Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to engage women's groups in discussions with her Department on measures preventing (a) gender-based violence and (b) domestic violence.

Tackling gender-based violence and domestic violence is a key priority for this government. This April we passed our landmark Domestic Abuse Act which will strengthen our response to perpetrators and importantly provide greater protection to victims of this heinous crime.

This year we will also be publishing two complementary strategies to further transform the government’s response to combating Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) and Domestic Abuse (DA). To inform our approach we have delivered a robust and wide-reaching VAWG Call for Evidence which received approximately 180,000 responses, including from victims, the public, academics and victim support services and organisations representing women’s groups on VAWG and DA.

We meet regularly with organisations that support survivors to discuss our approach to the VAWG and DA strategies, and will continue to engage with their work and how we can work together, as well as with women’s, girls’ and victims’ organisations on this important work, including several sector-wide sessions in the previous months, individual calls with leading VAWG organisations, and participation in the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s regular sector calls.

We will continue this engagement as we seek to implement our ground-breaking Domestic Abuse Act, and as we finalise our complementary strategies for tacking VAWG and DA.