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Labour set itself a mammoth task when it pledged, before last year’s election, to halve violence against women and girls (VAWG) in 10 years. While many forms of crime have decreased over the past decade, sexual assault has not. In the year to March 2025, 1.9% of people in England and Wales experienced it, and 82% of victims were female. The prevalence of image-related offences has risen sharply. So has concern about the impact on young men of violent pornography and influencers.
Given this grim backdrop, and the fiscal constraints under which the government has chosen to operate, it is no wonder that the promised VAWG strategy was delayed. This is a societal issue that does not sit neatly in one government department. Jess Phillips is the minister responsible at the Home Office. But education and justice reforms are also essential if aims are to be met.
The hope is that this can be a successful example of cross-government working. The risk is that a complicated range of issues are bundled together in such a way that no one has ownership and can be held to account. David Lammy, the justice secretary, wrote in the Guardian this week that “toxic masculinity and violence” are connected. Prevention is prominent in the strategy, with plans for new “healthy relationships” content in the schools curriculum and a referral pathway for boys with attitudes that are deemed harmful. Next year, a national summit on challenges facing men and boys is planned.
Such initiatives could be worthwhile if they are well executed and are followed through. The sexualised aggression faced by female pupils and teachers is appalling, and Ofcom also has a role in ensuring that online harms are reduced. But this must not become a distraction from policing and prosecuting offenders, the vast majority of whom are adult men who will be untouched by such schemes.
One thing that clearly had to be in place before the strategy’s launch was a chair for the national inquiry into grooming gangs. The appointment last week of Anne Longfield means that this process should soon begin. The attitudes of offenders, and public authorities, will be a focus here too.
The national rollout of domestic abuse protection orders is welcome. So is the pledge of more specialist officers. But the lack of a budget is concerning, and ministers need to explain how existing resources will be stretched or redirected. Also dismaying is feedback from the women’s sector that points to a lack of consultation.
The £550m funding increase for victim support services is a tangible gain. But arguably what victims need more than anything else is for the criminal and family justice systems to work better. At the moment, the huge backlogs in crown court cases mean that some women who have experienced sexual violence wait years for a trial date. If delays become too long and victims, or witnesses, drop out, justice is denied. Issues specific to the family courts, where many allegations of domestic and sexual abuse are examined, include the lack of legal aid and use of unregulated experts.
All these problems were never going to be solved in one fell swoop. But having promised radical change in their manifesto, Labour ministers must deliver it.
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