Violence against Women and Girls

Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

On Tuesday 8 March, to mark International Women’s Day, the Government are publishing their Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategy for this Parliament. A copy will be placed in the Library of the House.

We have made progress since publishing the original “Call to End Violence against Women and Girls” in 2010. Data from the crime survey for England and Wales shows a general downward trend in sexual assaults since 2005-06 and that 8.2% of women were a victim of “any domestic abuse” in the last year—the lowest estimate since these questions were first asked in the 2004-05 survey.

At the same time, reporting of what often continue to be hidden crimes is increasing which the Office for National Statistics attributes to greater victim confidence and better recording by the police. The number of prosecutions and the number of convictions for VAWG crimes were all higher than ever before in 2014-15.

But there were still an estimated 1.35 million female victims of domestic abuse in the last year, and over 300,000 victims of sexual violence. This is wholly unacceptable and we remain determined to end violence against women and girls.

Over the next four years, we will support a transformation in service delivery and a step change in social action to do more still to achieve a long-term reduction in the prevalence of these terrible crimes, to help women and girls rebuild their lives, and to break the inter-generational consequences of abuse. We will continue to ensure victims get the help they need, when they need it, and drive a shift from a model of crisis intervention to prevention and early intervention. We will develop the evidence base on, and embed, what works to tackle the causes of offending behaviour to achieve sustainable reductions in violence and abuse.

Over this spending review period, we are providing £80 million of dedicated VAWG funding to continue to provide a bedrock of critical services for VAWG, and to support the a transformation in local service delivery to support local areas to build coherent pathways of support for victims at every stage.

[HCWS595]