Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department has carried out an equality impact assessment of the decision not to exclude domestic abuse offences from the progression model; and if he will publish it.

This Government inherited a prisons system days from collapse. We had no choice but to take decisive action to stop our prisons overflowing and keep the public safe.

Preventing domestic abuse is central to our mission to halve VAWG within a decade. Our strategy includes a significant package of measures focused on identifying and managing perpetrators, including the rollout of:

• The Drive Project for high-harm perpetrators, an intervention programme operating across England and Wales;

• Domestic Abuse Protection Orders, which are stronger, more flexible orders that can impose tougher conditions on domestic abuse perpetrators, have no minimum or maximum duration, and where breach is a criminal offence;

• Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Licence model, which involves tagging domestic abuse perpetrators on licence alongside the presumption to tag all offenders as part of the new progression model.

An Equality Impact Assessment was undertaken for the provisions of the Sentencing Act 2026, including those relating to the progression model. This analysis was published in the Sentencing Bill equality statement, which is available on GOV.UK: Sentencing Bill equalities statement