Devolution is no longer a fringe experiment; it’s becoming the default. Powers over transport, housing, skills, and health are steadily shifting from Westminster to metro mayors and combined authorities. The new English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, introduced in July 2025, will deepen this trend by simplifying local government structures, strengthening neighbourhood voices, and giving communities more control.
If this is the direction of travel, then why not apply it to one of the most urgent issues we face: violence against women and girls?
In its 2024 manifesto, the Labour Party set out that its government would ‘halve violence against women and girls in the next decade’. This is an ambition that is both morally urgent and politically bold. But is Westminster really the right place to make this happen?
For decades, governments have promised to reduce violence against women and girls. Yet the reality on the ground remains stark. Current figures show that one woman is killed every three days by a man in the UK, and two million women are estimated to be victims of violence each year.
The persistence of these figures tells us something important: national strategies from Westminster are not working.
Why Westminster Struggles
The record of centrally-led strategies illustrates the problem.
The 2021 Conservative Government’s VAWG strategy, for example, was launched “at pace” but without a clear evidence base. The National Audit Office later reported that the Home Office was never on track to deliver its commitments, in part because it failed to secure cooperation across departments or build a genuinely whole-system response.
This reflects a broader pattern. Westminster tends to design strategies in isolation, expecting delivery agencies and local services to adapt afterwards. But violence against women and girls cuts across policing, health, housing, education, and social care. Without coordination and consistent funding, these national plans fall apart in practice.
Another recurring weakness is distance. Policymakers in Whitehall are far removed from the lived realities of women in local communities. What might look like a neat, one-size-fits-all solution on paper often fails to resonate on the ground. As a result, national strategies become cycles of ambitious pledges that falter in delivery and fail to reflect the complexity of women’s lives.
Devolution Can Succeed Where Westminster Fails
If Westminster struggles, devolved and local governments may be better placed to act.
Violence against women is experienced differently across communities which are shaped by local demographics, socio-economic conditions, and cultural contexts. Local leaders are closer to these realities and better positioned to design responses that fit them and resonate with local communities.
In Greater Manchester, for example, the Combined Authority has created a Gender-Based Violence Strategy that aligns policing priorities with those of health, housing, and education. Crucially, it was informed by a “Lived Experience Panel”, ensuring that survivors’ voices shaped its direction.
Tracy Brabin and the WYCA have also integrated a ‘Safety of Women and Girls Strategy’ as part of their Police and Crime Plan. While not a silver bullet, these joined-up approaches show how devolved powers can deliver more tailored, coordinated responses than Westminster alone. It demonstrates the potential of devolution to turn a national ambition of halving VAWG into a locally-driven mission with real outcomes.
If it were legally mandated that combined and local authorities had to produce a VAWG strategy, devolved regions could also serve as testbeds for innovative approaches, with best practice then being rolled out to other areas. Examples of this could include embedding specialist police units in high-prevalence areas to designing safer transport systems, adding consent education to the curriculum in schools, and investing in culturally competent services for underrepresented groups.
Devolution would allow these ideas to be trialled, evaluated, and scaled. But, this would require a consistent funding stream from central government rather than the short-term grants they currently receive, which are few and far between.
Turning Ambition into Action
There is also a clear political incentive for Labour. Westminster is tied up with debates on immigration, the economy, and public finances, leaving little space to focus on women’s safety. By giving local leaders the tools, Labour could show real progress on a core pledge while freeing central government to tackle other priorities.
Labour’s ambition to halve violence against women and girls within a decade is bold and much-needed. But ambition alone is not enough. Westminster has shown time and again that it cannot deliver this change from the centre. Handing the tools to local leaders could be the secret weapon that finally makes these targets achievable and could transform national ambition into local action.
If Labour is serious about turning its pledge into lasting change, then Devolution provides a path to success. The fight to end violence against women and girls may be national in scope, but its solutions must be local.
