Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising this important issue. Alcohol-related harm costs the country about £21 billion a year. Absolutely the alcohol strategy is not designed to delay anything. As he knows, it sets out a range of measures to tackle binge drinking, to cut alcohol-fuelled violence and disorder and to reduce the number of people drinking at damaging levels. Just as the Government overhauled the Licensing Act 2003 to give local authorities the tools they needed to tackle alcohol-related crime and disorder, so we will take further measures as and when necessary.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Over the Christmas and new year period, there seemed to be an abundance of adverts and public information campaigns telling women how they could avoid being raped or sexually assaulted—for example, by not drinking too much or dressing in a certain way. Does the Home Secretary agree that this gives out entirely the wrong message—that victims are somehow responsible for the crimes being perpetrated against them—and that we ought to be sending out the message that it is never okay for men to assault women?

[Mrs May]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady that we need to send out a very clear message that sexual violence against men or women is wrong. These are abhorrent crimes—rape is an abhorrent crime—and we should be doing all we can to stop them. I also agree that, although it is necessary to ensure that women, particularly young women, are aware of the potential dangers and circumstances in which they could be at risk and that they take appropriate action, it is the perpetrator of such crimes whom we should be bringing to justice. It is the perpetrator who is at fault, and we should never forget that.