SHADOW home secretary Yvette Cooper will blast the government’s record on violence against women today, in an address to Labour’s women’s conference in Manchester.

On the first day of conference proceedings, Ms Cooper will tell a women-only session of a decline in prosecutions for rape and domestic violence, despite more cases being reported.

She is among a number of Labour politicians working on a new Violence Against Women and Girls Bill to be put forward in the first Queen’s speech of a Labour government.

Delegates will also hear from shadow women and equalities minister Gloria de Piero and Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman.

And Walsall South MP Valerie Vaz has warned that the Tory government is not doing enough to help women in science.

In an article for this Tuesday’s Morning Star, she highlights the “worrying” statistic that nearly half of state schools did not have a woman studying A-level physics.

And she says: “The rhetoric around part-time and flexible working needs to change.”

Analysis by the Economist magazine earlier this year found Labour leading the Tories in the polls by a margin of 7.1 per cent among women, but only 4.6 per cent among men. The revelation came after Labour leader Ed Miliband slammed Tory PM

David Cameron for “failing women.”

Labour’s women’s conference takes place from noon  to 5pm today in Manchester’s Exchange Auditorium. Attendees must already be accredited for Labour Party conference.

conradlandin@peoples-press.com