Today (17 July), the new Government a significant package of legislation including measures to tackle violence and abuse, and our housing crisis.
Solace welcomes the measures that will seek to increase the police capability to respond to domestic abuse, rape and sexual violence, strengthening the law on spiking and having consistent and stronger vetting standards across all police forces. It is also reassuring that the new Government will be taking steps to fast track rape cases. We also welcome the measures to improve the private rented sector, which is often the only option for many survivors of domestic abuse.
Key bills relevant to women and girls include:
- Crime and Policing Bill – This Bill will introduce specific measures around VAWG including ensuring the police have capability to respond robustly to domestic abuse, rape and sexual offences and strengthen the law on spiking to improve the police response. It will also bring in higher mandatory vetting standards across policing.
- Victims, Courts and Public Protection Bill – This Bill will bring in provisions including fast tracking rape cases with specialist courts at every Crown Court, strengthen the powers of the Victim’s Commissioner, require offenders to attend sentencing hearings, restrict parental responsibility for child sex offenders and restrict sex offenders from changing their names.
- Renters’ Rights Bill – This Bill will abolish section 21 ‘no fault evictions, expand possession grounds for landlords, give tenants powers to challenge rent increases, introduce new laws to end rental bidding wars by landlords and letting agents, give tenants the right to request a Bill, apply Decent Homes Standards to the private rented sector, introduce a new Ombudsman for the private rented sector and make it illegal for landlords to discriminate against tenants in receipt of benefits or with children.
- Children’s Wellbeing Bill – This Bill will seek to strengthen multi-agency child protection and safeguarding arrangements.
In response to the King’s Speech, Rebecca Goshawk, Head of Partnerships and Public Affairs said “Women and girls have lost faith in our criminal justice systems and it will take significant reform to build this back, and ensure that victim/survivors are treated with dignity and get access to justice. We are pleased to see that several bills will look to address this and we await more detail on the specific measures.
We are pleased to see that the Government will be introducing higher and mandatory vetting standards for the police after the failings seen in recent years and the levels of police perpetrated abuse that have come to light. It is a relief to see that the new Government will be publishing a draft Bill on banning of conversion therapy and this will be inclusive of trans people – anyone at risk of conversion therapy should be protected.”
“But to truly put victims and survivors at the heart of Government reform there needs to be more than simply a criminal justice response. We continue to call for sustainable funding for specialist women’s services, more to be done to ensure that survivors can access safe and affordable housing within the social or private rented sector and see reforms to the family courts so that abuse is not continued through these justice processes.”