Speeches by Dixon.

“Can you help the Committee by unpicking a bit about complexity? I am keen to keep it on the demand side. What is changing about the type of victim that is coming forward? Give us a sense of what you mean by complexity.”

“We have heard very clearly that a criminal justice approach is not going to get us anywhere near the ambition that the Government rightly have to halve violence against women and girls. It has to be prevention. We have touched briefly on some of the things that we think might work in terms of prevention, but, clearly, …”

“The evidence suggests it could have that impact, but it is not actually working because the rates of problematic relationships, if I can put it in those terms, at a young age are not being reduced. Schools are not yet feeling equipped to address these issues, are they?”

“Do you think your Department is equipped to support schools to undertake effective prevention in this fast-moving arena?”

“On your first part, which was preventing escalation, we heard a lot of evidence. Obviously, the law has changed, and children are now seen to be victims of domestic abuse, but there is clearly a huge lack of support, whether that is children’s social care, in actually being able to safeguard and prevent re-victimisatio…”

“I see that the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is going through, which will hopefully do things to improve children’s social care as well. If I may, if we have time, I will just take views on prevention from Emma at MHCLG.”

“My colleague Nesil wants to come in on this. I might briefly come back, because of the evidence we have received about some of the more vulnerable groups of women, in terms of how we prevent for them.”

“I just want to draw attention to the Runnymede Trust evidence we received, which highlights that women and girls of colour are more vulnerable, as are women who are disabled, homeless, refugees and migrants. I would like to put on record my thanks and commendation to Bradford Rape Crisis, who have had a specialist serv…”

“I would really encourage that in terms of getting value out of UK aid. We may as well be in a position to learn. Hopefully you are in touch with some of your former colleagues at FCDO to make sure we can learn globally from as many examples of good practice as possible.”

“I had a particular case in my constituency of a woman with a physical disability, and we found it very difficult to find a refuge that could accommodate her, so those sorts of examples are very real.”

“That sounds excellent in terms of the College of Policing. On the Education Endowment Foundation, Early Intervention Foundation and the rest of the What Works network, how are we making sure the evidence base is there?”

“I would like to move on to research, evidence and evaluation. In your letter to this Committee in January, Sir Matthew, you said that you will base the new violence against women and girls strategy on what works and the best possible evidence both in the UK and internationally. You mentioned that you have done a six-mo…”

“We look forward to the publication of that, but thanks for giving us a heads-up. You mentioned that there are a number of areas where it would be nice to have had better evidence. Did you miss the opportunity by not evaluating the 2021 strategy or the 2022 domestic abuse plan?”

“In terms of those chunks that were evaluated as part of the 2021 and 2022 strategy and plans, have some of those reported and are they part of your sprint?”

“Just for context, I should probably put on the record that I previously worked as a chief analyst in a Government Department and indeed headed up one of the What Works centres. That is the context to me asking these questions. Will you be dedicating specific funding to evaluation as part of your bigger spending review …”

“You have mentioned the need for data. I would like to come back to this point about the evidence base. In particular, Nicole, you were suggesting that there has been some evaluation, but, on really critical issues such as rehabilitation, there is not a good evidence base. What do we know and should we be doing everywhe…”

“In terms of being mission-led, it may be sensible to get a group of What Works centres together to have a joined-up evaluation and evidence strategy around these different areas, given that it touches on so many of their remits.”

“In my own area, the West Yorkshire Mayor and West Yorkshire police have brought together a dedicated joint unit that has done a lot of innovations, such as supporting schools to deliver lessons around keeping safe and understanding the law on spiking. They are doing a lot on that. They also had a public-facing campaign…”

“That is a bit of a mouthful.”

“This may not be for you, Dame Jenny, but perhaps for Sir Chris. As we are on covid, in terms of PPE, here in the accounts, it lays bare what I would say in this case is a waste of taxpayers’ money. You may argue as well that some of that was unpredictable at the time, but there are £10 billion of what are called here i…”