New laws containing measures to address violence against women

Last week (29th April), the Prime Minister prorogued parliament until Wednesday 13th May when the next Parliamentary session will begin. Prorogation is the period between the end of a parliamentary session and the beginning of the new session. The new session will begin with the King’s Speech, which marks the State Opening of Parliament, in which the King will outline the legislative agenda for the coming session.

Ahead of the prorogation of Parliament, a number of Bills were passed into law. These include the Victims and Courts Act, Crime and Policing Act and Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act, which all gained Royal Assent after ping-pong across the Houses. This means that measures to tackle image-based abuse, which the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW) campaigned for, have now passed into law.

Victims and Courts Act 

The Victims and Courts Act gained royal assent last week. This Bill is narrowly intended to improve the experiences of victims within the criminal justice system, with measures also relating to the functions of the Victims Commissioner and about procedure and the administration of criminal justice.The majority of the amendments campaigned for by specialist VAWG organisations were either deemed out of scope of the Bill or were unsuccessful, such as a cross-sector amendment for the introduction of a duty to commission specialist support services for victims and survivors of exploitation and abuse.

Key VAWG-related measures in the new law:

• Restriction of parental responsibility for perpetrators convicted of child sexual abuse with a sentence of four years or more, and where rape has resulted in the birth of a child
• Requirement for defendants to attend their sentencing hearings or face extended prison sentences
• Extend the time under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme that victims can refer a sentence to the Court of Appeal for review from 28 days to 6 months 
• Ban the use of NDAs to prevent victims from speaking out about criminal conduct to anyone for any reason
• Strengthens the powers of the Victims’ Commissioner to better hold the justice system to account and support victims.
• Updates post-conviction communication schemes intended to give victims more confidence about the routes available to receive information about their offender’s release 
• Remove restrictions on who the CPS can appoint as Crown Prosecutors. 

Crime and Policing Act 

The Crime and Policing Act also gained royal assent last week. This law contains somea few positive measures, notably in relation to stalking and image-based abuse, including our successful campaigns for 48 hour takedown orders for non-consensual intimate images shared online and the banning of strangulation and incest in porn. It also introduces mandatory reporting requirements for child sexual exploitation and new measures on spiking. In addition, it contains provisions allowing ministers to amend primary legislation of the Online Safety Act via secondary legislation—to address AI-driven crime.

At the same time, it also introduces draconian measures first put forward by the Conservative government which restrict the right to protest – a right which is fundamental to the women’s movement and the rights and freedoms we have won. 

Key VAWG-related measures in the new law:

• New ‘Right to Know’ guidance on disclosing the identity of an online stalker to victims at the earliest opportunity 
• More powers for courts to impose Stalking Protection Orders directly when a defendant is convicted or acquitted 
• New standalone offence for child criminal exploitation with a penalty of up to 10 years’ imprisonment and accompanying orders which will allow courts to intervene early
• Introduces enhanced notification requirements on registered sex offenders, including  a bar of them changing their names where there is a risk of sexual harm 
• New criminal offence of administering a harmful substance (including spiking) 
• Criminalising pornography depicting strangulation or suffocation and so called ‘incest porn’ 
• Criminalising the making, adapting, supplying or offering to supply of ’nudification tools’ 
• Creating new offences of ’screenshotting’ an intimate image without consent, allowing courts to make deletion orders for non-consensual intimate images and placing new duties on online platforms to ensure such images are taken down within 48 hours 
• Implementing IICSA recommendations including by introducing a new duty to report child sexual abuse (mandatory reporting) 
• Makes grooming behaviour a statutory aggravating factor 
• Introduces a power to issue statutory guidance to tackle ‘honour’-based abuse 
• Making disability, sexual orientation, transgender identity and sex aggravated offences
• Creating an offence for the rape of a child under 16 and assault of a child under 16 by penetration applying to offenders aged 18 or over. Individuals convicted are liable to life imprisonment.

Measures cracking down on protest rights: 

• New offence banning the wearing of items to conceal identity including face coverings and holding placards to hide faces,  in areas designated by the police, granting the police powers to create a ’no mask zone’ for up to 48hrs. 
• Specific offence for climbing on designated war memorials or significant monuments. 
• Criminalising the possession of flares or fireworks during a protest
• Requirement for police to consider the ‘cumulative impact’ of multiple protests, rather than treating each event in isolation, with powers to impose conditions based on this
• Expanded aggravated trespass and protest exclusion powers including wider grounds for police to move on protesters from protected sites and to create exclusion zones around places of worship 

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act gained royal assent at the last minute, after extensive ping-pong between the Houses due to an amendment on social media bans for under 16s, which had been pushed for in the House of Lords. The government made a last minute concession, committing to introducing some restrictions on social media usage for under 16s.
Key measures in the new law: 

• New power that enables the government to act quickly on findings of the Children’s Digital Wellbeing consultation 
• Requirement on schools to cap the number of branded uniform items to three
• Expand eligibility of free school measures to include half a million more children 
• Introduce free breakfast clubs in schools 
• Introduce a new Single Unique Identifier for children, backed by a new duty to share information regarding the safety and welfare of children 
• Introduce new Children Not in School registers in every local authority
• All schools required to follow guidance banning children using mobile phones in schools 
• Dedicated inspections for multi-academy trusts and a requirement to follow the national curriculum and national teacher pay and conditions

Courts and Tribunals Bill

The Courts and Tribunals Bill, introduced in February 2026, has been carried over to the next legislative session. This Bill, intended to address the significant court backlog which often re-traumatises victim-survivors and prevents them from accessing justice, includes some important provisions for victim-survivors of VAWG. These include the repeal of the presumption of parental involvement, which Women’s Aid and other expert organisations have campaigned for many years, as well as the strengthening of special measures for vulnerable witnesses. 

Notably, it also includes measures to restrict the use of so-called ‘victim bad character’ evidence, following a successful campaign by EVAW, Centre for Women’s Justice, Rape Crisis, Rights of Women and Imkaan.

This Bill also includes contested measures to restrict the use of jury trials in certain cases, replacing them with judge-only trials. Earlier this year, EVAW signed an open letter to Justice Secretary David Lammy highlighting concerns about the government’s approach, which risks oversimplifying the reality of how the criminal justice system treats women and survivors.

ENDS