Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to help tackle violence against women and girls in East Devon constituency.

It is difficult to determine the specific activity to tackle violence against women in the East Devon constituency as services are mostly commissioned at a national level, and not monitored by the Home Office by constituency.

To help support local service commissioners, we published a revised National Statement of Expectations in March 2022, which sets out how local areas should commission effective services. It also aims to increase understanding of the need for specialist services and the value of those designed and delivered by and for the users and communities they aim to serve.

As part of the effort to tackle these crimes across England and Wales, in 2021 we published our cross-Government Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy to help ensure that women and girls are safe everywhere - at home, online, at work and in public. This was followed by a complementary cross-Government Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan in 2022.

These documents aim to transform the whole of society’s response to these crimes with actions to prevent abuse, support victims and pursue perpetrators, as well as to strengthen the systems that underpin the response. The actions set out in both strategy documents benefit all regions across England and Wales, including East Devon.

The Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan committed to over £230 million from 2022-2025. As part of this commitment, the joint Home Office-Ministry of Justice VAWG Support and Specialist Service Fund will provide up to £8.3 million (in total) from 2023-2025 for specialist organisations to support victims often facing the greatest barriers to getting the help they need.

The Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan funding also includes the Children Affected by Domestic Abuse (CADA) Fund, which allocated £10.3 million over three years (2022-2025) to eight organisations across England and Wales to provide specialist support within the community to children who have been impacted by domestic abuse. Part of this includes c.£1.25m for the Children’s Society to provide direct support for children and young people and families, including those from rural and hard to reach communities, covering Devon, Shropshire, Rochdale and Merseyside.

In May 2023, the Home Office also launched a £300,000 ‘flexible fund’ trial in partnership with Women’s Aid Federation for England to make direct cash payments of £250 to victims and survivors of domestic abuse (£500 to those with children and those who are pregnant) to help remove barriers to leaving an abusive relationship. In November 2023, the Government commitment to support victims was renewed with a further £2m investment into the Flexible Fund until March 2025.

Through the current Round Five of the Safer Streets Fund, the Home Office has directly awarded £34 million to Police and Crime Commissioners across England and Wales to deliver interventions to tackle neighbourhood crime, anti-social behaviour and VAWG. Devon and Cornwall received £819,998.64 (2024-2025) to support projects covering Paignton, Camborne and Redruth and are delivering educational training packages such as bystander training to help address behaviour and attitudes on VAWG and using night-time economy marshalls for patrols in the town centres.