Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy paper published on 21 July 2021, what progress her Department has made on assessing the merits of introducing a new specific offence for public sexual harassment.

This Government is committed to taking action to address this issue, and as a result of the work we have been doing, in March we announced that we will launch a public consultation by the summer recess on whether there should be a new offence of public sexual harassment.

We are also taking several non-legislative actions. In September 2021 we launched the pilot of the new StreetSafe tool, which allows people to show on a map places where they have felt unsafe, enabling the police to take action to improve safety. More than 15,000 reports have been submitted to date.

Last December, the College of Policing published new guidance for police showing what they can do when they receive a report of public sexual harassment, including the criminal offences available and other protective tools which can be used. Furthermore, the Home Office launched the ‘Enough’ communications campaign in March, which challenges public attitudes and tolerance towards crimes such as public sexual harassment and aims to ensure victims know how and where to report it.