Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to make (a) streets and (b) communities safer for women and girls.

Tackling violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a top priority for this Government with a manifesto mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. We will deliver a cross-government transformative approach, underpinned by a new strategy which we aim to publish as soon as possible.

In advance of the strategy, we have already introduced measures designed to strengthen the police response to VAWG, protect victims and hold perpetrators to account.

These include: funding to rollout Drive Project, a proven intervention for high-risk and high-harm domestic abuse perpetrators across England and Wales; embedding the first domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms in five police forces; measures to tackle spiking to strengthen the law and improve the response victims receive, including committing to introducing a new criminal offence for spiking and piloting new spiking training for bar staff; measures focusing on preventing and tackling ‘honour’-based abuse (HBA), developing a statutory definition for HBA, community engagement campaigns, enhanced training and funding for support services; six measures to tackle stalking including statutory guidance to empower the police to release the identities of online stalkers to protect victims, and a review of the stalking legislation to ensure it is fit for purpose; and launching the new Domestic Abuse Protection Orders in selected police forces and courts which go further than any existing orders.