Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will include abuse by coercive control in their proposed legislation on domestic abuse.

The previous Government created a ground-breaking new offence of controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship which came into force in December 2015 to recognise the patterns of manipulation and control that characterise domestic abuse.
Since then we have seen 294 successful convictions and the number of prosecutions increased threefold in 2017.

As part of the Government’s domestic abuse consultation earlier this year, we asked whether further action should be taken to strengthen the offence. We will be publishing a response to the consultation, together with a draft Domestic Abuse Bill, later this Parliamentary session.