Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the effect of not including statutory protection for all migrant women in the Domestic Abuse Bill.

Following the recommendations of the Joint Committee on the Draft Domestic Abuse Bill in June 2019, the Government committed to review our overall response on migrant victims.

We are aiming to publish the conclusions of our review on the definition of domestic abuse ahead of Commons Report stage of the Domestic Abuse Bill on 6 July.

Draft statutory guidance was published today, 1 July, and covers the impact of domestic abuse on migrant victims and highlights the barriers they face in seeking support.

We have also announced that we will be pledging a further £1.5 million towards a pilot later this year to cover the cost of support in a refuge or other safe accommodation for migrant victims who are unable to access public funds. We will use the pilot to assess the level of need for migrant victims of domestic abuse and the pilot will be specifically used to inform future decisions on immediate support provision for migrant victims.