UK Government focused on prevention to tackle violence against women – minister

Children who show harm towards parents, siblings or in relationships will be signed up to behaviour change programmes.

Speaking on Times Radio Breakfast, the Home Office minister said: “One in eight women were victims of violence against women and girls last year and so I’m a bit sick, I have to say, as somebody who’s campaigned on this for many years, of just trying to put nicer plasters on to ever growing scars, and so we’ve got to – the Government is really, really focused on the prevention.”

On the measures announced jointly with the Department for Education for prevention in schools, she said they include targeted intervention to “stop that behaviour progressing into something that may end up even more sinister in the future”.

She added: “We have to build new models of how to do this because there isn’t just a thing I can grab off the shelf from another country.

“We will be the first place to try and do this, and so we will find evidence-based interventions that work and we will offer those as resources to schools.”

Schools to take part in the teacher training pilot will be chosen next year, while ministers will aim for all secondary schools to teach healthy relationship sessions by the end of this Parliament.

A helpline will also be set up for teenagers to get support over concerns for their own behaviour in relationships.

It comes as Department for Education-commissioned research found 70% of secondary school teachers surveyed said their school had actively dealt with sexual violence and/or harassment between children.

Announcing the plan, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had said: “Every parent should be able to trust that their daughter is safe at school, online and in her relationships.

“But too often toxic ideas are taking hold early and going unchallenged.

“This Government is stepping in sooner – backing teachers, calling out misogyny, and intervening when warning signs appear – to stop harm before it starts.

“This is about protecting girls and driving forward education and conversation with boys and young men, which is a responsibility we owe to the next generation, and one this Government will deliver.”

Measures already announced as part of the cross-government strategy also include introducing specialist rape and sexual offences investigators to every police force, better support for survivors in the NHS, and a £19 million funding boost for councils to provide safe housing for domestic abuse survivors.

The latest measures for educating children are backed by a £20 million package, with £16 million invested by the Government, which is working with philanthropists on an innovation fund.

Ms Phillips also told Times Radio the strategy will look at tackling misogyny in the online environment, and added: “When the full policies are announced in the violence against women and girls strategy, you will see that online harm, online harms to children are very, very much part of that.”

Responding to the announcements made for the strategy so far, domestic abuse commissioner for England and Wales, Dame Nicole Jacobs, said the commitments “do not go far enough” to see the number of people experiencing abuse start to fall.

She added: “Today’s strategy rightly recognises the scale of this challenge and the need to address the misogynistic attitudes that underpin it, but the level of investment to achieve this falls seriously short.”

Dame Nicole also said overburdened schools are not being equipped with the infrastructure they need to safeguard child victims of domestic abuse.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said schools already deliver relationships education through the curriculum but he welcomed specialist training for teachers, adding it is “something school leaders have long called for”.

He said training must be for teachers across all phases of education and he highlighted that schools are just “part of the solution”, with Government, health, social care, police and parents all having a “significant contribution to make too”.

Police and social services will be given new guidance on teenage relationships to tackle abuse, and the legal framework for domestic abuse will be looked at to address experiences of teenagers.

Sir Keir has meanwhile vowed to look at whether younger people should have recognition as domestic abuse victims following the murder of 15-year-old Holly Newton by her stalker ex-boyfriend in Hexham, Northumberland, in January 2023.