Member

We know that there are many pressures on the public purse, but there is a financial case to be made for investing in these support services. A 2021 report for the Home Office estimated that the economic and social cost of contact child sexual abuse alone was £10.1 billion. That is money that we lose in economic output and in huge costs to the NHS, the police and the criminal justice system. The cost of domestic abuse, which affects 2.4 million adults a year and accounts for one in five homicides, is estimated by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner to cost £85 billion per year. That is £47 billion more than the budgets of the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice combined. To do nothing will not save us money. It will only ensure that costs spiral, loading pressure on all our public services and reducing our economic productivity.