Violence against Women and Girls

Baroness Gale Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Gale]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures they will take to reduce the level of violence against women and girls in the United Kingdom.

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the Government’s action plan on tackling violence against women and girls was published on 8 March 2011 and we have already delivered in several areas. We have provided over £28 million of stable Home Office funding until 2015 for local specialist services and £900,000 until 2015 to support national domestic violence helplines. We are also providing Ministry of Justice funding of £10.5 million over three years for local rape support centres, and £18.5 million to support vulnerable victims and witnesses.

[Baroness Gale]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her positive reply. Does she agree that it is a national disgrace that in the United Kingdom one woman is raped every nine minutes, two women are killed by their partner or ex-partner every week, and up to 3 million women suffer some form of violence every year? Does she further agree that prevention is the key in order to reduce such violence? Will she have talks with every government department so that we could have a long-term, well funded education campaign involving schools, churches, the wider community and all strands of government, including the devolved governments, to ensure that boys and men are taught to respect girls and women? We should aim to send out a very strong message that violence against women is totally unacceptable.

[Baroness Verma]

The noble Baroness raises some very important issues. The Government have taken it upon themselves to make this a cross-government issue. We are working across all departments to ensure that, wherever possible, the impact of any effect on women and girls is taken into consideration when developing policies.

The noble Baroness is of course aware that through the Department for Education we are working with schools on campaigns to raise awareness of young people in particular to challenge the acceptability of violence in teenage relationships. Through the PSHE review, we will be looking at how best we can ensure that young people know about their own requirements with regard to consent within sexual relationships, so a lot is going on. I know that the noble Baroness is concerned, but I want to reassure her that the Government are doing a lot towards the issue.