My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for introducing her amendment and indeed for tabling it in the first place. This important issue is not talked about enough. I am aware that in the other place a PMB was brought forward on this subject at some stage, but it is something that is not considered sufficiently.
We heard some figures and stats from the noble Baroness. The consultation on the safety of women and girls found that 71% of all women in the UK had suffered some form of sexual harassment in public spaces. I wonder whether the figure is higher, because I wonder whether every woman admits to it—so it is at least that number. If I think back to my own life experience, I remember that when my daughters became teenagers I could not help myself: I started to worry about them, because I did not want to happen to them the things that had happened to me. To be in that position when there are other things that could be done is frustrating.
To me, this is an opportunity where simple things could be done if they were better understood by designers and planners, so I am completely behind the noble Baroness’s amendment. If we are improving the safety of women and girls, it is about putting positive societal values right at the heart of our planning and design—particularly urban planning, as the noble Baroness mentioned—and we know that new approaches to this could ensure that outcomes improve for women, particularly those who are working and living in urban areas.
Something that I find frustrating about this issue is that women are often made to feel entirely responsible for themselves to be safe. They are told, “Carry alarms. Don’t do this or that. Don’t go there”. It should be not just women’s responsibility but society’s responsibility to look after women and the vulnerable in that society. We need to think not just about the planning of new developments but about their delivery. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said, women need to feel safe. She talked about streetlights, pavements, secure walkways and the things in her amendment that would make a huge difference.
Perceptions of safety are just as important here. That is one of the reasons why the part of her amendment that says the local planning authority must prepare and publish a report, setting out the results of the review that she suggests, is important. It is only when you do that review and prepare and publish a report that you can see accurately what needs to be done.
We know that 36% of women state that they feel unsafe walking in their local area at night. The consultation that was done on safety asked women to pinpoint specific areas where they do or do not feel safe. That has highlighted common characteristics between places where people either feel safe or do not feel safe. Those statistics
and other findings are highly significant, because they are then available to inform research and enable the future design and development of buildings to explicitly and specifically consider safety issues and therefore to adopt the kinds of measures that we need to allay safety fears—and much of this is in the noble Baroness’s amendment.
So what should city planners and developers consider when looking at how they can improve this situation in their areas? Clearly, there is never going to be a one-size-fits-all approach, which again is why it is important to have these reviews and reports done. Planners locally need to be able to determine what is needed in their locality and have that as their starting point.
There are some interesting findings. For example, warm light is better than harsh lighting. Light can evoke a range of feelings and has a different impact on people at different times of night and day. There are interesting ways in which things could be improved that we might not even think of straight off. We know that people put CCTV up and think it will help safety, but actually it often has the opposite effect; if there are CCTV cameras everywhere, they can make you feel unsafe. Even if that perception is not reality, it adds to the feeling of not being safe. Basically, it sends out the wrong message and so can discourage people from going into that area, even though in theory it might actually be the safest place to be.
Development can also create temporary spaces which are in a constant state of flux, and create anxiety in people. If we think about the interface between a public space and adjacent land, how does that all join together? How do you get from one to the other? The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, talked about subways, for example—underpasses. What might look fun during the day can look very different at night-time.
Again, we need to think about how buildings are designed. If you have worked in a large building, you can often feel very isolated in it. I have worked in a building where I knew that there was somebody who worked in another part of it who had, shall we say, not been too pleasant to me in the past. If I was in that building on my own, that made me feel extremely vulnerable but I did not want to leave my job. We also need to think about how car parks are lit outside workplaces, for example. This is probably going to sound a bit daft to the men, but one thing that I have always got really frustrated about—and worried about if I had to suddenly leg it, to be blunt—is when you are in area full of cobbles and you have heels on. It sounds silly but very small things can make a difference to your perception of safety when you are out at night.
Architects, developers and urban planners really need to ensure that women and girls’ experiences are involved in building safer environments. It should not just be about women; men need to contribute to the process and demonstrate that they are committed to working with women to improve building design and planning. Back in March 2021 Priti Patel, when she was the Home Secretary, said:
“Every woman should feel safe to walk on our streets without fear of harassment or violence”.
Accepting the noble Baroness’s amendment would be an excellent place to start.