Why the odds are stacked against plans to tackle domestic abuse

The government is publishing its draft domestic abuse bill today, over a year and a half after it announced plans to do so in the Queen’s Speech. Like so many pieces of domestic policy, this legislation has suffered greatly from the lack of government bandwidth for anything else other than Brexit, and it has been delayed repeatedly. 

The bill itself is something campaigners are very keen on: it will include the first ever statutory definition of domestic abuse, set up a domestic abuse commissioner, and prevent alleged perpetrators of abuse from being able to cross-examine victims in the courts. The first and last changes show that ministers understand what domestic abuse really is: it’s about control, not the methods of achieving that, which include but are not limited to violence. To that end, the new definition will make clear that controlling someone’s finances is a criminal offence. 

Economic abuse is a shockingly prevalent form of domestic abuse.