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Written question asked by Emily Thornberry (Labour) on Thursday, 24 March 2022, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 28 March 2022. It was answered by Kit Malthouse (Conservative) on Wednesday, 30 March 2022 on behalf of the Home Office.

Crimes of Violence

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to her Department’s report, The economic and social costs of domestic abuse, published on 21 January 2019, whether the estimated unit costs in cases of (a) violence with injury, (b) violence without injury and (c) rape are still in use by her Department and other agencies; and what assessment her Department has made of the reliability of the methodology used to generate them.

Answer

Home Office (2019) 'The economic and social costs of domestic abuse' is still in use by the Department, as it is currently the most comprehensive estimate of the social and economic costs of domestic abuse in England and Wales.

The report was peer reviewed by independent academics. In more recent published Impact Assessments, for example DA Act Impact Assessment (publishing.service.gov.uk) estimated costs of domestic abuse are inflated to the relevant price year; however this does not consider any changes in the prevalence of domestic abuse or any changes in unit costs since the year the report was based on (year ending March 2017).

The report follows the same underlying approach used in Home Office (2018) ‘Economic and social costs of crime: second edition’ which was also peer -reviewed. Unlike many other crimes, domestic abuse is not a single time-limited event and can include crimes such as violence with injury, violence without injury and rape. While the Home Office (2018) ‘Economic and social costs of crime: second edition’ report estimates the cost of individual incidents, the costs of domestic abuse is based on the number of victims (year ending March 2017) and the harms they will suffer during and after their period of abuse.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
146585
Session
2021-22
Related items
Deposited Paper DEP2019-0071
Monday, 21 January 2019
Deposited papers
House of Lords
House of Commons
Subjects
Crimes of violence Costs
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk