Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will allocate long-term funding to Violence Reduction Units to enable them to (a) plan strategically for the future and (b) maximise their effectiveness.

We have invested £70m over two years into the 18 areas worse affected by serious violence in England and Wales to support them in developing a Violence Reduction Unit (VRU).

VRUs are required to work across agencies to identify the root causes of violence and develop a strategy to prevent and reduce violence. We expect them to build on this platform over time and we hope to see VRUs operating beyond the end of 2021. That is why future funding for VRUs will be a key element of our spending review bid.