Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent estimate her Department has made of the incidence of stalking cases being mishandled due to incidents occurring across the borders of two or more police forces.

Stalking is an insidious crime that can leave victims living in fear just going about their daily lives. The Crime Survey for England and Wales for the year ending March 2025 estimated that 3.5% of people aged 16 to 59 years had experienced stalking in the last year. The trend has been relatively flat over the last 10 years. This Government is fully committed to tackling stalking and doing all that it can to protect victims.

The Home Office part-funds the National Stalking Helpline, run by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust. This helpline ensures that victims have 24/7 access to support, advice and practical information. In FY2025-2026, the Home Office has provided £193,430.

More broadly, the VAWG Strategy published on 18 December set out clear action to tackle stalking, including the appointment of Richard Wright KC to lead the Stalking Legislation Review, ensuring the criminal law on stalking is fit for purpose. A commitment was also made to strengthen the use of Stalking Protection Orders (SPOs). This includes setting up SPO intensification sites in select forces which aim to drive up use of SPOs and provide opportunities to test innovative approaches to enforce conditions and monitor breaches, which could be adopted nationwide.

In addition, we are improving police understanding, identification and response to stalking, by ensuring all police forces implement changes following the stalking super-complaint. To provide a framework to support police and other agencies to coordinate their response to stalking cases, we are also introducing a power for the Secretary of State to issue multi-agency statutory guidance on stalking through the Crime and Policing Bill.