Domestic Abuse: Police Response

1. What progress her Department has made on improving the police response to domestic abuse.

2. What progress her Department has made on improving the police response to domestic abuse.

May I associate myself and my colleagues with your remarks about Ann Widdecombe, Mr Speaker? Ann was a Minister when I was doing my politics A-level, and she has been a firm part of our political life for the past three decades. May she rest in peace.

We are rolling out domestic abuse protection orders across England and Wales, and have trebled the number of forces with domestic abuse specialists in control rooms under Raneem’s law. We have established the national centre for violence against women and girls and public protection to transform the response to VAWG.

Kiena Dawes was pushed into taking her own life by her abusive partner. Before she died, she said that he had killed her. With domestic abuse-related suicides on the rise and women in abusive relationships being more likely to take their own life than to be killed by their abuser, will the Minister commit to the Home Office working with victims and campaigners to ensure that the law fully reflects the role that domestic abuse plays in the deaths of people like Kiena?

I thank my hon. Friend for raising such an important issue, and the answer, of course, is yes. We are funding research with all police forces to better capture information and inform our response. The Law Commission is reviewing homicide law, including the use of manslaughter offences where abuse may have driven someone to suicide. The former Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), was working hard on this issue, and I know that the new Minister will be too.

One in five people experience domestic violence in their lifetime—around one in four women, and one in six or seven men—but it is thought that only 20% of it is reported. It is also thought that there is significant under-reporting of the domestic violence experienced by men, due to social stigma. What steps is the Department taking to understand the scale of the problem and to drive action?

My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue. Too many victims, including men, do not feel able to report domestic abuse, and we must change that. We recognise that male victims face additional barriers, and that has been set out in a dedicated explanatory note alongside the VAWG strategy. The Home Office funds the Men’s Advice Line to help male victims access support.

Intimate image abuse is increasingly being used to threaten, control and exploit women and girls after relationships break down, yet the police have no power to require the deletion of those images if they were obtained consensually. What steps is the Minister taking to close that gap and better protect victims?

The hon. Lady is right to raise that issue, and we are working hard on it. As she knows, a huge amount of work is going on with the Crime and Policing Act 2026, which has just been passed, and the violence against women and girls strategy. We will continue to do everything we can.

One of my Horsham constituents, a victim of abuse, has seen her abuser let off with a suspended sentence after the case took too long to go to trial. She now has to live with a debilitating illness caused by her abuse, while her abuser gets to carry on with his life. Court delays are bad in any case, but for victims of abuse, they can be an extra hardship. Does the Minister think that we need to think of some special provision for such cases?

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue of court delays. We have a whole strategy, led through the Ministry of Justice, to ensure that we speed up those court cases. He is right to highlight the particular impact for abuse cases. We are ramping up the support that we give to victims and making sure that we are helping people and trying to give them information about what is happening, even when there are delays. We will listen carefully to the points he raises.