Ministerial Visit from Jess Phillips MP

Rising Sun were incredibly proud to have been put forward by Women’s Aid to host an inspiring, impactful and important Ministerial visit from Home Office Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillip MP on Thursday 19^th September.

The UK Home Office have just announced Raneem’s Law and the launch of the new Domestic Abuse Protection Order pilots in November. As experts in our field, the Minister visited Rising Sun to discuss to the Government’s pledge to ensure that victims of domestic abuse have access­ to better support from the start, and to halve violence against women and girls in a decade.

The new initiative will ensure calls for help are treated with the urgency needed and victims get the specialist support they need straight away. This will form part of ‘Raneem’s Law’, in memory of Raneem Oudeh and her mother Khaola Saleem, who were murdered by Randeem’s ex-husband in 2018. There were 13 reports made to the police about concerns for Raneem’s safety, with no arrests made. On the night she was killed, she rang 999 four times.

The government will fund this pilot in targeted police forces from early 2025. Specialists with expertise in domestic abuse will be embedded in 999 control rooms to advise on risk assessments and work with officers on the ground, to ensure that victims get a fast response when needed and are referred to support service as quickly as possible.

These specialists will be back up by dedicated teams to improve how the police responds to these kinds of calls, including using new technology to respond more quickly, such as Rapid Video Response.

In a further step to keep women and girls safe, from November more domestic abusers will be ordered to stay away from their victims and face tougher sanctions if they fail to do so through the launch of the new Domestic Abuse Protection Order pilot. The pilot will build on powers police already have to legally order abusers to not contact or go within a certain distance of the victim – but domestic abuse victims are currently only protected for up to 28 days.

The new orders will go further, with measures such as making it a legal requirement for perpetrators to inform the police of any change in name or address, imposing electronic tagging, and ordering assessments for behaviour change programmes. There will also be no maximum duration for these orders. The orders will cover all forms of domestic abuse, including violence, stalking and controlling behaviour, and more agencies will be able to apply for them – not just the police and criminal courts, but also family and civil courts, and third parties such as local authorities, charities and social services, with victims also able to apply directly to the order themselves. This means that charities, like Rising Sun, will be able to apply for these for the women we support. Breaching one of these new orders will be a criminal offence, punishable by up to 5 years in prison.

Ahead of these ground-breaking new measures being put in place to combat Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips MP visited Rising Sun to hear, first hand, from members of our Survivor Forum and frontline staff of real-life experiences of domestic abuse and the need of survivors and charities supporting their recovery.

Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women & Girls said:

“It was a privilege to visit the Rising Sun domestic violence and abuse service to discuss new government measures to improve the police response to domestic abuse and hear about the crucial work they do to support victims.

Embedding domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms and rolling out new protective orders to pilot forces and courts across the country are both huge steps towards the best response for victims possible.

The government has set out an unprecedented mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade – and frontline services will be vital in helping us deliver this. We remain dedicated to working closely with the sector to transform our approach and drive the changes that are so urgently needed.”

Alongside their news measures to combat VAWG, we spoke to Jess Philips MP, Nicole Jacobs (DA Commissioner for England & Wales), Farah Nazeer (Women’s Aid CEO) and Nour Norris (Lead campaigner for Raneem’s Law) about:

• The necessity of specialist local community services who can provide wraparound and joined up provision to survivors of domestic abuse.
• Putting an end to short-term commissioning and funding to ensure a reliable and consistent support that survivors can trust.
• For long-term specialist domestic abuse services, such as mentoring, counselling and work with children & young people, to be recognised for the impact that is has on survivors.

Women’s Aid shared:

“We hope that the ministerial visit to Rising Sun, a Women’s Aid member service, has shed light onto the very real issues that survivors of domestic abuse are facing right now and the vital role that specialist services play in providing support.”

We are pleased to see these new measures being put in place to help The Home Office deliver their commitment of providing better support to survivors and halving violence against women and girls, and hope that our input will influence future work in this field.

Fran Ellis, CEO of Rising Sun shared:

“It was fantastic for Rising Sun to be chosen to host a ministerial visit from Jess Phillips MP last week ahead of the introduction of Raneem’s Law – to place domestic abuse specialists in all 999 call centres – and the Domestic Abuse Protection Order pilot.

Being able to speak directly to a DA specialist will have a huge impact on survivors calling the police for help as it’s so important to be heard, validated and believed. As well as improving safety for survivors, getting it right the first time can increase future engagement with police, services and the criminal justice system, meaning more survivors will receive the support and justice they deserve.

As a specialist DA service embedded in the community, we’re delighted to hear that more women and girls will receive an appropriate response when they call 999. However, for Raneem’s Law to be effective, there needs to be adequate funding for services like ours to provide the follow up support required for them to gain safety and rebuild their lives.”