Lord Bishop of London
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Violence Against Women and Girls
Lord Bishop of London Excerpts(4 days, 2 hours ago)
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Baroness Smith of Cluny (Lab)
I regret to tell the noble Lord that I do not have the date when it will be published, but he can be assured that the utmost attention will be paid to it, in line with our attitude towards all these issues, which, as I described, are a national emergency. The bigger issue that the noble Lord raises is a crisis of confidence in policing; that will be central to the strategy that we write, because we know that the police response to violence against women and girls has not been good enough to date. Victims must feel confident in the police’s ability to handle their case. That is why we have already taken steps by embedding domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms and by also seeking to create dedicated domestic abuse teams within every police force, so that these things never happen again.
The Lord Bishop of London
My Lords, the most recent Femicide Census notes that cases of older women who are killed and subject to extreme sexual violence are often seen as not newsworthy. The charity Hourglass, which works to reduce the abuse of older people in the UK, has experienced an increase in calls by 50% over the last two years. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that older women are not forgotten in the development of their strategy?
Baroness Smith of Cluny (Lab)
It is vital that every woman and child in the UK is included, and that is why we are taking a cross-departmental and cross-sector approach, so that all information, including from the third sector, is captured and fed into the strategy. The Home Secretary has already announced a package of reforms to improve confidence in the policing process, which will go to the heart of some of the issues that are being raised. Much stronger training on violence against women and girls is being offered to police officers, and options are being developed to interact with other bodies that have specialist knowledge. We will integrate that into the strategy.