Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what funding her Department has allocated to partnerships of the police with other agencies to tackle misogyny and violence against women and girls.

This year, we have allocated approximately £43m to supporting victims and tackling perpetrators of violence against women and girls (VAWG) including domestic abuse. This includes £11.2m funding for stalking perpetrator interventions and funding for research into perpetrators and £2.1m funding for frontline support and activity for sexual violence and other forms of violence against women and girls. The Home Office has also provided £1.28m funding for seven helplines (including the national domestic abuse helpline as well as helplines for victims of ‘honour’-based abuse, revenge porn and for male and LGBT+ victims).

The Home Office part-funds the National Stalking Helpline, run by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, and has recently tripled its funding, such that it will now provide up to £155,000 this year. The extra funding is enabling the helpline to answer more calls and to expand its advocacy service outside London.

The Home Office provided a total of £211,000 of additional funding to stalking-focused charities The Suzy Lamplugh Trust, Paladin National Stalking Advocacy Service and the Hollie Gazzard Trust to help them to deal with the pressures of the coronavirus pandemic.

Through the VAWG Strategy we are investing:

• £3 million for a national communications campaign with a focus on targeting perpetrators and harmful misogynistic attitudes, educating young people about healthy relationships and ensuring victims can access support
• £5 million for a ‘Safety of Women at Night’ fund, in addition to the £25 million Safer Streets fund that focuses on the prevention of violence against women and girls in public spaces at night, including in the night-time economy.
• £1.5 million for vital specialist support services and to increase our funding for helplines, such as the Revenge Porn Helpline and the national stalking helpline.
• £3 million to better understand what works to prevent violence against women and girls – to invest in high quality, evidence-informed prevention projects, including in schools, aiming to educate and inform children and young people about violence against women and girls, healthy relationships and the consequences of abuse.

In addition to this, on 2 September we also launched the pilot on an online tool, StreetSafe, that enables the public to anonymously report areas where they feel unsafe and identify what about the location made them feel this way. The data will be used to inform local decision-making on street safety.