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Jess Phillips calls for Epstein files to be catalyst for long-term legislative change Institutions can be persuaded to take action on violence against women and girls only when some sort of “calamity” or “political scandal” hits the headlines, Jess Phillips has said. Phillips, the minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, said she wanted to use the momentum from the Epstein files to push for long-term legislative change and greater support for survivors, rather than quick-fix reactive policy announcements. Writing for the Guardian, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley said: “If repentance and sorrow is all we achieve out of the courage of the Epstein victims we will have failed, change is all that will suffice. “The long-term strategy of the government must be exactly that – long term. I am proud of the challenge we have tried to rise to, of the [violence against women and girls] strategy with investment and system change at its heart, but we mustn’t let even that stand still, it must stretch when ambitions are met and it must never only be pulled out and waved around or cared about when it is politically expedient to do so. Epstein’s victims deserve better.” But she added that she felt “weary, tired and frankly downright furious that... https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/feb/15/jess-phillips-calls-for-epstein-files-to-be-catalyst-for-long-term-legislative-change