Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) allegations of non-fatal strangulation have been made that were not proceeded against and (b) cases for that offence were dropped due to evidence deficiencies since 29 April 2021.

The Home Office collects information on the number of notifiable offences recorded by the police in England and Wales, and their investigative outcomes. Sub-codes to record non-fatal strangulation came into effect from 1^st June 2022 under the Serious Crime Act.

Since 1^st June 2022, there has been 144,425 investigations of non-fatal strangulation offences, of which 80% were closed with an unsolved outcome, including 75% that were due to evidential difficulties. This excludes Humberside police who were unable to provide data to the Home Office Data Hub. Strangulation, including non-fatal strangulation, is a life-threatening form of violence which this Government is committed to tackling as part of our wider mission to halve VAWG in a decade.

The Home Office have invested over £2.1m into the Institute for Addressing Strangulation since 2022 to raise awareness and strengthen understanding of strangulation in the UK. This includes £452,500 for the 2026/27 FY.