The UK Government’s Domestic Abuse Bill was one of a number of pieces of proposed legislation which automatically fell following the controversial prorogation of Parliament, which was ruled unlawful by the UK Supreme Court yesterday.

The House of Commons has confirmed that all live bills of the 2017-19 parliamentary session “remain live”.

The scope of the Domestic Abuse Bill was expanded this summer to include the creation of a new offence of coercive control in Northern Ireland, comparable to the offence which has existed in England and Wales since 2015 and in Scotland since 2019.

When the bill fell earlier this month, former justice minister Claire Sugden told Irish Legal News that the matter could still be dealt with by a re-established Northern Ireland Assembly.

The former justice minister and independent unionist MLA said she believed it was the preference of the UK Government to have the matter dealt with by Stormont.

She added: “I expect that if the Assembly were to get up and running before Christmas, they would probably do that anyway, regardless of whether the Prime Minister includes it in his own domestic legislation that he brings forward in the Queen’s Speech.”