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Convicting Rapists/Protecting Victims

I agree with my hon. Friend that it is not helpful to approach such serious matters in a partisan manner. As my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield has said, it is regrettable that the Solicitor-General engaged in doing that earlier. I want to conclude by discussing the crucial question of the voluntary sector. In my constituency there is an organisation called Rugby ROSA—the Rugby rape or sexual abuse support project. That organisation provides first-class support to precisely the people whom we have been discussing throughout this debate. It will run out of money and shut down entirely in March, unless something substantial is done. I do not see why it is sensible for the Government to invest money in a new organisation when they could invest in existing voluntary sector bodies that do the same work just as well, if not better. It is worth noting that that organisation in my constituency is the only organisation in Warwickshire that offers support not only at the time of a criminal proceeding, but for a long time thereafter, and not only to women, but to men, too. It is important to remember that the victims of rape or sexual abuse are male as well as female, and it is important to make sure that the provision of support and services is across the board and for both sexes. I hope very much that the Solicitor-General can help me with that. I also hope that there is not a situation in which Government funding is allocated for the sexual assault referral centres, but money that could go to the voluntary sector to support the type of services that I have described is diverted into other services that simply replicate—or perhaps do not do as well as—the work that the organisations in my constituency and elsewhere do exceptionally well. I hope that in pursuing what I understand are well-meant efforts to deal with what I accept is a serious problem, the Solicitor-General does not throw the baby out with the bathwater and damage the best aspects of the British justice system or reinvent the wheel by making the state an inadequate substitute for what the voluntary sector already does well.