Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans her Department has to make public sexual harassment a criminal offence.

Sexual harassment in public places is an appalling practice, which this Government is committed to tackling. Women and girls have the right to both be and feel safe on our streets.

As set out in the Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy, published last July, we have been looking carefully at where there may be gaps in existing law and how a specific offence for public sexual harassment could address those.

As a result of this work, last month we announced that by the summer recess we would launch a public consultation on whether there should be a new offence of public sexual harassment.

In the VAWG Strategy we also committed to non-legislative actions to help tackle this issue. Following this, in December the College of Policing published a new advice product for police officers, advising them about the preventative strategies and criminal offences which they can use to respond to reports of various different types of public sexual harassment. The Crown Prosecution Service will also soon be publishing an updated version of its legal guidance on public order offences, to include specific material on public sexual harassment.

In addition, on 1 March the Home Office launched the ‘Enough’ communications campaign, which seeks to change public attitudes and tolerance towards crimes such as public sexual harassment and help create an atmosphere in which women and girls can report such crimes to the police with confidence.