Strategy for Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my hon. Friend, who has been a strong campaigner for some time on modern slavery and on the care of victims of modern slavery. On the care of children, the national referral mechanism applies to adults, but children go into children’s services because of the statutory requirements under the Children Act 1989. I am, however, interested to hear how he believes support could be improved. The Government have, as he may know, set out plans to refresh the modern slavery strategy in the coming months and I would be pleased to meet him to understand where he believes that could be improved.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for her encouraging statement. No one can doubt her clear personal commitment; I appreciate that very much. I welcome this move to take every available step to tackle violence against women and girls; it is not before time. The new strategy involves new legislation to deal with stalking, forced marriage and female genital mutilation, and yet, as the shadow Minister said, more work needs to be done on sexual assault and rape. Recent Home Office statistics show that 83% of sexual assaults go unreported. What additional work will be done to encourage victims to come forward about their assaults? What will be done—I say this respectfully—to fix the lack of trust there is between victims of violence and the policing system?

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for dealing with some important points in a sensitive way. He will know that, alongside the violence against women and girls strategy, only a matter of weeks ago we published the rape review, which is focused on the end-to-end results of the criminal justice system from the moment at which the police record a crime through to a conviction or the other ways in which a case can be finalised. There is a real action plan in that rape review dealing specifically with rape prosecutions, and that forms part of our work to tackle this.

On building trust, a measure in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill sets out and clarifies the law on the extraction of data from mobile phones. This will not apply for every victim of sexual offences, but for many victims handing over their phone and losing it for months at a time has a real impact on their willingness to continue with the investigation, if indeed they volunteer at all. Through the Bill, we will be able to clarify the law and ensure that victims are treated properly in that regard. Of course, the rape helpline that we have announced in the strategy will also go a long way to helping victims have the immediate support they need, as and when they need it.