Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to his Department's policy paper entitled Tackling violence against women and girls strategy, published on 21 July 2021, what progress his Department has made on ensuring support is provided to survivors of gender-based violence.

We have completed or closed over half of all cross-government commitments in the Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy (2021) and Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan (2022).

This includes:

• Allocating £6.6 million to deliver interventions that improve our understanding of ‘what works’ to prevent violence against women and girls.
• Ensuring consistency in support services through introducing national commissioning standards through the Victims Funding Strategy.
• Launching the VAWG Support and Specialist Services Fund with £8.3m of funding support victims facing the greatest barriers.
• Supporting the passage of the Worker Protection (Amendment of the Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 which places a new duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of employees.
• Invested over £150m of funding through Safer Streets and Safety of Women at Night fund on a range of projects focused on improving public safety, including for women and girls.
• Doubled funding for the National Domestic Abuse helpline and other helplines such as the Revenge Porn Helpline and the Suzy Lamplugh Trust’s National stalking helpline.
• Relaunched the Flexible Fund in January 2024 with a further £2m investment to help remove barriers to domestic abuse victims leaving their abusers, after its successful £300,000 pilot in 2023.