Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to encourage people to report domestic violence against women.

Domestic abuse is a horrific crime and improving the response to domestic abuse is a key priority. As highlighted in the Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan 2022, we want to make it easier for victims to ask for help and report crimes.

It is important that victims know domestic abuse will be taken seriously. Significant progress has been made by the National Police Chiefs Council and College of Policing since the 2021 HMICFRS report on policing of VAWG, including a Framework standardising a policing focus on prevention, action to pursue perpetrators and help build women’s trust in policing.

To further strengthen the police response to disclosures of domestic abuse, we have committed up to £3.3 million up to 2025 to bolster and encourage the uptake of the Domestic Abuse Matters training in police forces. And VAWG (including domestic abuse) has been added to the Strategic Policing Requirement (SPR), meaning it is set out as a national threat for forces to respond to alongside other threats such as terrorism, serious and organised crime and child sexual abuse.

To make it easier for victims to ask for help in their local communities, we are now piloting the Ask for ANI (Action Needed Immediately) codeword scheme in 18 Jobcentres across the UK. The scheme has been available in participating pharmacies since January 2021. A postcode checker has been published on GOV.UK where victims can check for their nearest Ask for ANI location.