Select committee: Women and Equalities Committee
Recommendation 11
Sixth Report - So-called honour-based abuse
Published 19 Jul 2023
Paragraph 59
Addressed to Government Equalities Office
Women and Equalities Committee So-called honour-based abuse All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The Government should establish an appropriate firewall-type mechanism between the police and the Home Office to prevent data sharing for the purposes of enforcing immigration rules against victims of abuse. The firewall should be designed to ensure the police only share information with Immigration Enforcement on victims in exceptional circumstances, which must be narrowly defined and be for the purposes of assisting in the safeguarding of the individual or taking action against their abuser. If and when police become aware a victim has irregular immigration status, they should provide that person with information about local support services (including legal advice) and encourage them to seek advice on regularising their status. The National Police Chiefs’ Council guidance should be updated to reflect this.
From: Women and Equalities Committee, Sixth Report - So-called honour-based abuse (HC 831), paragraph 59, 19 July 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 15 September 2023 (deadline 19 September 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government responds to the Committee's report by stating that it is committed to tackling so-called honour-based abuse, accepting some measures but giving reasons for not adopting others, including a statutory definition, a data-sharing firewall and a separate strategy for male victims.
- On a statutory definition, it says it is "not clear that making the definition statutory would improve understanding of or the response to these crimes", but "will continue to keep this under review".
- On a firewall between the police and the Home Office, it states that "It would not be appropriate to introduce such restrictions on data sharing". It remains committed to an Immigration Enforcement Migrant Victims Protocol, to be implemented "later this year".
- On recording, it says a specific area is being developed within the Crime Recording Rules on information to collect from HBA victims, to be communicated to all forces once completed. On Domestic Abuse Risk Assessment questions on HBA, it gives reasons for not including them.
- On the Istanbul Convention Article 59 reservation, it is "carefully considering" the pilot evaluation and will communicate its decision. It will continue to fund the Support for Migrant Victims scheme until 2024-25.