Andover’s MP has voted against measures that would have seen repeated stalkers and domestic abusers registered and monitored.

Kit Malthouse was among the 352 MPs who voted in favour of removing an amendment to the Domestic Abuse Bill which would have seen repeat offenders put on the violent and sex offender register and subjected to monitoring and management through the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (Mappa).

Caroline Nokes has no vote recorded on the amendment.

The House of Lords had previously backed the move, but when the bill was returned to the House of Commons, a majority of 125. All those who voted in favour of the move were Conservative MPs, with all other parties opposing the move.

The vote follows there having been 24,000 crimes flagged as domestic abuse by Hampshire Constabulary between March 2019 and 2020, when the latest figures are available. In addition, 89 per cent of the 2,182 victims of rape in that year were female, with 81 per cent of the 1,849 persons sexually assaulted also female.

In February, there were 232 violent and sexual offences in just one month in Test Valley, though not all of these will be instances of domestic abuse.

The Domestic Abuse Bill seeks to change the treatment of domestic abuse in law by defining it in law, as well as putting an end to the so-called “rough sex defence” and recognising children as victims of domestic abuse.

Before the vote, the chair of the Home Affairs Committee, Yvette Cooper, told the house that there are too many cases of “awful crimes” against women, including stalking and murder, where the perpetrator has committed offences before.

She told MPs: “Perhaps other stalking offences, harassment, repeated domestic abuse or violence, moving from one victim to another, sometimes from one town to another, sometimes from one region to another, finding someone new to control and to abuse, and someone else whose life they can destroy.”

However, Home Office minister Victoria Atkins claimed the proposals to introduce a new category for managing high-harm domestic abuse perpetrators would add complexity to enforcement.

She told the Commons: “This is an objective with which we can all agree, but we have concerns about how the amendment would work out.

“The first limb of the amendment seeks, in effect, to create a new category of offender to be managed under multi-agency public protection arrangements, commonly referred to as Mappa.

“To put this into context, last year nearly 86,000 offenders were managed by the Mappa arrangements. The Government believes that creating a new Mappa category for high-harm domestic abuse and stalking perpetrators would bring in added complexity to the Mappa framework without compensating benefits.”

Instead, ministers tabled a new amendment in which the Government agrees to publish a strategy for prosecution and management of offenders involved in domestic abuse.

This must be published within 12 months of the legislation becoming law and be kept under review by the secretary of state.

MPs also removed amendments designed to prevent the details of a person seeking help being used for immigration control purposes and to enable domestic abuse survivors to resolve their immigration status.

The Bill will return to the Lords for further consideration as it bids to become law after more than three years of consideration.