Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make it his policy to establish protocols to limit the contact abuse perpetrators can have with their victims following private law proceedings.

Protecting victims of domestic abuse remains a priority for this Government. A range of orders can already be made by the court to limit contact between perpetrators and victims following private family law proceedings. These include non-molestation and occupation orders, orders under Section 91(14) of the Children Act 1989, and orders for indirect or supervised contact under the Child Arrangements Programme.

In addition, pursuant to Part 3 of the Domestic Abuse Act, we will introduce a new domestic abuse protection order which will bring together the strongest elements of the existing protective order regime into a single comprehensive, flexible order which will afford more effective and longer-term protection to victims of domestic abuse and their children.