Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to tackle street crime against women and girls.

The Government is committed to ensuring that women and girls both are and feel safe on our streets. We have supported Rt Hon. Greg Clark MP’s Protection from Sex-Based Harassment in Public Bill, which has been passed by the House of Commons. This provides that if someone commits an offence under section 4A of the Public Order Act 1986 (intentional harassment, alarm or distress) and does so because of the victim’s sex, they can receive a longer sentence.

We have also taken a range of non-legislative actions. These include:

- new guidance for the police by the College of Policing on how existing criminal offences and other tools can be used to respond to reports of public sexual harassment;

- updated legal guidance for prosecutors by the Crown Prosecution Service on how public order offences can be used to prosecute public sexual harassment;

- the “Enough” public communications campaign, which aims to target public sexual harassment and other forms of violence against women and girls by, for example, empowering bystanders to intervene safely, and encouraging perpetrators to question their own behaviour; and

awards of £125 million through the Safer Streets and Safety of Women at Night Funds, covering a range of interventions including enhanced street lighting and CCTV, bystander training programmes, taxi marshals and educational and awareness raising initiatives.