UK has got fat on the free labour of women, says Jess Phillips
She said she 'hated' the title of her role and added that safeguarding against gender-based violence should be 'business as usual in every single Government department'.
Jess Phillips suggested some ministers thought violence against women and girls was solely the remit of the Home Office (Kirsty O'Connor/PA)
The Birmingham Yardley MP suggested there was an issue in Whitehall where Government departments viewed violence against women and girls as solely a Home Office issue.
Ms Phillips said she had to push for the safety of women and girls to be a 'mainstream concern', which she said had not always made her 'popular as a Government minister'.
Asked what pushback she had received from ministers or civil servants, she said: 'People directly say things like, 'That's the Home Office's job'.
'Why is it my job to do healthy relationship education in schools? Why is it my job to provide mental health support for whatever reason it is that you ended up in that [situation]?'.
'Do you know what it is? Free labour of women is where it comes from.
'It comes from a fundamentally sexist place in that women didn't have these services, so a load of women across the country got together and made these services and offered them to other women for free, and they didn't get paid for their labour.
'So they put down a mattress and made a refuge. They set up counselling services and got people who were trained to be therapists and got their voluntary hours and set it up for free.'
Jess Phillips was interviewed at the Iain Dale All Talk Fringe show (Jacob King/PA)
Ms Phillips said people do not recognise how 'heavily' the UK has relied on women providing support that previously did not exist which has suggested an impact on the willingness of Government to provide these services.
She added: 'Nobody offered diabetes medicine for free. Pharmaceutical companies didn't go, 'Wow, this is really important. People will die without this. We'll just give it away for free'.
'That is what the women in our country did in the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s and we got fat on that expectation that that service will be provided for free.
'And we also belittled it as an issue that wasn't absolutely, fundamentally mainstream to the safety and security of our nation.
'Undoing that is really hard and it's going to take a long time.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
6 hours ago
- BBC News
Clinics to need licences for Botox fillers in cosmetics crackdown
The government has announced plans to crack down on dodgy cosmetic practitioners who it says are exploiting people and causing the new proposals, only qualified health professionals will be able to carry out risky non-surgical Brazilian butt lifts (BBLs) and clinics will need to meet strict rules to obtain licences to offer fillers and will also be protected from potentially dangerous beauty trends on social media with age restrictions on certain industry has welcomed the plans, although the government says it now needs to consult further to figure out exactly how this will work in practice. There has been concern over the lack of rules in parts of the non-surgical cosmetic industry for some procedures, such as liquid BBLs, are marketed as non-surgical but are invasive and carry serious risks, experts BBLs are one of the most high-risk procedures which involve filler being injected into the buttocks to make them bigger, more rounded or lifted. Women have told the BBC of dangerous complications, pain and permanent scarring after treatment by rogue operators. In September 2024, Alice Webb is believed to have become the first person to die in the UK after receiving this unregulated government says it will bring in regulations for the most dangerous procedures first - such as breast fillers and BBLs - which means only some qualified health professionals will be able to perform on who can offer lower-risk treatments such as lip fillers, Botox and facial dermal fillers will also change. A licensing scheme run by local authorities will require practitioners to meet strict safety, training and insurance standards before they can it could still be several years before any of these measures comes into force. The plans will be subject to public consultation and must go through Parliament before they are introduced. 'Wild west' Health Minister Karin Smyth said the industry had been plagued by "a Wild West" of "cosmetic cowboys causing serious, catastrophic damage".She said the government was taking action to protect people, support honest practitioners and root out the unqualified, dangerous ones, while also reducing the costs to the NHS of fixing botched procedures."This isn't about stopping anyone from getting treatments. It's about preventing rogue operators from exploiting people at the expense of their safety." A public consultation in 2023 demonstrated widespread support for tighter regulation across the Collins, director of Save Face, a register of approved clinics and practitioners, said she had seen first hand "the devastating impact these procedures can have on the lives of victims and their families"."I am delighted that the government has recognised the significant and potentially fatal risks posed by highly dangerous procedures like liquid BBLs, and has made it a priority to implement restrictions to protect public safety."There are thought to be around 16,000 businesses involved in non-surgical cosmetic procedures, which have seen a huge boom in popularity in recent Joint Council for Cosmetic Practitioners (JCCP) said ensuring all cosmetic practitioners were regulated and licensed, appropriately insured and worked from safe premises had become "imperative"."These proposals have our full support and we welcome the opportunity to engage in further consultation," says JCCP executive chair Prof David Sines. Health officials are currently investigating 38 cases of poisoning following suspected fake Botox public is reminded to make sure they only use registered and qualified practitioners and use products licensed for use in Scottish government recently set out measures to improve the safety and standards of the non-surgical cosmetic procedures industry, following a consultation.
