PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Violence against Women and Girls Strategy - 9 February 2026 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

Alongside publishing the new VAWG strategy, the Government have already launched our behaviour change campaign and rolled out domestic abuse protection orders in selected areas. We are embedding domestic abuse specialists in police control rooms under Raneem’s law and strengthening the tools available to the police and courts to safeguard victims. We have also established a national policing centre for violence against women and girls and public protection with £13.1 million of funding, and have appointed Richard Wright KC to lead a review of stalking legislation.

Too many women come to my surgery with heartbreaking stories of violence and abuse, sometimes when they had left their partners. Too many people are falling through the cracks. I thank the Minister for her help with those cases, including before she came into office—it is a great comfort to me and to people across this country that she is sitting on the Front Bench—but there is a lot more that we need to do. Will the Minister please set out how this Government will help the women in my constituency in Loughborough, Shepshed and the villages to be safer?

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words—I will continue to do that for the rest of my life. Women and girls must be safe at home and in public, which is why the Government are strengthening early intervention, improving police responses, and ensuring that women facing domestic or post-separation abuse receive protection and support. We are embedding VAWG considerations into things like transport guidance, updating national design standards to ensure public spaces are safer by design. Together, these measures will make communities across England and Wales safer, including women and girls in Loughborough, Shepshed and the villages, so that they can live confidently and without fear.

I recently met a survivor of domestic abuse and stalking who has repeatedly moved home and then been followed by her perpetrator. She told me of the impact, not just on her but on her son, who has repeatedly had to move schools through no fault of his own. After the last move, her perpetrator was permitted to move to a caravan park just a few miles away from her new place of safety and within a few hundred yards of where her son plays football. Although an exclusion zone was put in place, her perpetrator was permitted inside it twice a week to attend parole meetings, because asking him to travel further would be “inconvenient to him”. Can the Minister give some detail on how this Government will support victims such as the one I met recently to live safely in their homes after experiencing domestic abuse?

I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and I suppose I want to say from this Dispatch Box that I want that perpetrator to be inconvenienced. Inconveniencing him is exactly what we should try to do, which is why this Government are tackling perpetrators —that is essentially about shifting the focus on to those who cause harm. We are rolling out domestic abuse protection orders, removing the burden on victims by placing stronger, enforceable prohibitions and requirements on the perpetrators, such as electronic monitoring and positive requirements to keep victims safe. Importantly, a breach of that order is a criminal offence.

The child maintenance system is being used, as the Minister knows, to abuse women after they have left their relationship. One of my constituents lost her home after she was manipulated into selling it. Her ex-partner put the money into a joint account, and he then bought a new house in his own name. He left her and is now living the life of Riley while she is doing three jobs and cannot get a penny out of him in child maintenance. I have written to the Minister to ask her to meet my constituent and two other women. Will she please agree to meet us, so that we can give those women the visibility they need in holding the men to account?

The hon. Lady’s constituent’s experience is not unfamiliar to any Member of Parliament who has ever had to deal with the Child Maintenance Agency. That is why child maintenance was included in the violence against women and girls strategy. We will ensure that the abuse of women through child maintenance can no longer happen. Like always, I am more than happy to meet the hon. Lady and her constituents.

Around one in eight women were victims of sexual assault, domestic abuse and stalking in the year to March 2025. Victim Support is concerned that there is not enough focus in the strategy and, in particular, that funding is not matching increasing demand. What assurances can the Minister give victims of stalking in Bath that there will be enough resources and funding for those services?

I give credit to the stalking victims and stalking organisations that took out a super-complaint against the previous Government, I think, on the many different areas where stalking legislation needed to change. This Government are acting on every single one of those recommendations. The violence against women and girls strategy had more than £1 billion of investment, of which £550 million will go into victim services. I can assure the hon. Member that as a victim of stalking myself, I take the issue very seriously.

I call the shadow Minister.

When the violence against women and girls strategy was announced, I asked the Safeguarding Minister whether she had considered the impact that mass migration is having on the safety of women and girls and why it was not mentioned. I was not sure from her response then what the answer is. Can she please explain whether the Government will address that issue specifically as the strategy is implemented? If not, why not?

What I would say to the shadow Minister and to everybody is this: I do not care who you are or where you come from; if you abuse women in our country, we will come for you. There is no lever in the Home Office that I can pull to get reliable data on this issue. That is why under this Government, unlike the previous one, we will start collecting it.