Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the extent to which mental health issues are present in domestic abuse cases reported to the police in England and Wales.

This Government is committed to transforming the response to domestic abuse. On 21 January, we published a landmark draft Domestic Abuse Bill alongside a wide-ranging package of measures to protect and support victims. We know that domestic abuse can have a severe and lasting impact on mental health, and we would expect police officers to identify this in their initial risk assessment. The College of Policing has designed a revised risk assessment tool for frontline officers to record a clear picture of the nature and intensity of the abuse and asks officers to consider why they have assigned the level of risk and consider aggravating factors (such as mental health). This tool is being introduced across further police forces, following its successful piloting in Sussex Police, West Midlands Police and Humberside Police.

The latest inspection by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Crime, Fires and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) has found considerable improvements in the overall police response to victims of domestic abuse since the publication of the first thematic report in 2014.

A training programme has been developed by the College of Policing with the support of SafeLives. Its aim is to enhance the skills, knowledge and effectiveness of first responders in dealing with domestic abuse, and the programme is called Domestic Abuse Matters. An evaluation by the College of Policing has shown a positive impact on officers’ knowledge and attitude following the training.