MP Siobhan Baillie speaks about women's safety in parliament

Siobhan supports local groups on the issue and she mentioned constituents, Nikki Owen and Sydney-Anne McAllister who have launched This Ends Now.

They want the law to better protect women and the media to better report offences.

While speaking in the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Bill debate, she also mentioned the girls from Stroud High School who organised a survey about how much harassment they suffered while in uniform.

The findings found that girls aged only nine had received unwanted comments.

Siobhan said all women had experienced some form of harassment.

“It ranges from being shouted at to comments by those who think they are being funny, to people being flashed at and far more serious incidents,” she told MPs.

“In Stroud, sadly, we have had a series of rapes and sexual assaults, which is totally devastating for the victims and their families.

"We now have women who are worried about going out.

"We have women who are worried about going for a run during the day down our championed canal routes, because one of the attacks was in broad daylight. 

“But Stroud fought back.

"Anybody who thought that they would get away with attacking women and girls or being rude to them on the streets in my area was very, very wrong. 

“We have all banded together to make changes. Our voices are being reinforced, although it is not just about our voices: in all our constituencies, we have Government support for a very important Bill.”

Siobhan added that Gloucestershire’s Police and Crime Commissioner has made tackling violence against women and girls a focus of his work. 

“Gloucestershire police have created something called the Flare app. It allows people to put in the details of places they are worried about in the Stroud district and creates a heat map, so the police know to go to specific points of concern and the council can come in and do work on things such as CCTV.”

However, she told MPs the right balance must be struck.

“I welcome the explanation of what will and will not result in imprisonment. The headlines and challenges that we have seen—that someone will be sent to prison because they wolf-whistled - are immediately dismissive. 

“It is therefore right that we are clear about what the Bill does and does not do and about how we have sought to strike a balance.

"The test is the intention to cause distress. Where somebody is being a plonker, that is a very different test - we could deal with plonkers in other ways. 

“This intention to cause distress is a serious test, which will hopefully lead to prosecutions in the right places and then to deterrence, so that we can start to change society and culture.”