Oral Answers to Questions

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

1. What progress has been made on the Government’s action plan for ending violence against women and girls; and if she will make a statement.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

4. What progress has been made on the Government’s action plan for ending violence against women and girls; and if she will make a statement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Lynne Featherstone)]

The action plan on tackling violence against women and girls was published on 8 March this year, and we have already delivered in several areas. We have provided more than £28 million of stable Home Office funding until 2015 for local specialist services, £900,000 of which has been made available until 2015 to support national helplines, and we have implemented legislation on multi-agency domestic homicide reviews after every domestic murder.

[Lynne Featherstone]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of women’s refuges. The Home Office has sent out a loud and clear message to local authorities by ring-fencing stable funding of £28 million and by saying to them, “You should do the same. These are not soft targets.” It would be a great shame if Northampton council chose to ignore that message.

[Jane Ellison]

Further to the Minister’s reply, will she respond specifically on female genital mutilation, which is a significant problem in this country as well as in the developing world? The Metropolitan police are taking it very seriously, but hundreds of women in London alone present every year with appalling complications associated with pregnancy and childbirth. Can we make this matter a priority, and work with all the agencies and charities to eliminate this abominable practice?