Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on steps to ensure sustainable funding is provided to local authorities for domestic abuse and sexual violence services.

This Government has set out an ambition to halve violence against women and girls (VAWG) within a decade and will treat it as the national emergency that it is. We will deliver a cross-government, transformative approach, underpinned by a new VAWG Strategy published later this year.

We are already driving forward activity which supports local government to tackle VAWG. The government has increased funding to local authorities to £160 million for 2025-26, an uplift of £30 million from the previous year, to provide further support in safe accommodation for domestic abuse survivors. The Home Office has confirmed a number of grants held for the next financial year (2025-26) with charities supporting victims of VAWG. We have sought to protect frontline services and give them certainty, so they can plan ahead effectively.

Furthermore, the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 will, once in force, require local policing bodies, local authorities, and integrated care boards to collaborate in relation to the commissioning of certain victim support services, and to prepare and publish a joint commissioning strategy for victims of domestic abuse in their area. This strategy will be informed by a joint needs assessment.