Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of (a) the level of demand for and (b) the potential merits of introducing funding mechanisms for specialist services to provide support to victims of online abuse and other forms of online violence against women and girls.

Harmful online abuse is unacceptable, and the online safety framework will require companies to take robust action to improve the safety of their users. The Online Safety Bill will introduce a Duty of Care which will apply to all online services that allow user generated content. Companies will need to have systems and processes in place to keep their users safe, and Ofcom will have tough enforcement powers to use against those which do not comply.

On July 21 we published our new cross-Government Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy to help ensure that women and girls are safe everywhere – at home, on the streets, and online.

The Strategy was informed by a national Call for Evidence on Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls which received an unprecedented 180,000 responses and highlighted numerous issues - including online abuse - that the Government is determined to address.

Through the Tackling VAWG Strategy we have committed to an additional £1.5m this year for specialist support services and to increase our funding for helplines, such as the Revenge Porn Helpline and the Suzy Lamplugh Trust’s national stalking helpline, which provide support to victims of intimate image abuse and cyber-stalking online.