Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the provisions relating to Northern Ireland contained in the Domestic Abuse Bill, considered by the House of Commons in 2019, will be included in the forthcoming Domestic Abuse Bill; and what assessment they have made of the inclusion of such provisions on the UK’s ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence.

In a written ministerial statement on 10 February 2020, the Northern Ireland First Minister and Deputy First Minister announced that a Domestic Abuse Bill was one of the Bills that the Minister of Justice intended to introduce during the 2019-20 Assembly session (the statement is available at: http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/globalassets/documents/official-reports/written-ministerial-statements/2019-2020/bv125_wms_teo_100220.pdf).

The Northern Ireland Bill will include the new domestic abuse offence criminalising controlling or coercive behavior which was previously in Part 2 of the Domestic Abuse Bill introduced in the UK Parliament in July 2019. The offence is required to ensure that the law in Northern Ireland satisfies the requirements of Article 33 (psychological violence) of the Istanbul Convention. As domestic abuse legislation is a devolved matter, it is preferable for legislation relating to such matters to be delivered through the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The Domestic Abuse Bill as re-introduced in the UK Parliament will continue to include Northern Ireland provisions extending the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the criminal courts to certain violent and sexual offences (required to satisfy the requirements of Article 44 (jurisdiction) of the Istanbul Convention). We are in discussion with the Northern Ireland Minister of Justice about the timetable for the Assembly Bill, with reference to the UK’s progress towards ratification of the Istanbul Convention.