Domestic Abuse: Crime Prevention

(asked on 18th January 2022) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what comparative assessment she has made of the amount of funding her Department allocated to the prevention of domestic abuse and the (a) social and (b) economic cost of domestic abuse in England and Wales in each year from 2016; and what assessment she has made of the potential cost of (a) unreported cases, (b) the impact on the mental health of victims and their children and (c) the number of days of paid work lost in each of those years.


Answered by
Rachel Maclean Portrait
Rachel Maclean
This question was answered on 26th January 2022

Preventing the cycle of abuse is a key issue which starts in childhood. That is why we are providing over £3 million this year to services supporting children experiencing domestic abuse which is going towards therapeutic support and early intervention schemes. This fund provides for children of all ages with services funded including one-to-one, group counselling and parent and child sessions, art and play therapy and funding to support with access to other services that may benefit children and young people negatively impacted by domestic abuse. The fund allows these specialist service providers to offer a response tailored effectively to those in need.

This year, the Home Office alone has allocated £43 million to tackling violence against women and girls.

We have allocated £25 million this financial year to hold perpetrators of domestic abuse to account for their behaviour. As part of this we have awarded funding to Police and Crime Commissioners to increase the availability of interventions that work with perpetrators to improve safety for related victims, reduce the risk posed by the perpetrator and prevent reoffending.

Through the VAWG Strategy we are investing:

  • £5 million for a ‘Safety of Women at Night’ fund, in addition to the £25 million Safer Streets fund Round 3, that focuses on the prevention of violence against women and girls in public spaces at night, including in the night-time economy.
  • £1.5 million for vital specialist support services and to increase our funding for helplines, such as the Revenge Porn Helpline and the Suzy Lamplugh Trust’s national stalking helpline.
  • £3 million to better understand what works to prevent violence against women and girls – to invest in high quality, evidence-informed prevention projects, including in schools, aiming to educate and inform children and young people about violence against women and girls, healthy relationships and the consequences of abuse.

The Home Office estimated the social and economic costs of domestic abuse to be £66 billion for the victims identified in England and Wales in 2016/17[1] (which equates to £74 billion in today’s prices[2]).These estimated costs are associated with all victims identified through the Crime Survey in England and Wales in year 2016/17, including those who may have chosen not to report to the police.

The biggest component of this estimated cost was £47 billion for the physical and emotional harms suffered by victims. Table 8 in the Home Office. The economic and social costs of crime second edition, contains the estimated emotional cost for each type of domestic abuse. We do not have costs associated with the impact of domestic abuse on victims’ children.

Other costs that result as a consequence of domestic abuse include the lost output (estimated in the region of £14bn). Table 10 in the Home Office. The economic and social costs of crime second edition, contains the estimated average time lost at work following domestic abuse offences.

[1] Home Office. The economic and social costs of crime second edition.

[2] Note the costs are uprated to 2021/22 prices using the latest HMT GDP Deflator and only account for changes in inflation and do not consider other changes in prevalence and unit costs.

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