Violence against Women and Girls Strategy

Richard Foord Excerpts

Thursday 18th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips]

With regard to my hon. Friend’s Rape Crisis service, there will be a specific amount of uplift to the ringfenced budget for Rape Crisis services in the country. I think Rape Crisis England and Wales asked for a 15% uplift. Funnily enough, that will be from health service funding. That is the cultural change I am talking about—people making this their business. We expect to see those uplifts, so Rape Crisis services will hopefully benefit from that.

On domestic abuse, compared with the £130 million a year under the previous Government for refuge, housing and other support, there will be £109 million extra over the three years. I hope that her organisations will be able to access that through the commissioning process, which we will redesign, so that it works better, and works over a longer period, rather than our doing this every year.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

A recent Ofsted inspection of children’s services in Devon found that they

“share a determination to improve services to care leavers”.

How will the new strategy to end violence against women and girls pay particular attention to preventing harms to care leavers and care-experienced people? How will it build on the improving practice that we see in local authorities, such as in Devon?

[Jess Phillips]

That is absolutely a vital part of this puzzle. I have worked with the Children’s Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister), in the Department for Education on the “family first” part of the strategy—the bit about children’s social care and care leavers. People often talk about grooming gangs, but we cannot talk about grooming gangs without talking about care-experienced children, and the interaction between the two. That is a vital part of getting this right. The Government also have a children in care plan that they will work towards, and I sit on the board for that.