Baroness Tonge – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Tonge on 2014-04-02.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, in the light of the perpetration of forced marriage becoming a criminal offence later in 2014, they have any plans to increase funding to United Kingdom charities helping victims of forced marriage and honour-based abuse.

Lord Taylor of Holbeach

The Home Office and Ministry of Justice have collectively ring-fenced nearly £40 million of stable funding up to 2015 for specialist local support services and national help lines to tackle violence against women.

The Forced Marriage Unit has also allocated £150,000 to the domestic programme fund, which supports local forced marriage-related projects in the UK.

We keep funding for the provision of national services under review. Decisions on how best to fund local services for victims of forced marriage are a local matter and it is the responsibility of the Local Authorities to identify any gaps in service provision and put in place appropriate solutions to address this.