Ever since being elected as a Member of Parliament in 2015 I have been making demands for funding to tackle the wiring rise in violence against women and girls across our area.

I’ve called for action in Parliament, as well as in the media. As a busy constituency MP, I’m also sadly regularly contacted by those who have experienced domestic violence and sexual assaults and are struggling to get justice.

Lancashire Police have recently updated me to advise: “Safer Streets 5 funding has been secured which will contribute towards the VAWG agenda, and more specifically the student population in Lancaster.”

What You Can Do to Take Action

To ensure that female students and women can feel safe across the city, I am working with University ward Lancaster City Councillor Erin Hall to make sure that your voices, experiences, and suggestions are heard loud and clear by Lancashire Police so that this money is spent in the right way.

We want to hear your suggestions and experiences of safety in Lancaster, which you can share using the form below. You can complete this form anonymously if you wish. Everything you share will be anonymised when we put this to Lancashire Police to push them to use this funding in the right places. Please do not share any personal details of other parties or any other information which could identify others. 

We may use the information you provide, such as name and postcode, to match the data provided to your electoral register record held on our electoral database, which could inform future communications you receive from us. You can opt out at any time. We may use your answers to help us campaign better. For information about my data and privacy policy you can read more here.

With work starting under the previous Labour Police and Crime Commissioner Clive Grunshaw to put this at the top of the policing agenda in Lancashire, firstly securing £747,000 in 2020 through Safer Streets funding, and in 2021 putting over £350,000 towards domestic abuse and sexual violence support services, as well as supporting the white ribbon campaign to highlight the scale of violence against women – I’m pleased that this work continues and that Lancashire has now been awarded further funding from the Safer Streets fund.

It is good to see that Clive Grunshaw’s work continues to benefit our streets and help protect women and girls from violence, rape, and sexual assaults.

But as we all know, we have much further to go.

98.5% of all reported rapes don’t end in prosecution, with those which do waiting years for justice whilst victims hold on to trauma and anxiety without closure, and fading witness recollections risk justice being served – this on top of the startling statistics that two women a week are killed in domestic violence incidents.

Repeat perpetrators of VAWG too often get away with their crimes, even when violence is escalating, because the policing and criminal justice response to these offences focuses on individual incidents rather than looking at patterns of perpetrator behaviour.

We need education in schools and youth services around consent and respect, to clear the backlog of rape and sexual assault court cases by promoting junior prosecutors, and commit to Labour’s plan to halve violence against women and girls within a decade by asking police forces to:

1. Use data on named suspects to identify high-harm offenders posing a disproportionate risk to women;
2. Make targeting of those dangerous offenders a policing priority; using resources and assets typically reserved for counter-terror and organised crime to investigate their crimes and get dangerous VAWG perpetrators off the streets;
3. Turn suspected offences into criminal offences by working with victims to secure more prosecutions.

Mandating all police forces to recognise patterns of behaviour rather than focussing on individual incidents, and adopt a proactive perpetrator strategy is designed to put tackling Violence Against Women and Girls on a footing alongside counter-terror and organised crime in terms of both the intelligence-led mapping of suspects and the resources and tools available to officers to get dangerous rapists, stalkers and domestic abusers off the streets and away from victims.

You can read more about Labour’s new perpetrator programme announcement to target the 1000 most dangerous abusers and sex offenders who pose a risk to women here.

Related Links:

98.5% of Reported Rapes Don’t End in Prosecution – Bring Forward the Victims Law

Cat Challenges Violence Against Women And Girls

Cat joins UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

Cat: Improve Census data to help tackle Violence Against Women and Girls

Cat Demands Education on Consent for Boys and Girls in Schools and Through Youth Work

Cat: Use Unnecessary £120m Voter ID Scheme Funds to tackle Violence Against Women and Girls