsely attended chamber

on the last parliamentary day before Christmas.

The broad aims are to stop boys and men becoming abusers, take action against offenders

and support victims. It will take all of society to step up and end the epidemic of abuse

and violence that shames our country. The challenge is great, but I have never felt more confident

that we can rise to it than I do today.

Under the plans, there'd be changes to the school curriculum in England,

teacher training on relationships and consent,

and targeted programmes for boys showing signs of abusive behaviour.

For the Conservatives, Katie Lamb said not every country in the world believed that women were equal to men.

And where people from those countries and cultures come here, this can be dangerous.

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