'Over to Sheffield MPs after Lords vote to make misogyny a hate crime'

In what was a night of debates and several Government defeats in the upper chamber, Peers voted to make misogyny a hate crime as part of the House of Lords consideration of a suite of amendments to improve protection for them in Priti Patel’s controversial policing bill.

With Labour, Liberal Democrat and Greens backing, Tory peer and former victims commissioner Baroness Newlove has defied opposition from Boris Johnson in the bid to make sex or gender a protected characteristic alongside race, religion or beliefs, trans identity, sexual orientation and disability when judging whether a crime was motivated by hate.

The campaign backed by many equalities groups, including women’s rights groups such as the Fawcett Society, was left appalled in December when a Government endorsed Law Commission review concluded that such a designation would not solve the “real problem” of hostility or prejudice directed against women because of their sex or gender.

Fawcett Society chief executive Jemima Olchawski said it was vital that the Lords should ensure that anti-women attacks are recognised as hate crimes.

She told the Independent newspaper ahead of the momentous vote: “If you’re a victim of a crime motivated by hatred of your race, religion or disability, the law will recognise it - but not if you’re victimised because you’re a woman.

"This amendment is an opportunity to change that. From Muslim women having their headscarves snatched to women facing horrendous abuse online, making misogyny a hate crime is vital if we are to get serious about tackling the extent and prevalence of violence against women.”

Other much needed and positive progressions for women have also been forthcoming with the Government in recent days also accepting amendments to outlaw the photographing of breastfeeding mothers.

Amendments tabled by Labour also include a requirement for an urgent review and change of the laws and police action around “spiking” and proposals to require awareness training on the issue of stalking for criminal justice professionals, as well as clamping down on predatory and abusive landlords who seek sex for rent.

Labour’s Lord Ponsonby stated ahead of the victorious debate: “Concerns about violence against women and girls and preventing particularly heinous crimes run through many of the amendments we’re pursuing or backing – relating, as they do, to sex for rent, spiking and misogyny.”

Sheffield and South Yorkshire have always played a proud pivotal role in the battle for women’s rights and continue to do so to this very day.

It’s now up to our MPs to not let girls and women the breadth of this nation down and to carry on enacting deeds not words by backing the 242 to 185 votes in the Lords to make misogyny part of hate crime .