Oral Answers to Questions

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an incredibly important point, and we very much work alongside USDAW on the national steering group that I mentioned. I absolutely back up his call that everybody should report crime. There are some excellent initiatives in town centres all over the country through which businesses and the police are working well together to ensure that such an increase in reporting happens.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

3. What assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of current legislation on controlling and coercive behaviour; and if she will make a statement.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Minister Newton.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sarah Newton)]

Mrs Newton indeed, Mr Speaker.

We introduced the new offence of controlling and coercive behaviour to shift the focus of the criminal justice system from single incidents to identifying and addressing patterns of abuse. The Home Secretary will chair a working group to drive change in how we think about and tackle domestic abuse, and this will include closely monitoring the implementation of this new offence.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I thank the Minister for her answer, but existing police powers to remove perpetrators of domestic violence from a property are tremendously under-used, largely because costs and cuts in police funding have made the situation worse. What is the Minister going to do to help protect women affected by domestic violence?

[Sarah Newton]

This new offence was brought in right at the end of 2015, so the Office for National Statistics will not report on the level of uptake of the new police powers until later this spring. From my conversations with the police up and down the length and breadth of the country, I know that they are making very good use of the new powers.