§ Ms LynneTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when is the next scheduled meeting of the ministerial group on domestic violence. [32697]
§ Mr. MacleanI expect the group to meet again soon, once a range of work that has already been commissioned for it has been completed.
§ Ms LynneTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department for what reasons it is not possible for his Department to identify separately offences of domestic violence within the regular recorded crimes series collected centrally by the Home Office; and what plans he has to collate such statistics. [32698]
§ Mr. MacleanThere is currently no specific legislation which defines offences of "domestic violence" and therefore such incidents cannot be separately identified in the recorded crime data collection.
"Domestic violence" incidents could be recorded within one of several recorded crime classifications, that is public order offences, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, wounding or inflicting grievous bodily harm, indecent assault, rape or attempted rape, threats to kill, attempted murder homicide.
In terms of the recorded crime series, police forces are required to supply information by offence type rather than by victim and no data on the relationship of victim and suspect are routinely collected.
The ministerial group on domestic violence is currently considering ways of improving the statistical knowledge of the nature and extent of domestic violence.