During the Labour leadership campaign, both Ed Balls and David Miliband ran online petitions to stop the government from scrapping the piloting of Domestic Violence Protection Orders.

The programme has been known to help women who face domestic violence.

Today, in his capacity as the new shadow Home Secretary, Ed Balls will write to Theresa May with the petition and urge her on the issue.

Letter below

Dear Home Secretary,

We are writing to urge you to reverse your decision to halt the piloting of Domestic Violence Protection Orders – the first phase of a programme giving police an important new power to protect victims of domestic abuse across England and Wales.

The Orders give the police the power to ban a violent partner from a family home for two to four weeks. They are aimed at intervening in cases where police are worried about violent behaviour within a household but do not have enough evidence to bring a criminal charge, or where the victim of violence needs time to recover from the shock of an attack, and to decide what to do.

They were due to be available everywhere in a few months’ time, but now it seems that their very future is in the balance. We understand that you have said their fate depends on the outcomes of the Spending Review.

We think these Orders are too important to be delayed in this way, let alone abandoned altogether as now seems a definite risk. In other countries they are proven to be of significant benefit to victims of domestic violence, leading to fewer women and children having to flee home suddenly for refuges, and to fewer becoming homeless. They are cost effective too, saving money from other public service budgets, including from Health.

Victims of domestic violence – who include children as well as women and, more rarely, men – are highly vulnerable and need all the help they can get. Domestic Violence Protection Orders would enhance their safety and welfare, and would give the police an important extra power.

You have said this new police power would be too expensive, but we believe it is wrong to put a price on the safety of victims of violent abuse, and the sums involved are in any event tiny when judged against your Department’s overall budget.

We call on you to implement Domestic Violence Protection Orders now, not sacrifice them in the rush to find deep cuts.

Yours sincerely,

Ed Balls MP, Shadow Home Secretary
and approximately 2,000 other names attached

We will also publish her response.