New laws tackling violence against women and girls

WQ.249/2026

WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR JUSTICE AND HOME AFFAIRS

BY DEPUTY M. TADIER OF ST. BRELADE

QUESTION SUBMITTED ON MONDAY 2nd NOVEMBER 2026 ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON MONDAY 9th NOVEMBER 2026

Question

"With reference to the former Minister's letter to the Children, Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel dated 13th February 2026, in relation to the Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) legislation and its impact on the criminal justice system, will the Minister advise –

1. whether she agrees with the estimate of the previous Minister that the new VAWG legislation could generate approximately 275 to 300 new crimes by the second year of implementation and, if she does not, detail her current estimate;
2. what assessments have been undertaken by her department of the sustainability of the obligations arising from the new VAWG legislation; and
3. whether she has any plans to tackle violence and abuse against all children including boys and, if so, how she will convey this message and what corresponding political and executive resources she will commit to this?"

Answer

1. In her letter to the CEHA Scrutiny Panel dated 13th February, the previous Minister shared that a detailed analysis of the impact of the VAWG laws was being developed based on the assumed position that the new Laws will generate between 275-300 new crimes by the second year of implementation.

Further analytical work was subsequently undertaken in February 2026, resulting in the revision of this  estimate  from  275-300  new  crimes  to  199-369  new  crimes  by  the  second  year  of implementation. The previous Minister re-issued each of the VAWG Law propositions[1] on 9th March 2026 to ensure that States Members had sight of the revised estimates in advance of the debate on the package of VAWG legislation on 11th March 2026.

I  agree  with  this  revised  estimate,  which  was  based  on  significant  further  analytical  work undertaken  by the  States of Jersey  Police, other criminal justice partners and Treasury and Exchequer. It is from this estimate that the calculations relating to the VAWG funding allocated in the Proposed Budget 2027-2030 are based.

2. Significant analytical work was undertaken prior to the lodging of each of the five VAWG laws in January 2026, to estimate the impact of introducing this new legislation. The first part of this work was led by analysts in the States of Jersey Police, who undertook detailed analysis to estimate the number of new crimes that would be generated by the introduction of these new laws. This work resulted in an estimate that the VAWG laws would generate between 199-369 new crimes by the second year of implementation.

This estimate was then used to forecast the additional capacity and resourcing pressures that would likely be placed on different parts of the criminal justice system as a result of the new legislation. In particular, it was used to forecast demands on the Ministerial functions (including the States of Jersey Police, States of Jersey Prison Service, Jersey Domestic Abuse Service, Dewberry House Sexual Assault Referral Centre, and  Victims First Jersey) and the  non-Ministerial functions (including the Law Officers' Department, the Jersey Probation and Aftercare Service, the Judicial Greffe and the Viscount's Department).

Officers within Treasury and Exchequer then worked with each of these services to calculate the amount of additional funding that would be required for each of them to address the resulting additional capacity and resourcing pressures. This assessment identified that a total revenue cost of between £3 – 7 million would be required to effectively operationalise the new legislation. This funding requirement was included in each of the re-issued VAWG Law propositions to ensure States Members were made aware of the financial implications of voting through the new laws. It was also noted that this assessment was based on assumptions about the number of new crimes generated, and that the level of resourcing required would ultimately depend on the incidence and severity of offending that is reported.

As a result, Ministers agreed that the amount of funding provided should be linked to the actual demand on services once the legislation is enacted, with services phased in as necessary to maintain effective service delivery across the criminal justice system.

This resulted in the development of a demand-led funding model which was used to calculate the VAWG legislation funding requirements which were included in the Proposed Government Budget 2027-2030. The overarching aim of this model has been to ensure that the obligations arising from the new legislation can be sustained by a funding response that is proportionate, reasonable and evidence-led, while primarily ensuring that the demands generated from the new legislation are matched with adequate resourcing at the point of need.

The demand-led funding model works by holding a proportion of funding in the Central Reserve which can then be released to match resources to demand, as required. It relies on agreed forecasts for recorded crimes under the new laws, with movement from the low estimate to the agreed central or high forecast ranges acting as the trigger for funding release. The model is designed to avoid resources arriving too late by combining a mixture of reactive demand measures and forward- looking indicators. The exact thresholds which will need to be met in order to trigger the release of additional funds is yet to be agreed, but discussions are ongoing between services, Justice and Home Affairs, and Treasury and Exchequer and will be finalised in due course.

3. When  I  established  the  violence  against  women  and  girls  (VAWG)  Taskforce  and  wider workstream, I chose to describe it as such because that is the terminology most widely used to describe the types of violence and abuse that this workstream was primarily seeking to address: domestic abuse, sexual violence and sexual harassment. Statistics show that these forms of violence are disproportionately perpetrated against women and girls, but it is important to recognise that men and boys are also victims of these forms of violence and can actually face additional barriers to accessing support or justice because of the stigma that is sometimes associated with male experiences of abuse.

It is important to recognise that all of the work that has been undertaken under the VAWG workstream has aimed to address domestic abuse, sexual violence and sexual harassment against victims of every sex and gender. Victims of intimate image abuse, stalking, domestic abuse, strangulation, and threats of sexual harm are all entitled to the same new protections and routes to justice that are established by the incoming VAWG legislation, regardless of their sex or gender. The funding allocated to the operationalisation of these laws has already been the subject of significant discussion within my answer to WQ 208/2026. Our wider work to combat attitudes relating to misogyny and gender inequality as the root causes of VAWG should also be understood as benefitting men and boys, because they address the same underlying forces that contribute to forms of toxic masculinity and the stigma associated with men accessing mental health support.

A key part of my work to tackle violence and abuse against all children, including boys, has been the commissioning of an independent review of the management of domestic abuse cases within the family court system in Jersey. The review has considered how children's voices are captured and listened to within private law family proceedings; and whether decisions and orders made about where a child should live and what contact they should have with their parents, are made with the best interests of the child sufficiently in mind. This work has been led by the experienced Family Law Barrister and Deputy Part-time High Court Judge, Hannah Markham KC. Her final report and recommendations are scheduled to be published in December 2026. It is anticipated that a series of recommendations will be made which aim to improve current arrangements in the family court system so that better outcomes can be delivered for children. £200,000 has been allocated in the Proposed Government Budget 2027-2030 to provide the necessary funds for the implementation of those recommendations over the next four years.

It is recognised that use of the "VAWG" terminology has created some confusion about the scope of the government's work in this area. That is why I chose to rename this workstream when I transitioned the VAWG Taskforce model into a longer-term, multi-agency workstream called the "Domestic Abuse and Sexual Harms" (DASH) Partnership so that the scope of this work is more explicitly captured. This partnership aims to provide strategic oversight and coordination of work to address domestic abuse and sexual harms across the island. A key priority for the partnership is undertaking further work to explore the impact of domestic abuse on children. A subgroup has also been formed which aims to improve the content and delivery of education in these areas. Funding has been allocated within the Proposed Government Budget for a Training and Delivery Support Officer who would be responsible for facilitating many of the activities of the DASH Partnership. A  proportion  of  the  funding  allocated  to  "Training  and  delivery  costs"  and  "Marginalised community engagement" in the Proposed Budget will also provide funds for the activities of the DASH Partnership.

[1] Draft Sexual Offences (Jersey) Amendment Law 202-; Draft Harassment and Stalking (Jersey) Law 202-; Draft Domestic Abuse (Jersey) Amendment Law 202-; Draft Crime (Strangulation) (Jersey) Law 202-; Draft Crime (Public Order) (Jersey) Amendment Law 202-.