PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
(26 February 2025)

The scale of violence against women and girls in our country is intolerable and this Government is treating it as the national emergency that it is. We are going further than ever before to deliver a cross-government transformative approach to tackling violence against women and girls, underpinned by a new VAWG strategy to be published this year.

In February we announced that external domestic abuse specialists have been embedded within the first five police force control rooms under Raneem’s Law, to improve the police response to domestic abuse. These forces are Northumbria, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Humberside and West Midlands.

These external specialists will work alongside staff in 999 control rooms, to advise on risk assessments, work with officers on the ground and ensure victims are referred to appropriate support services swiftly.

We intend to use learning from this first phase of implementation to develop our model and inform plans for national rollout across all 43 forces in England and Wales. Further roll-out will be announced in due course.