Crime: Rape

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I do not know who is damaging confidence most, if damage has been done. It certainly was not anything that my right honourable friend said. Anybody who analysed what he said would accept that. I was caught by a paragraph in the Stern review, which said:

“We need to look at rape victims as people who have been harmed, whom society has a positive responsibility to help and to protect, aside from the operations of criminal law. Whether the rape is reported or not, whether the case goes forward or not, whether there is a conviction or not, victims still have a right to services that will help them to recover and rebuild their lives”.

That is the policy of Her Majesty’s Government and we will stick to it.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that it was extremely regrettable that the leader of the Labour Party chose to jump on a populist bandwagon the other day in an effort to undermine a Secretary of State who is pursuing some of the more progressive and enlightened policies of this coalition Government?

[Lord McNally]

I am very grateful for those comments. The Labour Benches and the Labour leader must make their own minds up whether that intervention was opportune. All I know is that this Government and this Secretary of State have put rape support centres on a secure financial footing for the first time, with £10.5 million of grant funding allocated to existing centres across the country over the next three years. Up to £600,000 is also being provided to develop four new rape support centres. We have run a grant-funding programme to award the voluntary community and social enterprise sector up to £30 million in grant funding over three years. We have guaranteed funding of up to £2 million a year for the next three years to fund specialist support for adult victims of human trafficking. We have provided Victim Support with £114 million in grants spreading over the next three years. That is the action that this Government have taken on rape: standing by women, supporting them and giving them the support they need. Everybody realises it is an extremely traumatic experience.