UK has got ‘fat on decades of women’s unpaid labour’

Jess Phillips says the country has wrongly relied on charity

- CRAIG MEIGHAN

Jess Phillips says that the UK has grown “fat” on the unpaid labour of women, a practice she deems “fundamentally sexist”.

The minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls argued that the nation has depended on women’s charitable contributions for decades. That had led to a reluctance from the government to provide services itself, she said.

Ms Phillips, the MP for Birmingham Yardley, expressed her disdain for her own job title, saying that safeguarding against gender-based violence should be “business as usual in every single government department”. She also suggested that other government departments tend to view violence against women and girls as exclusively a Home Office responsibility.