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Tuesday, April 28, 2026

More migrants making false domestic abuse claims, minister Jess Phillips tells MPs - BBC

Home Office minister Jess Phillips has told MPs there are a growing number of cases of migrants making false allegations that they have been the victims of domestic abuse.

She was asked about the scale of the problem in response to a BBC investigation which revealed how abuse protections were being exploited by those looking to stay in the country.

Phillips told MPs on the home affairs committee that false claims of domestic abuse had become noticeably more common in the past five years and she had asked officials to look into it when she was made a minister in 2024.

She suggested that the Home Office could raise the bar of evidence required to help weed out fake claims.

"Some of the evidential thresholds that have been used in the past - for example support organisations saying that you have been a victim and you have used their services - I think that needs to be incredibly tight on those organisations that are trusted [to do that]," she said.

The Birmingham Yardley MP also told the committee there needed to be more training, including for police officers, that this was a "tactic in the field".

In response to questions from Conservative MP for Keighley and Ilkley, Robbie Moore, who has previously raised the issue in Parliament, the minister said that she had seen a rise in "claim and counterclaim" in the field of domestic abuse.

"So a woman comes forward, says she's been a victim of domestic abuse, a man comes forward and says he's been the victim of domestic abuse,"...



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