Written questions by Gosling.

What steps her Department is taking to tackle retail crime.

Tackling retail crime, in partnership with police and retailers, is a top priority for this government.In the last year of the previous government, shop theft reached a record high, and violence and abuse towards retail workers increased at an unacceptable level.This Government will not tolerate these crimes. Through our Crime and Policing Bill, we have introduced a new offence of assaulting a retail worker and we will end the effective immunity for shop theft of goods under £200.

What steps the Department is taking to support (a) parents and (b) carers facing domestic (i) abuse and (ii) violence from (A) children and (B) wards.

The scale of violence against women and girls (VAWG) in our country is intolerable and this Government will treat it as the national emergency that it is. Tackling VAWG is a top priority and our mission is to halve VAWG within a decade. To achieve this ambitious aim, it is essential that we tackle domestic abuse and all forms of interpersonal abuse. This Government’s target to halve VAWG within the next decade will only succeed if we continue to ensure children and young people are also at the heart of prevention and intervention programmes and policies. Progressing work around child to parent abuse is an important part of this and we will consider the responses to the consultation on the definition of child to parent abuse as part of our approach to addressing this issue.