Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment the Government has made of trends in the level of the incidents of partner violence in which perpetrators (a) monitor and (b) control their victims through (i) apps on smartphones and (ii) other internet-connected devices.

On 21 January we published the Government response to our public consultation on transforming the response to domestic abuse, in which we asked about the risk of technology being used to perpetrate abuse. In our response we committed to continue to work on the Government Online Harms White Paper, which was published on Monday, and which sets out our proposals to address both harmful and illegal conduct and content, including the broad range of online harms associated with domestic abuse.

In addition, the Government has provided Refuge with £250,000 of funding through the Tampon Tax to provide specialist nationwide support to staff and survivors who experience technologically facilitated abuse. We have also provided Northumbria PCC with £646,000 through the Home Office Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Service Transformation Fund for a project which includes work to tackle cyberstalking.