Daily Mail
7 hours ago
- Daily Mail
NHS facing exodus of doctors as 1 in 8 say they're looking to leave UK and go abroad
Labour's pledge to cut NHS waits is at risk as one in five doctors are considering quitting - with many looking to move abroad, the medical regulator has warned. A new workplace experience report by the General Medical Council reveals almost a fifth of doctors (19 per cent) are thinking of giving up their career in the UK. And one in eight (12 per cent) are pondering leaving the UK to work overseas, according to GMC figures. The main reason given for considering a move abroad was that doctors are 'treated better' in other countries, with an increase in pay cited as the second most common reason for plans to emigrate. Overall, some 43 per cent of doctors told the GMC that they had researched career opportunities in other countries. Some 15 per cent of doctors reported they had taken 'hard steps' towards leaving UK practice – such as applying for roles overseas or contacting recruiters. 'We must be alive to the ongoing risks to retention of doctors and the impact of losing talented staff,' the authors of the GMC's latest report wrote. 'This could threaten Government ambitions to reduce waiting times and deliver better care to patients.' Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has pledged that, by July 2029, 92 per cent of patients will be seen within 18 weeks for routine hospital treatment such as hip and knee replacements. The GMC's latest report also raised concerns about career progression for medics. The report highlighted that 8 per cent of doctors who felt they could progress their career said they were likely to leave the UK medical profession and had taken hard steps towards doing so, compared with 27 per cent of those who did not feel this way. Overall one in three doctors said they are unable to progress their education, training and careers in the way they want, according to the report, which is based on responses from 4,697 doctors around the UK. It found that those who did not feel as though their careers were progressing the way they would wish were at higher risk of burnout and were less satisfied with their work. The GMC said that workloads, competition for posts, and lack of senior support for development are adversely impacting career hopes for UK doctors. Charlie Massey, chief executive of the GMC, said: 'Like any profession, doctors who are disillusioned with their careers will start looking elsewhere. 'Doctors need to be satisfied, supported, and see a hopeful future for themselves, or we may risk losing their talent and expertise altogether. 'Achieving this requires modernising the current training system, so it meets the needs of doctors and patients.' It comes as Health Secretary Wes Streeting and the British Medical Association are locked in talks to avert further strike action by resident doctors after a five-day walkout in July. Resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, are in a dispute with the Government over pay and a lack of places for doctors in training. Commenting on the GMC report, Billy Palmer, senior fellow at the Nuffield Trust think tank, said: 'Pay and industrial action have been a lightning rod for dissatisfaction among doctors but this survey puts a spotlight on the wider difficulties facing the medical profession. 'Job guarantees, better rotas and placements, and protection of training time all need to be on the table. 'Addressing the burden of medical graduates' student debt by gradually writing off loans could also be a promising way to reward doctors' NHS service. 'With fewer than three in five doctors in 'core training' remaining in the NHS eight years later, unless warnings from this survey are dealt with, we'll continue to lose these skilled clinicians.' Dr Tom Dolphin, council chair at the British Medical Association, said: 'This report shows the very real impact of what happens when a service does not value and support its staff: they will continue to choose to leave. 'We face a bizarre contradiction: we still have near record-high waiting lists and patients are desperate to be seen by doctors, but at the same time able and enthusiastic doctors are forced to consider moving abroad because they see no future in the UK.' A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: 'The findings in this report are further evidence of what we know, that after more than a decade of neglect, doctors have legitimate complaints about their conditions, including issues with training bottlenecks and career progression. 'We want to work with them to address these and improve their working lives, which includes our plans set out in the 10 Year Health Plan to prioritise UK graduates and increase speciality training posts. 'This Government is committed to improving career opportunities and working conditions, bringing in ways to recognise and reward talent – as well as freeing up clinicians' time by cutting red tape.'
