Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to protect women from drink spiking in (a) bars and (b) other venues in England and Wales.

The reports of the spiking of drinks with illegal substances are of course concerning. This is an ongoing matter which the police are investigating.

The Government is supporting the rollout of pilot initiatives to improve the safety of women in public spaces at night, including in the night-time economy. We have committed to delivering a £5 million ‘Safety of Women at Night’ fund, in addition to the £25 million Safer Streets Fund Round 3. These funds will support projects that target potential perpetrators, seek to protect potential victims, or deliver programmes intended to address offending behaviour.

Licensing authorities have a number of options available to them to manage the night-time economy through a range of powers to tackle existing individual premises including the use of conditions, licence reviews and closure powers under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014.

The police are working at pace to gather intelligence on these crimes and identify perpetrators. It is a changing and evolving picture. We have been gathering reports from forces across the country, and currently, we have 218 reports of needle assaults and injections since September. Over the same period, the police are aware of 250 incidents of drink spiking. Those numbers are subject to change as the police continue to gather information. This is a crime in which not all instances are reported. We strongly encourage anyone who has been a victim to report it to the police but it does mean that it is difficult to make comparisons with the past, and we will continue to strive to understand more about this crime.

The National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) has convened to discuss this issue with the NCA and the NPCC has committed to report back on the needle issue specifically (rather than drink spiking), and the results will be published in due course.