Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce violence against women and girls in (a) Fylde constituency and (b) Lancashire.

The scale of violence against women and girls (VAWG) in our country is intolerable and this Government is treating it as the national emergency that it is. We are going further than ever before to deliver a cross-government transformative approach, which will be underpinned by a new VAWG Strategy later this year.

In May 2025, we announced a £19.9m investment to provide vital support to victims of VAWG and increase awareness to prevent these horrific crimes. This includes over £6 million for national helplines supporting victims of domestic abuse, 'honour'-based abuse, revenge porn and stalking, and £2.5m on prevention and early intervention.

Specifically in Lancashire, we have allocated £442,000 to Lancashire PCC for perpetrator funding. PCCs are best placed to understand their local communities and providers, and to commission appropriate support to meet that need.

Lancashire PCC currently receives funding from the Home Office’s Domestic Abuse and Stalking Perpetrator Intervention Fund. Using this funding, they deliver the Drive Project, which works with high-risk, serial domestic abuse perpetrators who are deemed to cause the most harm, in a few local authority areas.

At the national level, we have embedded domestic abuse specialists and dedicated domestic abuse teams in the first five 999 control rooms under Raneem’s Law, launched the new Domestic Abuse Protection Orders in selected police forces and courts and announced a new package of measures to tackle spiking, including committing to introducing a new criminal offence for spiking and piloting new spiking training for bar staff.

Through the Crime and Policing Bill, we are introducing a range of legislative measures to improve the response to sex offender management and stalking. Under the Bill, the police will be given new powers to issue a notice prohibiting registered sex offenders who pose a risk from changing their name without prior authorisation. Other measures include requiring registered sex offenders to provide advance notice before entering premises where children are present, and improving the management of stalkers. This includes statutory guidance for the police in releasing identifying information about online stalking perpetrators to victims as part of the “right to know”.