To ask the Minister of Justice to outline her Department’s contribution to the cross-Executive programme on ending violence against women and girls.

Mrs Long

With your permission, Mr Speaker, I will answer questions 3 and 8 together. I ask you to indulge me with extra time, as it is quite an involved answer. The Department of Justice is responsible for a number of actions in the cross-departmental strategic framework to end violence against women and girls (EVAWG) delivery plan. Ongoing engagement between my officials and the Executive Office, formally under the auspices of the EVAWG programme board and the domestic and sexual abuse strategic oversight board, helps to provide continued alignment and cohesion to promote a comprehensive, cost-effective and joined-up response. Under the EVAWG delivery plan, my Department is working with the PSNI and the Executive Office to deliver the Power to Change public awareness campaign to tackle the underpinning misogynistic behaviours and attitudes that can fuel sexual offending and gender-based violence. The second phase of the campaign, which will launch in May, aims to address rising online misogyny and harmful gender narratives. Much of the wider work of my Department is aimed at addressing sexual offending and domestic abuse and at supporting victims in these cases. Whilst not all domestic and sexual abuse victims are women and girls, and not all violence against women and girls happens in domestic relationships, there is a significant overlap. Implementation of the domestic abuse offence, which captures patterns of controlling, coercive and threatening behaviour, as well as associated aggravators, is continuing. A pilot for domestic abuse protection notices and orders is under development. Work has been prioritised to establish revised and improved domestic abuse risk response arrangements. I aim to address a legislative gap by introducing new offences to address the creation of non-consensual sexually explicit deepfake images of adults online, which, again, disproportionately affects women and girls. I recently secured legislative consent to extend several provisions of the UK Government's Crime and Policing Bill to build on sexual offences that were introduced in 2022. Together, those measures contribute to a legal framework that allows the criminal justice system to deal effectively with sexual offending, of which most victims are women and girls. In the past two financial years, my Department has allocated £1·9 million specifically to ending violence against women and girls. Total spend by my Department and non-departmental public bodies was £0·8 million in the 2024-25 financial year and £1·1 million in 2025-26. We have also committed £8·4 million over a seven-year period, commencing in 2025-26, to ASSIST NI to deliver advocacy services to high-risk and high-impact victims of domestic and sexual abuse. Alongside the Department of Health and the Department for Communities, my Department jointly funds the 24-hour domestic abuse helpline delivered by Nexus NI, which will cost £3·2 million over the next seven years. Similarly, whilst our investment of over £0·5 million on remote evidence centres over the past two years is beneficial to all vulnerable or intimidated witnesses, it has disproportionately benefited women and girls.

Mr Gaston

Can the Minister give an assurance that all the money that her Department spends to address this scourge on society is being spent on biological women, or is some of it being diverted to men who pretend to be women? Does the Minister realise that this is not a culture war issue but rather something that deeply concerns more than 50% of the population in Northern Ireland?

Mrs Long

First, I advise the Member not to speak on behalf of all women on this issue — that is the first thing — so I do not know where his saying "more than 50% of the population" comes from. Secondly, what we are doing here is trying to protect vulnerable women and girls from domestic abuse, but my Department is also trying to protect vulnerable men, vulnerable trans people, vulnerable straight people and vulnerable gay people from domestic and sexual abuse. That is what my Department is here to do. We are here to protect every citizen to the best of our ability, defending them against violence against the person or domestic and sexual abuse.

Mrs Long

I have introduced a diverse range of measures aimed at addressing sexual offending and coercive control and domestic abuse, and further measures are planned that will, I believe, tackle online and technologically aided abuse. I recognise, however, that legislation alone will not bring an end to the violence and abuse that exists in our society, and I have said that many times in the Chamber. We need a cultural shift in our community. I am absolutely committed to playing my part in protecting women and girls from harm through the law and in recognising new types of harm and creating new offences. Although it is good that we can do this, it is not good enough to be able to tackle violence and take people through the courts whenever harm has occurred. We have to focus on the prevention of that harm. There is no short-term solution to tackling the complex issues around that. Addressing abusive attitudes requires sustained, cross-departmental approaches with an emphasis on preventative actions. I am committed to and have consistently been working with others to ensure that we, along with other stakeholders, can tackle the drivers of abuse and violence. Part of that is not allowing our concern about violence against women and girls to be weaponised in a way that makes other minority groups in our society more vulnerable to abuse. This is about tackling a very serious crisis that our society faces. We need to work together as a community and across the community, irrespective of race, religion, creed, sexual orientation or how people identify their gender, to ensure that our women and girls are kept safe and that our young men and boys are educated in a constructive and positive way about what it is to be a good man, because, sadly, whilst women and girls are the focus of the campaign, they are not the problem.

