Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the consultation on Serious violence: new legal duty to support multi-agency action published on 1 April 2019, what additional (a) training and (b) funding will be offered to public agencies to support proposed arrangements.

On 1 April the Home Secretary published a consultation on a new legal duty to support a multi-agency or ‘public health’ approach to preventing and tackling serious violence. This builds on the programme of work outlined in the Serious Violence Strategy, published in April 2018, which brings together a range of partners across different sectors to form a multi-agency response.

This approach involves partners across different sectors, such as education, health, social services, offender management services, housing, youth and victim services, working closely with community and faith leaders, and the voluntary and charitable sectors, to take joint action to address the underlying risk factors that increase the likelihood that an individual will become a victim or a perpetrator of violence.

Our consultation seeks information on the potential impact on agencies and a full cost assessment will be undertaken on the preferred option. We have also committed to provide guidance alongside any new duty.

The consultation will be open for a period of 8 weeks and will close on 28 May.