Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure that women are able to get on to waiting lists for rape crisis centres.

The Government is committed to ensuring that victims of crime get the support they need to cope with and, as far as possible, recover from the effects of crime.

Under the 2016-2020 Violence Against Women and Girls strategy, the Government made a commitment to maintain funding for sexual violence support services at 2016/17 levels for the remainder of the spending review period. We continue to meet this commitment.

In 2017/18 we allocated around £7.2 million to Rape Support Centres in England and Wales, to provide specialist support to female and male victims of sexual violence. Rape Support Centres receive funding from a range of sources, including the government, Police and Crime Commissioners, charitable trusts and foundations, and the National Health Service.

This year we have allocated Police and Crime Commissioners around £68 million to locally commission or provide support services for victims of crime based on need. This includes victims of sexual violence.

The Government is considering long-term and sustainable funding arrangements as part of our work to develop a new delivery model for supporting victims and witnesses of crime. This work will form part of the Government’s Victims Strategy, to be published in Summer 2018.