Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to provide women and girls with trauma-informed preventative care through the criminal justice system.

Our Female Offender Strategy and its Delivery Plan set out the steps we are taking to ensure we provide gender-specific and trauma responsive care to women at all stages of the system. The Delivery Plan is backed by almost £30m in investment to both improve community support for women in or at risk of contact with the criminal justice system, and improve outcomes for women in custody. Recognising that this requires cross-Government action, MoJ has worked closely with other Government departments and agencies to produce a National Concordat, including an agreed set of actions and desired outcomes to ensure a joined-up approach to addressing the challenges faced by women in the system.

We recognise the value of preventative care for those entering the criminal justice system at a young age. Turnaround is a youth early intervention programme led by the Ministry of Justice. The programme provides multi-year grant funding to Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) across England and Wales until March 2025, enabling them to intervene earlier and improve outcomes for children on the cusp of entering the youth justice system. From December 2022 to September 2023, YOTs report that we have had around 13,000 referrals, carried out 6,000 assessments, and started 5,200 interventions. Girls make up around one quarter of all referrals, which is higher than in YOT's usual statutory caseloads. Youth Justice practitioners have reported focusing on building positive, trusting relationships with girls through Turnaround, led by trauma-informed practice.

We are also taking action to ensure that our response to violence against women and girls is robust, effective, and meeting the needs of victims. Critical to this is making sure that police and prosecutors have the right skills and knowledge to respond effectively to violence against women and girls. The CPS requires all prosecutors to complete training on domestic abuse, and has revised its guidance on Domestic Abuse, Stalking, and Controlling or Coercive Behaviour. The Government recognises the vital role that support services play in helping victims, including women and girls, during their engagement with the criminal justice system. This is why we are using additional ringfenced funding to increase the number of Independent Sexual Violence Advisors (ISVAs) and Independent Domestic Violence Advisors (IDVAs) by 300, to over 1000, by 2024/2025 – a 43% increase on the number of advisors over this spending review period.