Daily Mirror
9 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Mum left in a coma after botched BBL 'ecstatic' over cosmetic cowboy crackdown
A mum who was only given five per cent chance of survival leaving her family devastated is 'over the moon' the Government have announced a crackdown on the cosmetic cowboys A mum left in a coma as her family were told she only had a five per cent chance of survival told The Mirror she is 'ecstatic' the Government has taken action. She was reacting to news Health Secretary Wes Streeting has announced a crack down on cosmetic cowboys. Sasha Dean, 54, who runs a transport company in Bedfordshire, suffered multi organ failure, within days of having a volume-boosting jab into her buttocks. She was blue-lighted to hospital after suffering a heart attack, a collapsed lung and failing kidneys. Doctors had to put her into an induced coma as they battled to save her life. Her dad, who is in his 80s, her son, 26 and daughter, 23, were all warned to expect the worst in December 2023. But miraculously after five weeks in hospital she survived the sepsis and has since been campaigning for action - desperate to stop another death. About the Government announcement they are cracking down on cowboy cosmetics, she said: 'It means the world to me. I know that my family will be the same because we have all been waiting for another death. 'It's amazing that there has only been one death so far. That's tragic enough. It could have been many, many more. If there had been it would have broken my heart.' Sasha had a liquid BBL which is a newer technique to the traditional BBL and involves synthetic filler, normally hyaluronic acid injected into the buttocks. Initially she had visited a business in Milton Keynes three times and was offered a discount on her fourth procedure which the practitioner said she would perform at a clinic in her own home. She said when she arrived the room appeared clean with a proper surgical bed and Sasha's partner Alan, 47, joined her. She said: 'At first glance it looked sterile enough until I was laying down and my partner noticed the state of my feet, they were black.' Just then the woman's mum arrived and was told off for not 'sweeping the room when she'd done her client's hair'. Sasha said: 'I remember thinking this is not good but it's too late now, let's finish'." After the procedure Sasha began shivering and her nightmare began. She ended up in intensive care and her family told to 'say their goodbyes'. She recalled: 'It was the most traumatic time. The impact of all this on my family has been catastrophic. "Three days after being taken to ICU they ended up putting me in a coma and I had nightmares of Ian Huntley standing in my wardrobe trying to get me to go in.' Her family were told she had a 'five per cent chance of survival'. once again warned: 'We don't think she's going to survive." Sasha said: "They told my family; 'everything we're doing is not working and all of her organs are now failing, she's in septic shock.' 'My heart was failing, my kidneys failed, my lungs collapsed, I had pneumonia, then I got MRSA, my body couldn't fight anything. While I was in the coma my partner was on YouTube trying to do my hair in a rose on the top of my head. 'My dad came in and my friend told me he leant on me and just broke down saying; 'you're a Brewster', that's my maiden name. 'I've brought you up to fight and now I need you to fight'. I had a fit and I was trying to say 'I could hear him' and 'I'm fighting'. They had to remove him from the room." Her favourite music was played and sounded like it was a 'miles away'. After five days in the coma Sasha started responding to the 'industrial antibiotics' and she came out of intensive care after 12 days. It took eight days for her to be out of the 'danger zone' and she went on to lose her hair and nails. Sasha says her mental and physical agony continues today, explaining: 'My thoughts are overwhelming. I've got PTSD and my NHS counselling has finished but the trauma is still very much there with night terrors and sweats. Even a smell can trigger me, the other day I was hysterical after putting face cream on. I was in the house on my own and it reminded me of the plastic mask I had on my mouth when I was in hospital.' But she said the campaign to get the Government to act had 'given me something to focus on to get change. It has given me the drive." She says she now hopes this law change will help her heal. "I'd like to thank Ashton from Save Face for helping me through it all and the Mirror for highlighting it," she added. "Let's hope this change will bring procedures like this to an end."
