Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many arrests have been made for the offence of coercive control in each region and constituent part of the UK in the last 12 months.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Home Office.

The Home Office collects and publishes data on the number of arrests by each police force in England and Wales at offence group level (e.g. violence against the person, sexual offences etc.). However, the data cannot be broken down to specifically identify the number of arrests for controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship (coercive control).

We are committed to improving the data on domestic abuse. The Office for National Statistics has published a new statistical bulletin that brings together comprehensive data on domestic abuse at a local level. Additional data will be added to the annual series as it becomes available.

Guidance for professionals on the new offence of coercive control was published in December 2015 and the Crown Prosecution Service is closely monitoring performance. New transformative training has been piloted by the College of Policing and is in the process of being rolled out further.