Ms Finnegan

Ending violence against women and girls must be a priority for us all. We must be aware, however, of its impact on families and the need to protect children from further harm. Will the Minister outline whether, to that end, she has done any work to explore introducing here the equivalent of Jade's law, which concerns the suspension of parental responsibility for a parent who kills their partner or ex-partner?

Mrs Long

That has been raised with me and is something that causes many of us concern. In recent months and years, we have seen situations in which one co-parent has taken the life of the other co-parent, leaving their children, in most cases, without a mother. We have seen the distress that is caused to families when that person continues to have parental rights. Ultimately, the family courts make the determination on that, and, when it comes to the area of parental rights and so on, it is for the Department of Finance to introduce any change to family law. That does not lie in the criminal justice sphere, which is where my responsibilities lie. I have looked into that, however, and, in the engagement that I have had with officials in the Department of Finance, there has been a view that, given that the courts have discretion to grant access to children and are genuinely supposed to put the needs of the child rather than the demands or desires of the parents first, there is sufficient scope for a similar approach to be taken within the courts, without any substantive change to primary legislation. I am happy to continue to engage with the Minister of Finance on that issue, but it is for the Minister of Finance to do the policy development work on that, rather than for my Department.

Mr Durkan

I acknowledge the efforts of the Minister to tackle the scourge of violence against women and girls, which needs a whole-government approach and a whole-society approach. Minister, what investment and efforts are being made to rehabilitate perpetrators of domestic abuse in order to prevent or reduce reoffending and reduce the risk primarily to women and girls?

Mrs Long

We do a number of things, such as perpetrator programmes. There are opt-in perpetrator programmes for those who, for example, are on remand in the prison system for domestic abuse-related offences. They have the option of taking such a course and engaging in that process. Once people are there as sentenced prisoners, a needs assessment of their rehabilitation is done. A number of desistance programmes are undertaken in prisons. There is one on healthy, happy relationships. Anger management courses are also available to people, and those are often allied with courses on substance misuse, which can trigger some of those incidents. That is happening in prisons. In addition, the Probation Board runs a number of courses for people who have been convicted of domestic abuse offences that are about changing attitudes. Much like drug rehabilitation therapy, part of the issue is that, unless a person has a desire to change, and unless there is a willingness on their behalf to engage properly and thoroughly with those programmes, it can be very difficult to change patterns of abuse. Many of those in prison come forward as victims of abuse or were, for example, exposed to extreme violence as children. Therefore, part of what we try to do as we go through those desistance programmes is look at how we deal with the trauma that they often carry forward into their adult life and adult relationships and the patterns of behaviour that they learned from those around them as a child and that have led to their being an abuser. Breaking that cycle is not straightforward, but it is something that we invest in.

Mr Carroll

Minister, given that an independent report found clear evidence of sexism and misogyny in the PSNI and that the report and its findings were accepted by the Chief Constable, how appropriate is it for that organisation to deal with violence against women and girls?

Mrs Long

First, I thank the Chief Constable for asking Rachel Langdale to come in and do the review that she did, because that was welcome oversight. The best disinfectant is sunlight. I therefore believe that the openness and transparency with which the Chief Constable has addressed the issue is important. I have no doubt that both Rachel Langdale's report and, indeed, the work being done by the Office of the Police Ombudsman on abuse of position for sexual purposes will cause people to have second thoughts about reporting domestic and sexual abuse to the police. I want to be certain, just as everyone in the House does, that, when a vulnerable victim or witness approaches the police seeking help, they are not inadvertently engaging with another predator. It is important that we do everything at every stage, through vetting and barring, how we approach the recruitment process and how internal vetting in the PSNI works as people perhaps move towards more contact with vulnerable victims and witnesses, to ensure that any red flags that are raised in the organisation are taken seriously and followed up competently. That is the very least that people should expect. Having said that, I do not wish to overplay the issue in the context of the PSNI versus other forces around these islands. Very often in hierarchical organisations, which are predominately male in nature, the culture needs to change. It is good that that has been acknowledged by the Chief Constable. That leadership from the top is important. I will support the Policing Board and the Chief Constable in every effort that they make to ensure that this is stamped out and that victims can have full confidence that, when they go to the PSNI, they will be protected and kept safe.