Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to introduce a statutory definition of honour-based abuse; what progress she has made on introducing such a definition; and if she will publish a timetable for bringing forward necessary legislation and statutory guidance.

The VAWG Strategy, published on 18 December, set out clear action to tackle ‘honour’-based abuse (HBA) including legislating to introduce multi-agency statutory guidance and an accompanying statutory definition of HBA. The Government will introduce this statutory definition as an amendment in the Crime and Policing Bill at Report Stage in the House of Lords.

The Government has engaged extensively with specialist sector charities, statutory safeguarding professionals, and other government departments in the development of this definition and will do the same as we develop the statutory guidance which we will publish as soon as possible.