What’s the most pressing issue for women right now and what are you doing about it?

Male perpetrated violence against women and girls. It is an absolute scandal that three women a week are killed at the hands of men in this country and it’s not front-page news every single day. It feels like the country has been desensitised to it. If you look at the charge rates when it comes to sexual violence, it’s 2.6% for rape, so the criminal justice system isn’t working either. Women are dropping out of cases because it’s more painful and traumatic to be a part of them than to just let it go. I spoke to one victim-survivor who told me that she’d been raped. It took years to finally get to trial. And the words that she told me, which will always stay with me, are that it made her “want to die”. We have to make it a political priority. Because for far too long, it hasn’t been.

We’re going to halve violence against women and girls over the course of a decade. It’s ambitious, but we can do it. And I’m really proud that I will be given the task of hoping to achieve that in government. Part of that is in restoring trust again, so that women and girls know that politicians see them, hear them, understand them and take them seriously.

What’s the one thing you want to achieve in your role?

Seeing progress in halving the violence against women and girls, so starting that culture change, whether that’s in schools, in the workplace, in the street – wherever you are. I want you to be able to feel safe. I want women and girls to feel as safe in everyday life as they do at a Taylor Swift concert. And if we can achieve that, then I’ve done my job. The other thing that I really want to achieve, and I’m ambitious for, is to encourage more women and girls into politics, particularly from areas like mine. I’m from a working-class coalfield community in the Valleys, and I went to a comprehensive school. I’m not a nepo baby. I want other women and girls to see me and think, Well, if she can do it… I want them to think that one day they could represent their constituency, their community.

What’s been your most memorable day in politics so far?

It’s been quite a chaotic couple of years. I’ve got two: one for the drama, which was when Liz Truss resigned, just because it was utter chaos and disarray in parliament. Everyone was running around like headless chickens, thinking: Is the government going to come down? Are they going to call an election?

From a pride point of view, it would probably be the only vote [Labour has] ever won [this parliament]. And that was Diana Johnson’s amendment for the infected blood scandal because I had constituents impacted by that. That was parliament coming together at its best, not using a really important issue as political capital.

How do people react when you tell them you’re a politician?

It goes two ways. Some people are really surprised. I can’t tell you the amount of time people think I’m a researcher, a member of staff or I’m there to take the minutes or make the cups of tea. People still have, sadly, this ingrained vision of what a politician should look like, and it’s really depressing.

The other reaction I get is “Oh, my God, how do you do it?” And it is really difficult. I’ve got a little boy who’s five, and he was only eight months old when I was elected. So trying to balance, you know, being a mam and being an MP is difficult. People ask “How do you do it and raise a little boy?” and that angers me, because how many times would they ever ask a man that? I know they mean well, but it does sort of light a fire in me. I want to show my little boy that his mam kicked ass, and his mam can do these things as well. And that it’s not just a man’s job.

Do you have a constituent in mind when you’re standing up in parliament?

I try to think about as many as possible, but I always think about my mam, a 1950s woman from the Valleys who has been through a lot. And I always like to think: is this outside the Westminster bubble? Is this actually what people care about back home? Is this what people in my local working men’s club will be talking about on a Friday night? How does this impact them and matter to them?” As my mam tells me: you always trust your mam.

What piece of criticism as a politician has stuck in your mind?

We get criticism all the time. Women politicians get it more than most, and women of colour have it even worse. Debate me all you want on my policies: what I believe in, what I believe is the right course for the country. But when you get personal, and when you start attacking the way I look, or my weight or my accent, then you’ve lost the argument. That’s why democracy is so important – we need people to stand up for what they believe in, rather than how they look.

“I want women to feel as safe in everyday life as they do at a Taylor Swift concert”: Alex Davies-Jones on Labour’s promise to halve violence against women and girls