Oral Answers to Questions

Matt Turmaine Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Irene Campbell (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

2. What steps she is taking to help increase prosecution rates in cases of violence against women and girls.

[Matt Turmaine (Watford) (Lab)]

3. What steps she is taking to help increase prosecution rates in cases of violence against women and girls.

[The Solicitor General (Lucy Rigby)]

Earlier this month, we marked International Women’s Day, and it was very moving to hear the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), again record in this House the names of women and girls who were killed in the past year. The scale of violence against women and girls in this country is completely intolerable, which is why, under our plan for change, this Government have already taken concrete steps to tackle it, including the introduction of Raneem’s law to put domestic abuse experts into 999 control rooms.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Solicitor General]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work in this area. She is right to raise the extremely important point of victim attrition, which is unacceptably high right across our United Kingdom. That is why we have taken swift action in England and Wales, through the CPS victim transformation programme, appointing victim liaison officers to support victims throughout the legal process. The Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has also pledged to make this issue a priority as part of his new direction for Scotland.

[Matt Turmaine]

Controlling and coercive behaviour is an insidious form of abuse. Will my hon. and learned Friend please outline what the Government are doing to deal with it?

[The Solicitor General]

Insidious is the right description. We fully recognise just how damaging that form of abuse is, and that it can follow a pattern of escalation that can lead to violence. That is precisely why the joint justice plan is underpinned by a commitment to tackle all forms of domestic abuse, ensuring that police and prosecutors can jointly tackle coercive control. The Court of Appeal recently increased two sentences for controlling and coercive behaviour by way of the unduly lenient sentence scheme, which I hope sends a very strong signal about just how seriously such conduct will be taken.