Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what support his Department has given to victims of clerical abuse to access justice.

Rape and sexual abuse are devastating crimes that can have a life-long impact, and the Government is committed to ensuring the victims of these crimes have access to high-quality support services to help them cope and, as far as possible, recover. These services are available to all victims whether or not they report to the police.

In 2020/21, the Ministry of Justice awarded £12m to 91 rape support centres across England and Wales to provide independent, specialist support to female and male victims of sexual violence, an increase of £4m from 2019/20. This includes £1.8m of ringfenced funding for victims of recent and non-recent child sexual abuse.

The government has also recently doubled the financial support it provides to national organisations that support victims and survivors of child sexual abuse to £2.4m.

The new funding is in addition to the £4.79m provided to Police and Crime Commissioners by the Ministry of Justice to support victims of child sexual abuse (part of the £69m provided this year for them to commission victim support service based on local need).

We are committed to ensuring that victims can continue to access such support during the pandemic, and recently announced a £76m package of funding for victims, with £10 million ringfenced to provide support for victims of sexual violence specifically. This has helped fund technology to enable charities to offer services remotely.

The Government also recently announced that an additional £4m per annum until 2022 will be invested in recruiting more Independent Sexual Violence Advisers (ISVAs) to help victims feel informed and supported at every stage of their recovery journey. ISVAs provide an important link between police, support services and criminal justice agencies.

We will continue to work with the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse to expose what went wrong in the past and to learn the lessons for the future.