Scottish Liberal Democrat Leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has asked his Deputy Wendy Chamberlain to lead a Policy Commission on ending men’s violence against women and girls. Wendy, as the only former woman police officer in the House of Commons, is best placed to lead this work.

Back in March 2021, in the wake of Sarah Everard’s murder, Scottish Liberal Democrats called on the Scottish Government to create such a Commission to look at all aspects of tackling this scourge on our society.

Since then the Government has made little progress.

Alex said:

In 1623 John Donne wrote, “Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind”. I’ve always found that to be such a Liberal sentiment.

Well Conference, any woman’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in womankind.

And right now, in the villages and cities of Iran, we see women fighting for their lives against the vicious morality police, fighting against the twisted interpretation of Islam used to justify and normalise the brutality of men.

They are casting off hijabs and cutting their hair in the name and in the memory of Mahsa Amini.

And Conference, whether it is in faraway Isfahan or nearby Clapham Common, that brutality is still far too normal an aspect of modern life.It’s why the phrase, ‘she was only walking home’, has now become an epitaph. 

Conference, we cannot go on like this. I am tired of waiting for the Scottish Government to act on Liberal Democrat proposals, led by Caron Lindsay, to establish a taskforce to better shape our policy response to this grim reality.

We must be agents of the change that we wish to see and that is why I’m announcing the creation of a new Scottish Liberal Democrat Policy Commission on Men’s Violence, to be convened by our deputy leader, Wendy Chamberlain. 

She is more than equipped to lead this vital work. Her years of service as a police officer gave her the grounding to take on the Metropolitan Police over its response to the murder of Sarah Everard.

If the SNP won’t act, then Scottish Liberal Democrats will.