Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 33
26th Report - Tackling Violence against Women and Girls
Published 16 May 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Tackling Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG) All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The Online Safety Act, introduced in October 2023, was designed to ensure that people are protected from harmful online content, notably children and young people. The Act legislates the removal harmful content from social media platforms.77 As of 16 March 2025, service providers must have completed their risk assessments for illegal content which assessing the risk of users encountering illegal content or of the platforms being used to commit or facilitate an offence. DSIT is the sponsoring department for the Online Safety Act and is responsible for investigating how the design of online platforms can contribute to or mitigate such violence. DSIT has told us that the Online Safety Act will have a significant impact on tackling VAWG, as platform providers can be fined up to 10% of worldwide qualifying revenue.78 We asked DSIT about the decision to not legislate against the possession of NCII, while the creation of it, threat to share it, or sharing of it, are all illegal. We stressed our concern that this was a loophole that needed addressing. DSIT could not provide evidence of work it was doing to address this loophole, but said it intended to address to through consultation with the Home Office.79 77 Q 5 78 Q 54 79 Q 55 22
From: Public Accounts Committee, 26th Report - Tackling Violence against Women and Girls (HC 644), 16 May 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Twenty-sixth Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026 (deadline 16 July 2025).
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Twenty-sixth report from Session 2024-26
Published 18 September 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it agrees with the Committee's recommendations across the areas covered, including governance, survivor engagement, funding, evidence, measurement, prevention and online safety.
- On cross-government accountability, the government says it has set up "robust governance and accountability" through the Safer Streets Mission, and that it is developing options for a cross-Whitehall team to monitor delivery of VAWG commitments.
- On funding, the Home Office will write to update the Committee once it has decisions and clarity on cross-government VAWG spending. Coordination is stated to depend on other departments completing their own internal allocation processes.
- On measuring progress, the target to halve VAWG within a decade will be set against a headline prevalence measure from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, with a target implementation date of September 2025.
- On prevention, delivery of the actions by September 2025 is stated to be "contingent on the publication of the Tackling VAWG Strategy within that timeframe". DSIT will "aim to update" the Committee in six months on early findings from Ofcom's Tracker.