Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking with the Secretary of State for Justice to support victims of domestic abuse.

This government is committed to tackling domestic abuse, which is why we recently passed the landmark Domestic Abuse Act, to support and protect all victims of domestic abuse. Alongside this, this year we will publish a domestic abuse strategy that will go beyond the implementation of the Act to help transform our response to domestic abuse; to prevent offending, protect victims and ensure they have the support they need.

We know that victims of domestic abuse may feel particularly vulnerable at this time, which is why last year the Government launched our #YouAreNotAlone awareness raising campaign to signpost support available. The campaign has reached over 30 million UK adults and has been seen by over 130 million followers on social media.

In January, we also launched the ‘Ask for ANI’ Codeword scheme to enable domestic abuse victims to seek victim focussed support, including engagement with specialist victim support services and the police as necessary. Over 5,000 pharmacies across the nation are now participating in the scheme, and the scheme has been used by over 60 victims and survivors.

We have provided unprecedented new funding to victim support services to ensure that they have the capacity to provide support to victims and adapt their operational capacity in light of the impacts of the Covid-19 Pandemic. To that end we have awarded £27 million in additional funds to support domestic abuse services last financial year alone, comprising £25 million from the government’s £76 million in emergency funding for the most vulnerable in society, and an extra £2 million from the Home Office in April 2021 to bolster the capacity of domestic abuse organisations affected by the pandemic.

In November 2020 the Ministry of Justice announced a further £11 million towards a range of services offering practical and emotional help – allowing domestic abuse and specialist rape organisations to recruit more staff, adapt to remote counselling methods during the pandemic and keep helplines open for longer.

In 2021-22, the Ministry of Justice will provide just under £151m for victim and witness support services. This includes an extra £51m to increase support for rape and domestic abuse victims, building on the emergency funding from this financial year to help domestic abuse and sexual violence services meet Covid-driven demand. Of this funding, £27 million will go to creating more than 700 new posts for Independent Sexual Violence and Independent Domestic Abuse Advisers helping us to meet demand for support from victims.