Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make it his policy to hold discussions with migrant women survivors of domestic abuse on the draft Domestic Abuse Bill.

The Government is committed to supporting all victims of domestic abuse and continues to engage with victims, survivors and the sector on this issue.

On 8 March 2018 the Government published the consultation, Transforming the Response to Domestic Abuse, setting out our proposed approach to tackling domestic abuse. The consultation received over 3200 responses from a range of sources including, victims and survivors, support organisations and research experts. The knowledge and expertise extracted from the consultation have informed the measures included in the draft Domestic Abuse Bill and package of non-legislative initiatives.

On 15 May 2019, I, together with the Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes), the Minister of State for Equalities (Baroness Williams of Trafford) and the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar) co-hosted a Round Table on migrant women affected by domestic abuse. Representatives from the sector were invited to discuss the issues facing migrant women affected by domestic abuse and the opportunities to tackle these issues.

The Home Secretary and I are committed to continue this engagement with domestic abuse survivors and representatives from the sector, to ensure the Bill and supporting programme of work is effective and achieves our aim to transform the Government’s response to domestic abuse.