Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department plans to create a statutory definition of honour-based abuse.

The Government is tackling ‘honour’-based abuse (HBA) through its landmark mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. Key to this is ensuring that HBA is well understood by frontline professionals, Government agencies, and impacted communities.

Currently there is a definition of HBA used by the criminal justice system, but we recognise there is more that can be done to raise the level of consistency of understanding regarding HBA in Government and across statutory services.

The Home Office is considering this alongside other measures to prevent HBA from happening, support victims and bring perpetrators to justice. More detail will be set out in our forthcoming Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy.