Domestic Abuse Bill (First sitting)

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 4th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

The Committee consisted of the following Members:

Chairs: † Mr Peter Bone, Ms Karen Buck

† Aiken, Nickie (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)

† Atkins, Victoria (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department)

† Bowie, Andrew (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)

† Chalk, Alex (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice)

Coyle, Neil (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)

† Crosbie, Virginia (Ynys Môn) (Con)

† Davies-Jones, Alex (Pontypridd) (Lab)

† Gibson, Peter (Darlington) (Con)

† Harris, Rebecca (Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury)

† Jardine, Christine (Edinburgh West) (LD)

† Jones, Fay (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)

† Kyle, Peter (Hove) (Lab)

† Marson, Julie (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)

† Phillips, Jess (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)

† Saville Roberts, Liz (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)

† Twist, Liz (Blaydon) (Lab)

† Wood, Mike (Dudley South) (Con)

Jo Dodd, Kevin Maddison, Committee Clerks

† attended the Committee

Witnesses

Nicole Jacobs, Designate Domestic Abuse Commissioner

Pragna Patel, Director, Southall Black Sisters

Public Bill Committee

Thursday 4 June 2020

(Morning)

[Mr Peter Bone in the Chair]

Domestic Abuse Bill

[The Chair]

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

[The Chair]

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

[The Chair]

The Committee deliberated in private.

Examination of Witness

Nicole Jacobs gave evidence.

[The Chair]

[The Chair]

[Jess Phillips]

[Jess Phillips]

[Jess Phillips]

[Jess Phillips]

[Jess Phillips]

[Jess Phillips]

[Jess Phillips]

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

[The Chair]

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

[Peter Kyle]

[Peter Kyle]

[Peter Kyle]

[Peter Kyle]

[Peter Kyle]

[The Chair]

[Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)]

[Virginia Crosbie]

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

[Liz Twist]

[Liz Twist]

[The Chair]

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

[Liz Saville Roberts]

[The Chair]

[Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)]

[The Chair]

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

[The Chair]

[The Chair]

[Jess Phillips]

[Jess Phillips]

[Jess Phillips]

[Jess Phillips]

[Jess Phillips]

[Jess Phillips]

[The Chair]

[Victoria Atkins]

[Victoria Atkins]

[Victoria Atkins]

[Victoria Atkins]

[Victoria Atkins]

[Victoria Atkins]

[Victoria Atkins]

[Victoria Atkins]

[Victoria Atkins]

[Victoria Atkins]

[Victoria Atkins]

[Victoria Atkins]

[The Chair]

[Victoria Atkins]

[The Chair]

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

[Mike Wood]

[Mike Wood]

[Peter Kyle]

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

[The Chair]

The Chair adjourned the Committee without Question put (Standing Order No. 88).

Adjourned till this day at Two o’clock.

Finance Bill (First sitting)

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 4th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

The Committee consisted of the following Members:

Chairs: † Siobhain McDonagh, Andrew Rosindell

† Badenoch, Kemi (Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury)

† Baldwin, Harriett (West Worcestershire) (Con)

† Browne, Anthony (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)

† Buchan, Felicity (Kensington) (Con)

† Cates, Miriam (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)

Flynn, Stephen (Aberdeen South) (SNP)

† Jones, Andrew (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)

† Millar, Robin (Aberconwy) (Con)

† Norman, Jesse (Financial Secretary to the Treasury)

† Oppong-Asare, Abena (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)

† Phillipson, Bridget (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)

† Ribeiro-Addy, Bell (Streatham) (Lab)

† Rutley, David (Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury)

† Smith, Jeff (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)

† Streeting, Wes (Ilford North) (Lab)

† Thewliss, Alison (Glasgow Central) (SNP)

† Williams, Craig (Montgomeryshire) (Con)

Kenneth Fox, Chris Stanton, Committee Clerks

† attended the Committee

Public Bill Committee

Thursday 4 June 2020

(Morning)

[Siobhain McDonagh in the Chair]

Finance Bill

00:00

[The Chair]

Before we begin, I have a few preliminary announcements. I do not mind how you refer to me, but if you want me to call you, make sure I know that you wish to speak.

This is the first meeting of a Public Bill Committee since March. Members will understand that we need to respect social distancing guidance. I shall intervene, if necessary, to remind everyone.

Members may remove their jackets if they wish. I remind Members that tea and coffee are not permitted in Committee sittings. Please will all Members ensure that their mobile phones are turned off or switched to silent running during our meetings? The selection list, which is on the desks, shows how the amendments selected for debate have been grouped together. Please note that decisions on amendments are taken not in the order in which they are debated, but in the order in which they appear on the amendment paper. The Hansard reporters would be very grateful if Members emailed their speaking notes to [e-mail].

I ask the Minister to move the programme motion in the terms agreed by the Programming Sub-Committee.

Ordered,

That—

(1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 11.30am on Thursday 4 June) meet—

(a) at 2.00pm on Thursday 4 June;

(b) at 9.25am and 2.00pm on Tuesday 9 June;

(c) at 1.30 and 2.00pm on Thursday 11 June;

(d) at 9.25am and 2.00pm on Tuesday 16 June;

(e) at 11.30 and 2.00pm on Thursday 18 June;

(f) at 9.25am and 2.00pm on Tuesday 23 June;

(g) at 11.30 and 2.00pm on Thursday 25 June;

(2) the proceedings shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 1 to 15; Schedule 1; Clauses 16 to 22; Schedule 2; Clauses 23 and 24; Schedule 3; Clauses 25 to 29; Schedule 4; Clauses 30 and 31; Schedule 5; Clauses 32 and 33; Schedule 6; Clauses 34 to 55; Schedule 7; Clauses 56 to 65; Schedule 8; Clauses 66 to 69; Schedule 9; Clauses 70 to 86; Schedule 10; Clauses 87 to 92; Schedule 11; Clauses 93 to 97; Schedule 12; Clause 98; Schedule 13; Clause 99; Schedule 14; Clauses 100 to 105; new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on the Bill;

(3) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.00pm on Thursday 25 June.—(Jesse Norman.)

Resolved,

That, subject to the discretion of the Chair, any written evidence received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for publication.—(Jesse Norman.)

Clause 1

Income tax charge for tax year 2020-21

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 5, in clause 2, page 1, line 10, at end insert—

“(2) The Government must lay before Parliament a review of the impact of the rates of income tax for 2020-21 within six months of Royal Assent, which must consider the following issues—

(a) the effect on taxation revenue of maintaining income tax rates for 2020-2021; and

(b) the effect of income tax rates for 2020-2021 on annual income for the following:

(i) Households below average income, and

(ii) High-net worth individuals as defined by HMRC.”

This amendment would require the Government to assess the impact of the income tax rates in the Bill on tax revenues and on households and individuals of different income levels.

Clauses 2 to 4 stand part.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)]

I am delighted to see you in the Chair, Ms McDonagh. I welcome all colleagues and thank them very much for their commitment to this important Bill and this important process. Ms McDonagh, you and our colleagues will be aware that we are scheduled to have seven sets of sittings to give every aspect of the Bill thorough examination. It will be a pleasure to serve on this Bill Committee with colleagues under your chairmanship. It is my first Bill as Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and I hope it will not be my last.

Let me begin by speaking to clauses 1 to 4, which legislate for income tax—the main default and savings rates of income tax, and the starting rate for savings for 2020-21. I shall also speak to amendment 5 to clause 2, tabled by the Labour party.

Clause 1 legislates for the income tax charge for this year, 2020-21. Income tax, as the Committee knows, is one of the most important streams of revenue for the Government, raising more than £190 billion in 2018-19. The clause is put into legislation annually in the Finance Bill. It is essential, because it allows income tax to be collected, so that it can fund the vital public services on which we all rely.

Clauses 2 and 3 set the main default and savings rates of income tax for 2020-21. These clauses, too, are put into legislation annually in the Finance Bill. Clause 2 ensures that for England and Northern Ireland, the main rates of income tax continue to be 20% for the basic rate, 40% for the higher rate and 45% for the additional rate. Clause 3 sets the basic, higher and additional rates of default and savings rates of income tax at 20%, 40% and 45% respectively for the whole of the UK.

I want to consider Labour’s amendment 5 to clause 2, which is in the name of the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South. It would require the Government to review the impact of 2020-21 income tax rates on tax revenues, and both on households with below average incomes, and on high net worth individuals, as defined by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. As the Committee will be aware, the Government already publish comprehensive assessments of income tax rates. In our judgment, the proposed additional review is therefore not necessary.

On revenue impacts, the Office for Budget Responsibility publishes tax revenue forecasts at every fiscal event, and did so most recently at Budget 2020. The Government’s tax information and impact note published in October 2018 provides a clear explanation of the tax impact on the Exchequer and the economy of maintaining the personal allowance and higher rate threshold for 2020-21. On distributional impacts, the Government publish a distributional analysis of the cumulative impact of Government policy at each fiscal event, and did so most recently at Budget 2020. HMRC’s annual income tax liabilities statistics publication provides breakdowns of the number of income tax payers and income tax liabilities across multiple characteristics, including by income source and by tax band. All those publications are in the public domain on gov.uk. Amendment 5 would do little to provide meaningful additional analysis that goes beyond the Government’s existing comprehensive publications, and I ask the Committee to reject it if it is brought to a vote.

Clause 4 maintains the starting rate limit for savings income at its current level of £5,000 for the 2020-21 tax year. As members of the Committee will be aware, the starting rate for savings applies to the taxable savings income of individuals with low earned incomes. The Government made significant changes to the starting rate for savings in 2015, lowering the rate from 10% to 0%, and also extended the band to which the rate applies from £2,880 to £5,000. The changes made by clause 4 will maintain the starting rate limit for savings at its current level of £5,000 for the 2020-21 tax year. The limit is being maintained at that level to reflect the significant reforms made to support savers over the last few years. That support is provided by the Government across the UK, for those at all stages of life and at all income levels. As a result of the support, about 95% of savers pay no tax at all on their savings income.

The decision in 2015 to increase the starting rate for savings by more than 75% has done much to support savers on low incomes. Since then, savers have been further supported by the introduction of the personal savings allowance, which offers up to £1,000 of tax-free savings income for basic rate taxpayers. This will remove an estimated 18 million taxpayers from paying tax on their savings income in 2020-21. In April 2017, the annual ISA—individual savings account—allowance was increased by the largest ever amount, to £20,000.

As a result of the combination of the personal savings allowance and the starting rate for savings, some savers can receive up to £6,000 of savings income outside an ISA completely tax-free. Most savers will of course also benefit from the tax-free personal allowance, which is set at £12,500.

The Government also support our nation’s youngest savers. To encourage those with children and grandchildren to save, the junior ISA and child trust fund allowance increased by more than double, to £9,000, from April 2020. Child trust funds will start to mature from September of this year, and the increase will provide an opportunity to boost the amount that children will have when their accounts mature.

Finally, I should mention the support that the Government offer those on the lowest incomes who wish to save through the Help to Save scheme. Help to Save provides savers with a 50% bonus on their savings—a perfect example of what the Government’s commitment to levelling up opportunity across the whole country can offer. I encourage Committee members to do what they can to promote the scheme to their constituents.

The Government remain committed to supporting savers of all incomes at all stages of life. Recent reforms, coupled with a significant increase in the starting rate limit in 2015, mean that the taxation arrangements for savings income are very generous. Around 95% of people with savings income, as I have mentioned, will continue to pay no tax on that income next year. The Government therefore do not believe that a further increase in the starting rate for savings is appropriate at this time.

Clauses 1 to 3 ensure that the Government can collect income tax, and set the main default and savings rates for the tax year 2020-21. Clause 4 maintains the starting rate for savings income at its current level of £5,000 for this tax year. I commend the clauses to the Committee, and ask it to reject amendment 5.

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh, and to welcome other Members to the Committee. I thank the Clerk and all the team in the Public Bill Office for the support that they have provided in recent weeks and will continue to provide as we debate the Bill. Circumstances have been very challenging for staff who have adapted to working remotely. I am grateful for all the discussions and advice that they have been able to offer us. I also extend, via the Minister, our thanks to all the officials in the Treasury who have been working very hard to respond to the crisis that we face. I want to put on the record our thanks for their work, which is often not recognised. Our country’s response to the crisis depends on the work that they undertake on behalf of us all.

I am sure we all accept the importance and necessity of scrutinising the Bill. However, the Opposition find it regrettable that it was not possible to find an alternative arrangement for the Committee stage of the Bill. We hope that the House can resolve the wider issues around protecting those who have shielding responsibilities and making sure that we can all be kept safe at this time. Our proceedings obviously place a great deal of pressure on the staff who are vital to the House’s functioning. Again, I reiterate my thanks to them. We will want to consider certain aspects of the Bill in much greater detail over the coming weeks. I can assure the Minister that we appreciate the pressure that officials are under in responding to the crisis, and that we intend to be responsible in our approach, and will remain focused on our key priorities in the Bill.

Our amendment 5 would require the Government to assess the impact of income taxes in the Bill on tax revenues, and on households and individuals of different income levels. The Government like to tell us that we live in unprecedented times, which is of course true. As such, we need greater scrutiny of policies that may need to be revised in what is clearly becoming an unprecedented economic downturn. The Resolution Foundation estimates that GDP will contract between 10% and 24% owing to the outbreak of covid-19: an economic shock of a kind that has not been seen since the 18th century. Very much is at stake. It is crucial that the Government assess the means by which they generate revenue, given the huge demands facing our public services and economy.

First, we need to know how much revenue we are generating from maintaining income tax rates, in order to determine whether it is enough to meet the demands on our economy and the pressures on public services, as well as the Chancellor’s income support packages. Secondly, we need to better understand its distributional income. Over the past 10 years we have seen large cuts to working age benefits against reductions in direct tax, including a large rise in the tax-free personal allowance. Unsurprisingly, the winners in all this have not been low-income households. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the poor have been disproportionately hit by tax and benefit changes since the Conservatives came to power 10 years ago. The worst-off 10% of households have lost 11% of their income since 2010. When we factor in households with children, that rises to 20%. In contrast, the highest-earning 10% of the population have seen their incomes fall by only 2% in the same period.

In its 2020 Budget analysis, the Resolution Foundation makes it clear that nothing has been done to offset the considerable welfare cuts made by previous Chancellors since 2015. Households in the second net income decile, for example, will eventually be £2,900 a year worse off on average, thanks to the tax and benefit changes announced since 2015, and £900 of that is yet to come; it will result from welfare policies that are still being rolled out. These cuts mean that the incomes of the poorest families have fallen over the last two years, and there is a real risk that child poverty rates will reach record highs by 2024.

11:45

We understand that welfare cuts have been offset in some ways by aggregate tax cuts, but those changes have been of most benefit in cash terms to those in the top half of income distribution. That has been tempered by some changes, but we have real concerns about the impact that this situation is having on low and middle-income families. Overall, tax and benefit policy over the last five years has been regressive, with the poorest losing the most, both in proportional terms and cash terms, and already welfare cuts have resulted in the incomes of the poorest families falling. Child poverty is rising, and we have real concerns about that. The Government must take action to address this searing inequality.

We know from research conducted by the Equality and Human Rights Commission that the overall impact of policy decisions taken between 2010 and 2017 is regressive. Looking at some of the outcomes that the commission discovered, we see that ethnic minority households will be more adversely effected than white households; the average loss for black households is above 5% of net income, which is more than double the average loss for white households. Households with one or more disabled members will be significantly more adversely impacted than those with no disabled members, and on average, tax and benefit changes will reduce the income for families with a disabled adult by about £2,500 a year. If that family also has a disabled child, the income reduction will be over £5,000 a year, which compares with a reduction of about £1,000 for non-disabled families.

Lone parents will lose around 15% of their net income on average, which is almost £1 in every £6. By contrast, the losses for all the family groups are much smaller, especially for those who are relatively well-off; they are between nothing and 8%. Women lose more than men from reforms at every income level. Overall, women lose about £950 a year on average, which is more than double the losses of men.

In its report, “The shifting shape of UK tax”, the Resolution Foundation has found, when considering marginal rates of tax, including the crucial role played by the benefit system, that the highest rates are concentrated in the bottom half of income distribution, with very high marginal deduction rates of 63% or even 75% being common. I am sure that Members will agree that our tax system cannot be called progressive if the poorest households and average earners continue to experience the greatest proportional loss. We must consider the distributional impact and revenue effects of current rates of income tax as we consider the most pressing issues arising from coronavirus and the impact it has had on our society and economy. It has crippled the job market and risks putting thousands of people—even millions—out of work.

The Resolution Foundation anticipates that in the event of widespread unemployment and closures of firms once the furlough scheme is phased out, a 10% structural unemployment rate, such as the one we sadly saw during the 1980s, could lead to £175 billion being lost in taxes. Alongside that, there will be need for more social security benefits to be paid out. Such a reduction in tax receipts would add to an already higher proportion of working-age adults not paying income tax at all, and given that tax receipts make up so much of Government revenue, it is vital that the Government consider the impact of maintaining rates of employment.

Labour Members believe that we need a tax policy that looks to the economy of the future, and considers the challenges that we must face during this pandemic. It is vital that those individuals who are best placed to contribute do so, and that those who need Government support are able to access it, including the most vulnerable people in our society. Our amendment would allow the Government to reflect on their policy and to measure how much, if at all, it needs to change to fund support during this crisis, together with their other spending plans presented at the Budget earlier this year.

Turning to the question of whether this amendment is necessary, and to respond to the points made by the Minister, I refer to a joint report of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Chartered Institute of Taxation and the Institute for Government, which was published back in 2016, and which considered the issue of the absence of post-legislative scrutiny. That report said that post-legislative scrutiny should focus on whether a measure raises the revenue it is expected to raise, whether it is achieving its policy objectives, and whether it is operating as intended—so, whether the measure is still needed, and its impact. Clearly, this is a much broader point, but it is worth the Government considering the impact in this area, where we require clarity up front about what measures will achieve.

The report also pointed out that when Parliament does engage on tax issues, most scrutiny is focused on new proposals, and there is very little capacity or appetite to look at the effectiveness of past measures, or the coherence of the system as a whole. We intend to return to this question later, and particularly to the work that the National Audit Office has been doing in this area. It argues that there is a role for other institutions in considering more effective systematic scrutiny, and suggests that it could perhaps do that, and that there could be a greater role for the Office of Tax Simplification, or perhaps the Office for Budget Responsibility. It also considers what role Parliament might play in all this, perhaps through its Select Committees, and what scope there is for boosting academic evaluations of tax policy.

We had a wide debate on Second Reading about the fact that our public services are overstretched; they have faced a decade of real challenge, and were left ill prepared for the crisis we face. We also face an important challenge in the months and years ahead in recognising the important role that key workers have played during this crisis. Their contribution has been undervalued and not recognised for far too long, and that must change. The measures the Government will adopt in their approach to taxation and social security will play an important role in shaping that. That is why we tabled amendment 5: so that we can have that scrutiny and greater consideration. We want to avoid the mistakes made in the past. The amendment will help the Government to tread carefully, to recognise the challenges we face in responding to the current crisis, and to make evidence-based revisions to policy, both in the here and now in responding to this crisis, and in the future. We hope to push the amendment to a vote.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms McDonagh, and to join all the members of the Finance Bill Committee.

I echo the thanks that other hon. Members have given to the Clerks and staff who have made this possible, but I share the concerns about having to meet physically, and about the fact that there is no option for hon. Members to participate remotely or to vote digitally.

Given that the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy was taken ill yesterday at the Dispatch Box, we should think more carefully about how we spend our time in this place and how close together we are. I know discussions were had about how far apart we should sit and how that would work, but the reality is that the highest risk factor is people being in a room together and talking for hours on end, which sounds very much like the Finance Bill to me.

I agree with many of the comments made by the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South, and I congratulate her on her position and her lead on this Bill. It is clear that for many people there is a fundamental unfairness in the economy. There are issues that are longstanding and intractable, and the Government have not shown great interest in trying to deal with those inequalities or in addressing the situation, particularly for women, ethnic minorities and disabled people, who still, after so many years, remain the worst off in society. The Government need to take far more and firmer action to address that.

The Government need to take further action to address the climate emergency. We should be seeing a lot more on that in the Bill, and should take our responsibilities on this issue far more seriously. If there ever was a time to do that, it is now. We have the opportunity. We have shut down huge chunks of the economy, and we can think, in this small time that we have, about how we want to reopen the economy, and how we could make changes that could otherwise pass us by. The amendments that the SNP will table to this Bill are in that vein. We want to look at equality and the environment. We want to look at how we can instil fairness in the system, if indeed that can be done.

I will also mention an issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) has spoken about on many occasions: the need for this Committee to take evidence. The Domestic Abuse Bill Committee is also meeting today and is taking evidence from a range of experts. The Finance Bill does not do that. It will take written evidence—a lot of that has arrived, and I thank all those who have sent it—but we do not get the opportunity to take oral evidence and interrogate the people who have the most knowledge on the implications of the Bill. If we took that evidence, we would make better, wiser decisions and more fully understand the implications of the Bill, and the Government could avoid making mistakes and having to come back and change things retrospectively in the next Finance Bill. It would be incredibly helpful if people such as the Chartered Institute of Taxation and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales could come before the Committee and we could hear from them. I urge the Government to consider why that could be helpful to all of us in this Room, rather than just passing it over as not necessary.

The amendment tabled by the official Opposition is worthy, but I would caution them, slightly, with respect to its implications for Scotland. They have not considered fully how it would affect Scottish income tax rates. What we do in this Parliament has that impact. Scotland has a progressive taxation system, and we are proud of it. We have taken the measures we can within the restrictions we have. However, if that system is not considered within the amendment, that will miss out a huge chunk of the impact on the Scottish budget and mechanisms within it for funding the Scottish budget and all the things we want in Scotland. I would not, at this stage, be willing to support the amendment, because it does not encompass that aspect, and it should. Scotland should be kept in mind in many of the measures or suggested changes. I will conclude my remarks with that reasonable point.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2

Main rates of income tax for tax year 2020-21

Amendment proposed: 5, in clause 2, page 1, line 10, at end insert—

‘(2) The Government must lay before Parliament a review of the impact of the rates of income tax for 2020-21 within six months of Royal Assent, which must consider the following issues—

(a) the effect on taxation revenue of maintaining income tax rates for 2020-2021; and

(b) the effect of income tax rates for 2020-2021 on annual income for the following:

(i) Households below average income, and

(ii) High-net worth individuals as defined by HMRC.’ —(Bridget Phillipson.)

This amendment would require the Government to assess the impact of the income tax rates in the Bill on tax revenues and on households and individuals of different income levels.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Division 1

Ayes: 5

---

Labour: 5

Noes: 10

---

Conservative: 10

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 3 and 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5

Main rate of corporation tax for financial year 2020

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 6, in clause 5, page 2, line 18, at end insert—

“(3) The Government must lay before Parliament within six months of Royal Assent a review of current corporation tax rates which must contain an assessment of the following—

(a) the effect on taxation revenue of maintaining the level of corporation tax rates for 2020-2021; and

(b) the impact of the corporation tax rate structure on businesses of different sizes.”

This amendment would require the Government to assess the impact of the corporation tax rates in the Bill on businesses of different sizes and on tax revenues.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss clauses 5 and 6 stand part.

[Wes Streeting]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. These clauses, which maintain the corporation tax rate at 19%, represent the culmination of a five-year U-turn, painfully drawn out over three successive Conservative Governments and, by my count, at least four Conservative Chancellors.

Over the last decade, successive Conservative-led Governments have cut the headline rate of corporation tax from 28% to 19%, giving the UK the lowest headline rate in the G20. In the 2015 Budget, the Government announced a reduction in the corporation tax rate, from 20% to 19%, for the financial years beginning 1 April 2017, 1 April 2018 and 1 April 2019, with a further reduction, from 19% to 18%, for the financial year beginning 1 April 2020. In the 2016 Budget, the Government announced an additional 1% reduction to 17% for the financial year beginning 1 April 2020. By November of last year, the Prime Minister had backtracked on that reduction, claiming that doing so would provide another £6 billion for our NHS. Here we are, debating clauses 5 and 6 to give effect to the Prime Minister’s commitment.

Circumstances have obviously changed significantly since the Prime Minister made that commitment to freezing corporation tax to make sure that funding was available for the NHS. What impact does the Minister believe that maintaining the corporation tax rate at 19% will have on Treasury revenues, in the light of the immediate impact of covid-19? We know that many businesses are already struggling to pay their taxes and that the tax burden they face is one of many considerations, which may include the viability of jobs, of commercial activity or even of the businesses themselves. Will the Financial Secretary tell us whether the Government plan to produce corporation tax revenue forecasts that factor in this new reality and that subsequently re-evaluate the projected tax revenues for the period covered by the Bill?

The anxiety is that, without sufficient forecasts and projections in the light of the circumstances through which we are living, revenues generated by those decisions will not necessarily deliver the funding that the Prime Minster intended for the national health service. Given that he has drawn a clear link between that policy decision on corporation tax and funding for the NHS, we want to ensure that he stays good to his word and commits to funding the NHS to the extent that was promised. All of us living through this miserable period in our history and our national life are particularly grateful to the national health service for the support it provides to all our constituents in the best of times, let alone the worst. I am sure that the Financial Secretary will agree that it is absolutely necessary to maintain NHS funding at the level required to see us through the pandemic and into brighter times, and that he would like to give us a commitment to ensuring that the forecast evidence base is made available.

In any event, building a stronger evidence base for corporation taxation rates is long overdue. We do not believe that the 19% tax rate goes far enough to ensure that corporations in this country pay their fair share of tax, particularly as the responsibilities on us all will increase throughout this crisis. Although there are significant pressures on the Treasury as a result of the immediate response to covid-19, we know that the long-tail effect—the recession that we are in and will be living through —will have a significant impact on decisions taken in the Treasury.

We have just endured a decade of cuts to our public services and, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South, we know that the broader shoulders have not borne the greatest burden. Poverty in our country, particularly child poverty, has increased, and those who have felt the pain in their pockets have noticed the significant reduction in the provision of the public services upon which we all rely. Therefore, as we think about how to balance the books and take the country forward beyond this crisis, it is important that we get back to the principle that those with the broadest shoulders should bear the greatest burden, and business, which has benefited enormously from Government support during the crisis, should pay its fair share.

The Association of Accounting Technicians notes that while a 19% rate may put us slightly ahead of the likes of Albania, Andorra, Bermuda and Kyrgyzstan, those nations are not our international competitors. Will the Financial Secretary tell us why the Government insist on maintaining a corporation tax rate that, as the Resolution Foundation highlights, sits well below the European average and that of our equivalent advanced economies? Does that show the Government’s lack of faith in the UK’s ability to attract business to this country while maintaining a robust and fair tax system?

We all value the contribution that business makes to our society. As this is a fairly early opportunity for me to speak to this issue since my appointment to the shadow Treasury team, let me say on behalf of me and my colleagues that we think business has a contribution to make to our country beyond that which it makes to the ability of Labour Governments to raise revenues for spending on public services—important though that is. During the lockdown we have seen how people are missing not just their friends and family, but many of the businesses that are currently shut down. Businesses provide not just tax receipts for Labour Governments to spend, or even jobs and opportunities, which are really important; they innovate, create and provide products and services that enhance everyone’s quality of life. I am proud that this country remains an attractive destination for businesses to locate themselves and have their global operations, and that many people feel able to take the plunge and start up their own businesses.

Businesses are the lifeblood of our communities and high streets, and we value them and their contribution. That is not in doubt. However, the Government could easily increase the rate of corporation tax and raise additional revenues from those corporations without making us uncompetitive. Ministers ought to bear that in mind not just as they make unenviable decisions throughout the current crisis but as they look ahead to future fiscal events.

There is also the issue of equity. The Institute for Public Policy Research noted in its excellent work through its commission on economic justice that cuts in the principal rate of corporation tax over the last decade have occurred alongside an increase in national insurance contribution rates. That has resulted in a system whereby the burden of taxation is placed on businesses with lower profits that happen to have more staff, while more profitable businesses that employ fewer staff pay less. The Government’s policy of maintaining the present rates is therefore fundamentally a commitment to inaction and does not address some of the disparities in how the business taxation burden falls. That is the point that our amendment fundamentally seeks to address, and I hope the Financial Secretary will address it.

The Opposition want to establish a stronger evidence base not just for the Treasury but for Parliament, looking at corporation tax rates and the impact of decisions taken in the Bill on the revenues generated. I hope that would prompt a more wide-ranging review of corporation tax and business taxation, looking at how the burden is felt by businesses of different sizes and types, and with different levels of profitability. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.

[Jesse Norman]

I will speak to the amendment and the clause. I would also like to touch on some of the themes raised by the Opposition Front Bench team and by the Scottish National Party, because those important issues need a proper interrogation.

Clause 5 sets the corporation tax main rate for this financial year beginning on 1 April 2020. Clause 6 sets the corporation tax main rate and the annual power to charge corporation tax for the financial year beginning on 1 April 2021. The Government support a competitive corporate tax system that allows UK businesses to flourish, boosts the economy and supports further inward investment in the country. For that reason, the Government have made successive cuts to the headline rate of corporation tax, with the main rate falling from 28% in 2010 to its current rate of 19% in April 2017.

At Spring Budget 2016, the Government announced that they were going to cut the rate further to 17% in April 2020 and legislated to deliver that in the Finance Act 2016. It is important that cuts to the corporation tax rate, and the benefits that they can provide to business growth and investment, are balanced against wider objectives. The Government’s commitment to sustainability in public finances reflects that.

With that balance in mind, the Government announced at the Budget that the corporation tax main rate would remain at 19% in April 2020, rather than being reduced to 17%, and clauses 5 and 6 legislate for that change in rate for this tax year and the next. At the Budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast that that would raise about £33 billion in additional tax receipts across the forecast period. That will enable the Government to further support the vital public services on which we all rely, including the NHS.

The Government remain committed to supporting investment in innovation through the business tax system. While the corporation tax main rate remains at 19%, the UK continues to offer the lowest headline rate of corporation tax in the G20. The Government also announced a series of generous capital release for business at the Budget, which are being legislated for in the Bill, including an increase in the R&D expenditure credit from 12% to 13% and an increase in the rate of relief for business investment in non-residential structures and buildings from 2% to 3%. The Government have also provided an unprecedented package of support for businesses in response to covid-19, as has been recognised.

Before I turn to amendment 6, I will pick up some of the helpful and interesting themes that the Opposition Front-Bench spokespeople have raised. The hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South thanked Treasury officials and the hon. Member for Glasgow Central thanked the Clerks. I echo those thanks. I am sure that they would also join me in thanking the officials at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, who have done an astonishing job in the last few months, especially in response to covid-19.

The hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South said that her key priority will be a focus on accountability with an emphasis on responsibility. The hon. Member for Ilford North highlighted that the Labour party is pro-business in a more generous and inclusive sense than had perhaps been understood by regarding business as merely a source of revenue to support public services, which I welcome. I encourage the scrutiny, which I think increases the authority of the power that is being scrutinised, so it is a good thing in general. I welcome them both to what is an evidently responsible and highly competent shadow Front-Bench team.

I have a couple of further points. In relation to equity, hon. Members on both sides of the Committee know that many of those distribution analyses do not include the full welfare and benefit changes but focus on tax changes, which is one reason why it is hard to model them. It is important to be aware, however, that spending on public services was significantly increased in the spending round last summer. On the tax side, something like 29% of income tax is paid by the top 1% of earners.

On the question raised by the hon. Member for Glasgow Central about the status of women and equalities, which is an issue extremely near the hearts of Government Ministers—[Interruption.] I am delighted to hear the Exchequer Secretary behind me, fresh from her triumph in the urgent question, echo that. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the Committee know that 15.8 million women are in work at the moment, which is a record high that I am delighted about. The wages of the lowest earners have risen by 11% more than inflation over the four years from 2015 to 2019. The poorest 60% of households receive more in public spending than they pay in tax, and the lowest income decile will get more than £4 in benefits and public services for every £1 they pay in tax. It is important to see that those norms of equity and fairness that the Opposition rightly highlight are reflected in policy and shared by Government.

00:01

[Bridget Phillipson]

When Ministers are considering these issues in response to the pandemic, may I ask that they look at evidence as it emerges? While the Opposition welcome and have supported the creation of, for example, the furlough scheme, our concern is that we know women are more likely to be furloughed than men and women risk losing their jobs in bigger numbers during the crisis. I welcome the Minister’s comments about understanding the impact on the economy and within different groups, but I urge him to consider this issue as a Treasury priority.

[Jesse Norman]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that as we work through this crisis and, as we all hope, come out the other side, there will need to be a more detailed understanding of the implications in data terms, how it has affected different groups and its distributional impacts. We have well-established procedures within existing frameworks, as she will know.

The question was touched on more generally by the hon. Member for Ilford North in relation to corporation tax, but we have a whole procedure of making updates to Parliament and a procedure for forecasting that is now independent, thanks to the decision taken in 2010 to create the Office for Budget Responsibility. That includes a fiscal sustainability report on the overall benefit of measures, which goes to his question about corporation tax revenues. Needless to say, the Government’s support for the NHS is not contingent on the revenues from corporation tax; it goes much deeper than that.

The hon. Member for Glasgow Central raised many of these issues. She touched on a question in relation to the Scottish tax system. Of course, it is for the Scottish Government to review the effects of their decisions on income tax and the benefits for which they are responsible. At the same time, they can review their own progress on equality and inequality.

Turning to the hon. Member for Ilford North, I noted with support his inclusive approach towards business. That is very important. He asked about the impact of maintaining the tax rate at 19%. I have indicated that that is estimated to raise several tens of billions over the course of the spending round. What the effect of covid-19 will be on that we do not know, but, as I say, we have processes for evaluating and forecasting on that basis.

Amendment 6 would require the Government to conduct a review of current corporation tax rates, including the effect on tax revenue and the impact of the corporation tax rate structure on businesses of different sizes within six months of the Bill receiving Royal Assent. As I have mentioned, the OBR-certified Exchequer impact for this measure was published in table 2.1 of the Budget Red Book.

We recognise that the economic disruption created by the pandemic will have an effect on the tax revenue forecast at Budget. That will be monitored and changes will be made through the OBR principle and process to the forecast and reflected at the next Budget. HMRC also publishes corporation tax statistics annually, alongside a report that includes a breakdown of the amount and proportion of total corporation tax receipts paid by businesses at different levels of profitability. Therefore, the Government already publish the information called for in the amendment and the separate review legislated for in amendment 6 is, in our judgment, not necessary. I ask the Committee to reject amendment 6 and move separately that clauses 5 and 6 stand part of the Bill.

[Alison Thewliss]

Corporate taxation is not within the power of the Scottish Parliament. We have to live with the decisions that Westminster makes on this, but I am glad the Government have realised the error their ways in originally aiming to cut corporation tax. Given the money that would have been lost to the economy, that is wise.

The Minister mentioned the impact on women in work. Findings from various women’s organisations suggest that coronavirus will have an impact on women’s employment, and that employment will not recover unless there is significant investment in childcare to redress that as we come out of this crisis. If we were to take evidence from groups such as the Women’s Budget Group, we would have a lot more detailed evidence on the impact of the proposed measures on women. I encourage him to look at that evidence and engage with the Women’s Budget Group to consider how better we can have evidence brought from groups who have expertise in this area. Such groups have pointed out that women are more likely to be furloughed and more likely to lose their jobs. As the furlough scheme is wound up, they will face unemployment sooner than they would have anticipated as employers look at the scheme and say, “I can’t afford to pay these wages. I’m just going to sack my staff.” None of that necessarily relates to the amendment on corporation tax, but I want to make sure those points are on the record.

[Jesse Norman]

May I respond briefly, Ms McDonagh? The hon. Lady talks about the Government recognising the error of their ways, but there is a misunderstanding encoded in that view. The Government’s goal had always been to set out a direction of travel because forward guidance has economic value in guiding private investment decisions, but of course all tax rates are constantly kept under review by the Treasury. As has been recognised and discussed in Committee, many considerations go into the decisions on what rate to charge, so I do not think it is fair to describe it as she has done.

[Wes Streeting]

We may well return to this issue in later stages of the Bill, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 7

Determining the appropriate percentage for a car: tax year 2020-21 onwards

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss clauses 8 and 9 stand part.

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Kemi Badenoch)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. Clauses 7 to 9 make changes to set company car tax—CCT—appropriate percentages that favour zero and ultra-low emission cars until April 2023. As confirmed at Budget, these rates will be extended until April 2025. The clause also confirms that that the CO₂ emissions figure for the purposes of the CCT will be based on the worldwide harmonised light vehicle test procedure—WLTP—for all new cars first registered on or after 6 April 2020.

CCT is a benefit in kind for employer-provided cars that are available for private use. Although part of the income system, the appropriate percentages that determine the rate of tax paid by individuals are based on CO₂ emissions. There are currently around 900,000 company car drivers in the UK, and the benefit raises approximately £2.3 billion per annum. In July 2019, the Government announced that, for CCT, new cars first registered on or after 6 April 2020 will report CO₂ emissions using the WLTP, which is an improved emissions testing regime that aims to reduce the 40% gap that exists between current emissions reporting and real world driving. The Government announced that to smooth the transition to the WLTP, for cars first registered on or after 6 April 2020, CCT rates will be reduced by 2 percentage points in 2020-21 before returning to planned rates over the following two years.

To support decarbonisation, the Government also announced that all zero-emission company cars would attract a reduced CCT rate of 0% in 2020-21 and 1% in 2021-22, before returning to the planned 2% rate in 2022-23. To give certainty to company car drivers, leasing companies and manufacturers, the recent Budget announced the extension of 2022-23 rates for an additional two years until April 2025.

The changes made by clauses 7 to 9 will confirm that all new cars provided to employees and available for private use that are first registered on or after 6 April 2020 will be taxed according to the CO₂ emissions figure measured under the WLTP. It is also clarified that cars first registered before 6 April 2020 will continue to be taxed on the basis of the CO₂ emissions figure measured under the new European driving cycle—NEDC—procedure.

The clauses also introduce reductions in the appropriate percentages for 2020-21 and 2021-22 for zero-emission cars and all cars registered on or after 6 April 2020. In addition, they make a number of minor technical amendments—for example, by clarifying that where the electric range figure is converted from kilometres to miles, the value should be rounded up to the nearest whole mile.

I urge that the clauses stand part of the Bill. The changes they introduce will aid decarbonisation by confirming the introduction of the WLTP and beneficial CCT rates for ultra-low and zero-emission cars. They will also provide welcome certainty to company car drivers, leasing companies and manufacturers on the future taxation of company cars until April 2025.

[Wes Streeting]

As this is our first exchange across a chamber, may I say how much I look forward to working with the Exchequer Secretary—and occasionally giving her the runaround—during our time together in these roles?

Let me begin with an overall observation, which is that this Parliament has declared a climate emergency. The country understands the extent to which irreversible, catastrophic climate breakdown is an existential threat to life on Earth and means serious disruption to our way of life. Actually, given the disruption that the pandemic is inflicting on all of us at the moment, lots of people are reflecting on the serious longer term disruption were we to allow such a catastrophic climate breakdown to take place. But here we are with this Finance Bill, dealing with one of the few areas in which the Bill tries to make any progress at all towards tackling the climate emergency by talking about car tax percentages. This is entirely reasonable and entirely straightforward, but it falls way short of meeting the challenge facing our country.

When Greta Thunberg addressed parliamentarians here in our own Parliament, she said:

“Avoiding climate breakdown will require cathedral thinking. We must lay the foundation while we may not know exactly how to build the ceiling.”

I am pretty sure that when Greta Thunberg talked about foundational measures, she did not have car tax at the forefront of her mind. Yet here we are with a Bill that, as we have already heard from the hon. Member for Glasgow Central, falls way short of meeting the challenge.

It is disappointing because the Treasury has a crucial role to play in promoting efforts to tackle destructive climate change. This ought to be a national mission for our country. As one of the largest financial centres in the world economy, the UK has a clear responsibility to provide international leadership through the greening of our financial system. But we also know that the tentacles of the Treasury reach into every Department and can compel all sorts of behavioural change, can incentivise and disincentivise all sorts of policy change, right across the breadth of Government. I would like to see Her Majesty’s Treasury showing far stronger leadership in that regard.

It is also the case that through taxation, either tax incentives or disincentives, created through punitive tax measures, we can effect behavioural change across the country. I therefore hope that the scope and ambit and the ambition of future Finance Bills live up to the challenge.

If Ministers are not persuaded by the exhortations of Greta Thunberg, perhaps they will tune in to the interview given by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales just this morning. As someone who has been committed for decades to tackling climate change and to supporting biodiversity and the natural environment, he too makes a compelling case. I hope Ministers will take that on board.

00:02

The provision is straightforward and there is nothing here for us to oppose, but I will point out the concerns highlighted by the Chartered Institute of Taxation about the complexity of the rules set out in the Bill. For example, we heard about WLTP emissions testing for cars registered from 6 April. The percentage on which the benefit is calculated is based on both emissions and electric range and varies from 0% for zero-emission cars to 37%. NEDC emissions testing for cars registered between 1 October 1999 and 5 April 2020 also calculates the percentage based on emissions and electric range, but is slightly different from that for cars registered from 6 April 2020, at least for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 tax years.

There are also special rules for bi-fuel cars registered from 1 January 2000, and separate rules for cars registered between 1 January 1998 and 30 September 1999, depending on whether the car has a CO₂ emissions figure. There are other, separate rules for cars registered before 1 January 1998. If Government Members have followed all that detail to the extent that I have outlined it, I am sure a bright future awaits them in a career at the Chartered Institute of Taxation after the next general election, when the results are flashed up as a Labour gain.

As I said, nothing here for us to oppose, but I hope that when the Minister replies, she addresses that point about complexity.

[Alison Thewliss]

There is indeed not terribly much to oppose here, but this is about the ambition of the Government to make a change, to make something different out of this Bill and to do something different. I draw the attention of Government Members to what Norway has done to increase the use of electric vehicles, so that 42% of its cars are now electric vehicles. The Norwegians did that with incentives such as no annual road tax for electric vehicles, company car tax reduction to 40% on electric vehicles, changes to purchase and import taxes, and an exemption from 25% VAT on purchase. They had an ambitious programme, and they needed the infrastructure, but they took those actions and they saw a dramatic change in the number of electric vehicles as a result.

I encourage the Government to look at what can be done. If cars are to be around for some time to come, how can we make them better? In many parts of Scotland, for example, people need a car to get around In large parts of rural Scotland it would be impossible to do anything other than have a car, but if we can make those cars electric vehicles, providing the plug-in infrastructure for them and the tax incentives to reduce their cost, we could make that change achievable. I ask the Government to be more ambitious.

[Kemi Badenoch]

I thank both hon. Members for the points that they have made and the good questions they asked. I reiterate that tackling climate change and improving the environment are top priorities of the Government. The UK is a world leader on climate change. The reason why we are doing this is to address several things at once.

Let us remind ourselves what the WLTP is. It is designed to ensure that we are reflecting real world driving conditions more accurately by including a longer test time. The aim is to reduce the 40% gap between lab tests and real world driving. We have put many other levers in place to address the broader issue of climate change.

I accept the point about complexity—I recognise the need to ensure that this does not have an overall impact on the consumer. One of the reasons why we are phasing it in this way is to better protect the automotive sector. I thank both Members for the points they made.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 7 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 8 and 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 10

Apprenticeship bursaries paid to persons leaving local authority care

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Jesse Norman]

Clause 10 exempts care leavers’ apprenticeship bursary payments from income tax. This Bill contains areas on which there will be disagreements across the Committee, and areas that the Opposition Front-Bench team has noted that it wants to prioritise in scrutinising the Government, but there are other clauses that are essentially technical in nature on which I doubt there is any serious disagreement about their importance or intent. This, I suggest, is one of those clauses.

Young people who are in care or have left care who choose to start an apprenticeship receive a £1,000 bursary to help them to make the transition to the workplace for their practical studies. The extra financial support is for those aged 16 to 24 and living in England. Payments such as the care leavers’ apprenticeship bursary would normally be subject to income tax, as such payments relate to employment. Changes made by clause 10 mean that bursary payments made to care leavers who start an apprenticeship are exempt from income tax.

The changes affirm the Government’s commitment to support care leavers and ensure that those in receipt of the bursary can benefit by the full amount. The clause ensures that care leavers starting an apprenticeship will benefit from 100% of the bursary value. It is the right thing to do and I commend the clause to the Committee.

[Wes Streeting]

The Financial Secretary is right that he will not get much by way of argument from us. The bursary is obviously a laudable policy designed to support people in our society who lived in care as children and who far too often face serious disadvantages in terms of educational outcomes, employment opportunities and life chances.

It is a source of deep regret to me, as the son of a parent who spent time in care—care leavers are a big part of my family—that we have not done more as a country to narrow the attainment and opportunity gap for care leavers. Of course it is right that individuals who are in or have left local authority care who subsequently join an apprenticeship scheme should not be subject to income tax and national insurance contributions. We will certainly not oppose a clause designed to give effect to that.

I have some questions for the Financial Secretary about how the Bill deals with that, as much out of curiosity as anything else. There is an existing exemption in section 776 of the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005 for income from scholarships, which includes bursaries held by an individual in full-time education. Section 776 could have been amended to include the bursary payment, instead of introducing a new section to the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003. I would be grateful if he could clarify why the Government have chosen to enact the provision by amending legislation in that way, rather than using section 776 of the 2005 Act.

I understand that it is the Government’s view that the bursary is employment income rather than other income, but other bursaries are classed as other income, and care leavers could be entitled to bursaries outside an apprenticeship. I would be grateful if the Minister explained why the Government consider this bursary to be employment income. If it is employment income, legislation will be required to exempt the payment from national insurance contributions; if it is not, additional legislation might not be needed. Some understanding of that, for our interest and the interest of all those who follow proceedings such as these closely, would be welcome.

[Alison Thewliss]

Again, I am not looking to oppose the clause. The aim is laudable, but I want to highlight a couple of things about apprenticeships. Coronavirus could significantly affect the number of apprenticeships that will be available to young people this year and perhaps even into next year as well. What do the Government intend to do to make sure that those opportunities are not lost to a generation of young people who are leaving school as well as leaving care?

As you will appreciate, Ms McDonagh, if those young people do not have the opportunities that they should, the impact on them will be devastating—as it will be on society as a whole if their skills and talents do not go into the workplace. I implore Ministers to look carefully at that, to make sure that they do not miss those young people, and that those concerns are high on their agenda. Apprenticeships can be transformational for young people. They can give them new opportunities and a chance to do something that they would never have anticipated through their family background or their ambitions growing up. It is vital to protect them in the months ahead.

I would also highlight the fact that the minimum wage rate for apprenticeships remains staggeringly low. The Government should look carefully at apprentices more generally. The bursary in the clause is fine and laudable, but apprenticeships for all young people need to be properly remunerated. Some of those young people will have families themselves and will be unable to take up those opportunities if they cannot afford to put food on the table because the apprenticeship rate is so low.

Not all young people live with their families, as the bursary recognises; but all young people who want them should have access to apprenticeships. I urge the Government to reconsider minimum wage rates more generally. There should be a living wage for everyone, but apprenticeship rates in particular are incredibly low in this country and they need to be addressed urgently so that all young people who want to can take up those places.

The Government could also look at the work done in the care review in Scotland. We appreciate that not all the things that could have been done to help young people have been done. The care review took an in-depth look at that. I urge the Minister to look at that and at what more can be done to support young carers in society.

[Jesse Norman]

Those were two useful, helpful contributions from the Opposition. The broad answer to the technical question raised by the hon. Member for Ilford North is that this is a cleaner and more direct way of addressing the problem; but I should be delighted to write to him and set out the reasoning in more detail.

The hon. Gentleman raised the question of other exemptions. As he will be aware, we are absolutely amenable to considering these things on a case-by-case basis, and if there are others that he thinks deserve further consideration, he is again welcome to write to me and we will give that a review.

The hon. Member for Glasgow Central raised a point about apprenticeship opportunities more widely, and she is absolutely right. The Government have already been leaning into the issue of apprenticeships, as she will know, through the levy. There is much more work to be done in this area, and it is well understood, certainly from the Prime Minister down, that the response to the coronavirus may well cause the Government to want to look at the whole area in more detail.

I cannot pass from this topic without drawing the hon. Lady’s attention to a personal interest that I have, which is the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering, in Hereford. That is the new university we are setting up precisely to integrate the academic and the vocational in a way that gives scope for very high value-added learning, using apprenticeships but also actual project work, in a way that is integrated into the engineering curriculum in many ways.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 10 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 11

Tax treatment of certain Scottish social security benefits

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

12:45

[Jesse Norman]

I had hoped that we might be able to debate clauses 11 and 12 together, because in some respects they sit better together, but let me pick up clause 11 in its own right and we can then take clause 12 separately. The clause confirms that three new specifically Scottish social security benefits are not subject to income tax. The income tax treatment of social security benefits is legislated for in part 10 of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003. That Act provides certainty on existing benefits and needs to be updated when new benefits are introduced.

The Scottish Government are introducing three new benefit payments: the job start payment, disability assistance for children and young people, and the Scottish child payment. The tax treatment of those benefits is governed by the fiscal framework agreement between the Scottish Government and the UK Government, which sets out that any new benefits introduced by the Scottish Government will not be deemed to be income for tax purposes unless they top up or replace benefits deemed to be taxable already. The UK Government currently choose to clarify the treatment agreed in the fiscal framework through Finance Bill legislation, which is why we have the clause before us today.

The changes made by the clause ensure that these three new benefits are not liable to income tax, in line with the fiscal framework agreement between the UK Government and the Scottish Government. The clause is straightforward, clarifying and confirming the tax treatment of several welfare payments and introducing a new power to ensure that a simpler process may be used to effect future changes as may be needed. I commend the clause to the Committee.

[Bridget Phillipson]

The Minister made reference to the discussions we will have on clause 12, but the Opposition do not object to the principle behind this clause, which appears straightforward and to achieve its aim.

[Alison Thewliss]

I am happy to support the clause and the actions of the Scottish Government in bringing in these new social security measures, which will be of great benefit to the people of Scotland. My only regret is that we have to come asking the UK Government to put these measures into force—we would rather take care of all these things ourselves.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 11 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 12

Power to exempt social security benefits from income tax

[Alison Thewliss]

I beg to move amendment 8, in clause 12, page 7, line 2, leave out ‘may’ and insert ‘must’.

This amendment seeks to exempt all social security benefits from income tax.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 9, in clause 12, page 7, line 4, leave out from ‘benefits’ to end of line 5.

This amendment seeks to exempt all social security benefits from income tax.

[Alison Thewliss]

I am happy to move the amendment and speak to amendment 9, which The Scottish National party tabled just as a query. When we were looking at the Scottish social security system and the opportunity not to have income tax levied on social security benefits, it got us thinking about what the logic is of taxation on social security, because it is the Government giving with one hand and clawing back with another, resulting in an incredibly complex system where some benefits—indeed, some parts of benefits, some types of benefits and some subsets of benefits—end up liable for income tax whereas others are not. We end up with a cumbersome system that is difficult to navigate.

Our thought process in looking at the benefits was to ask why it should be that bereavement allowance, carer’s allowance, contributory and youth ESA, income-based ESA, some but not all incapacity benefit, industrial death benefit pensions, state pension, widowed mother’s allowance, widowed parent’s allowance and the widow’s pension are all taxable, whereas others such as personal independence payment, war widow’s pension and universal credit are not.

The young carer grant is not, but carer’s allowance is. There are a huge number of inconsistencies in the social security and income tax system, and our amendment seeks to ask: why should that be? Should we not look for a much simpler system, which would give people the money in their own hands without having to negotiate backwards and forwards with the Government? That would save the Government a job in clawing back that taxation and allow people to get on with their lives, rather than having to worry about what the taxman will take from their benefits. The SNP thought it was worthwhile exploring this issue with the Committee.

[Bridget Phillipson]

As with clause 11, the Opposition have no objection to what the Government seek to achieve in this clause. On the substance of the amendments put forward by the hon. Member for Glasgow Central, there are a few issues that I hope she will be able to clarify. She will be aware that the general principle is that a benefit is taxable if it is an earnings replacement benefit. As the Treasury’s tax benefit reference manual notes, the reason behind that is to avoid creating an incentive whereby an individual receiving social security benefits is better off than someone on a comparable income whose earnings are liable to tax. What consideration has she given to that potential outcome of her amendments?

My second observation is about the cost of the measure. I am grateful to the House of Commons Library, which has sought to estimate the cost. The cost of exempting all taxable social security benefits from income tax would be around £5.9 billion in 2020-21. Of that amount, 95%, or £5.6 billion, is attributable to the state pension. The Library’s analysis identifies that those in the top decile of income distribution would benefit the most, while those in the lowest would gain the least. I know that the hon. Lady cares very much about those issues, and I would be grateful if she addressed that point, because it strikes me that such an approach would usually be regressive, and I would like to understand a bit more about the assessment of the distributional impact of such a policy.

[Alison Thewliss]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments, which she is quite right to make—the Library analysis is really important. I am moving the amendments to point out just how complex the system is that there is of course a cost to having and administrating such a system. People have difficulty navigating that system, because it makes it more difficult to claim what they are entitled to, particularly if they are moving from one benefit to another. Although I appreciate the points that she has made and understand why she made them, these are probing amendments to see what the point is and what the Government are doing to make an ongoing assessment of the logic of that complexity, for which there is a cost and a difficulty. Although I in no way deny the cost—I know the amendments have no prospect of being passed by the Committee—I would like the Government to consider carefully the impact of that complexity on individuals, and whether they can simplify the system, which is ludicrously complicated.

[Jesse Norman]

I thank colleagues for their contributions. As they have recognised, the amendments are very technical in nature. I will keep my remarks brief because, if we can, I would like to discuss clause 13 before we break, which will leave us a clear run at the afternoon. Clause 12 introduces a power that commits the Government to clarifying tax exempt status for future new social security benefits introduced by the UK Government or devolved Administrations using a statutory instrument. That power has a more general applicability and creates an additional flexibility that will be of value to Government in making changes to address needs more rapidly than at the moment.

The hon. Member for Glasgow Central tabled her amendments in an interrogatory—or probing—spirit, for which I thank her. My response has been very well articulated by the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South. Scottish benefits are treated in line with the fiscal framework and, under that framework, which exists between the UK Government and the Scottish Government, only new benefits that top up or replace an existing taxable benefit will be liable to tax. That is an established principle of taxation exactly to avoid the perverse incentives that might otherwise be created.

In addition to the questions raised by the shadow Minister about cost and equity, it is worth mentioning that the effect of entertaining the amendments would be to undermine the fiscal framework agreement and that longstanding principle of taxation. I ask the hon. Member for Glasgow Central, in a rhetorical spirit, whether she really means to overturn the fiscal framework that was hammered out over a number of years between those two sides. If she does, is it her intention to throw out other settled agreements between the Scottish Government and the UK Government within that framework? I suggest that that is not her intent and, because the meaning and purpose of the clause is clear, I commend it to the Committee and invite her to withdraw the amendment.

[Alison Thewliss]

I am indeed content to withdraw the amendment, but the point stands that there is an inconsistency within the system, in which a war widow’s pension is not taxable but a widow’s pension is. There are huge inconsistencies about which I have questions. The Minister is being mischievous when he suggests that I would want to undermine the fiscal framework, but he knows fine well that I long for the day when the fiscal framework is not necessary because Scotland is an independent country that makes for ourselves the full range of decisions about what is best for our people. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 12 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

[The Chair]

We now have four minutes to go. Does the Committee wish to move on to clause 13?

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

Let’s take a break.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(David Rutley.)

00:06

Adjourned till this day at Two o’clock.

Domestic Abuse Bill (Second sitting)

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 4th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

The Committee consisted of the following Members:

Chairs: Mr Peter Bone, † Ms Karen Buck

† Aiken, Nickie (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)

† Atkins, Victoria (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department)

† Bowie, Andrew (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)

† Chalk, Alex (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice)

Coyle, Neil (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)

† Crosbie, Virginia (Ynys Môn) (Con)

† Davies-Jones, Alex (Pontypridd) (Lab)

† Gibson, Peter (Darlington) (Con)

† Harris, Rebecca (Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Treasury)

† Jardine, Christine (Edinburgh West) (LD)

† Jones, Fay (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)

† Kyle, Peter (Hove) (Lab)

† Marson, Julie (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)

† Phillips, Jess (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)

† Saville Roberts, Liz (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)

† Twist, Liz (Blaydon) (Lab)

† Wood, Mike (Dudley South) (Con)

Jo Dodd, Kevin Maddison, Committee Clerks

† attended the Committee

Witnesses

Gilmara Garcia, Latin American Women’s Rights Service

Somiya Basar, survivor of domestic abuse

Saliha Rashid, survivor of domestic abuse

Lucy Hadley, Campaigns and Policy Manager, Women’s Aid Federation

Andrea Simon, Head of Public Affairs, End Violence Against Women

Ellie Butt, Head of Policy and Public Affairs, Refuge

Suzanne Jacob OBE, Chief Executive, SafeLives

Giselle Valle, Director, Latin American Women’s Rights Service (Step Up Migrant Women Campaign)

Lyndsey Dearlove, Hestia

Dame Vera Baird QC, Victims Commissioner

Councillor Simon Blackburn, Leader of Blackpool Council and Chair of the Local Government Association’s Safer and Stronger Communities Board

Sara Kirkpatrick, CEO, Welsh Women’s Aid

Public Bill Committee

Thursday 4 June 2020

(Afternoon)

[Ms Karen Buck in the Chair]

Domestic Abuse Bill

14:00

[The Chair]

Before we start, I have just a couple of points. I am reliably informed that the disinfectant used in the room and around the horseshoe lasts for 30 days —I say that for the greater comfort of Members. Just as a reminder, it would help Hansard if everyone, particularly those not round the horseshoe, speaks very loudly and clearly so that they can be heard. I can hardly see the end of the room, so will anybody who is trying to participate make sure they are indicating very clearly? One witness, Suzanne Jacob from SafeLives, will be joining by audio link, so there may be a moment or two getting that set up.

We are now going into the first panel of witnesses for the afternoon. We are hearing oral evidence from the Latin American Women’s Rights Service. The witness will be brought in now, and we will have until 2.15 pm for this session.

Examination of Witness

Gilmara Garcia gave evidence.

14:03

[The Chair]

Q 44 Thank you very much for coming in to give evidence this afternoon. Could you introduce yourself to the Committee? Then we will allow people to ask questions of you.

Gilmara Garcia: First, thank you for inviting me. My name is Gilmara Garcia, and I am here to share my experiences.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much for introducing yourself.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

Q Thank you very much for coming in. I am just going to ask you a few questions about your experiences of the system. What are the main barriers that you have faced in getting the support that you may have needed?

Gilmara Garcia: The main barriers were the system and safe reporting, because I have not had it when I needed it most.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Tell us a little about your experiences and what led you to need to report.

Gilmara Garcia: I came four years ago to the UK as part of a family—me, my former partner and two children. After eight months of living with him, I was already experiencing emotional and verbal abuse, and then he exerted himself physically. My first action was to flee the property straightaway to the police station. That was the beginning of a huge nightmare. I am still improving my language, but at that time it was worse. I came four years ago, as I said.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Where did you come from?

Gilmara Garcia: Brazil.

[Jess Phillips]

Q When you came over, what visa did you come in on?

Gilmara Garcia: We came—four Brazilians—but my former partner had held a British passport. When we were settled, he said, “I will renew my British passport. I will make our young child British. Then I will apply for you.” That was the promise. Four of us Brazilians came; two of the family became British.

[Jess Phillips]

Q But you came to the country completely legally?

Gilmara Garcia: Completely legally, yes.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Tell us about how you tried to get help when your abuse started to happen in the UK.

Gilmara Garcia: At first when it started, it was emotional abuse. I did not understand that it was wrong. I wanted to try to make things right, but when the physical abuse happened, I realised that something was wrong and that I needed help. I had been told, “Let’s go there to visit. After that we will remain, and I will apply with you as my dependant.” That never happened. Six months later, my tourist visa expired and I became undocumented. At that point, things increased.

[Jess Phillips]

The threats?

Gilmara Garcia: He said, “I will report you if you don’t follow my rules. You will be returned to your country. Forget about our daughter, because now she is British.”

[Jess Phillips]

Q Just so that we have the story right, you came here with a partner who had promised you that you would settle here and that your status would become settled. He began to abuse you. He settled his status and the status of your daughter, then he used the fact that you were unsettled to abuse you and control you.

Gilmara Garcia: Exactly.

[Jess Phillips]

What happened when you tried to get help?

Gilmara Garcia: It happened. The first phrase toward me was—[Interruption.] Just a minute. It does not matter how many times we repeat the same story—first of all, to prove who we are, and, after that—

[Jess Phillips]

You take as long as you need.

Gilmara Garcia: I went to request help, and they said, “We cannot help you.”

[Jess Phillips]

Q Who said that to you?

Gilmara Garcia: A police officer—We cannot help you because we don’t have responsibility for you.” I showed what had happened to me and explained that I did not have any place to go. The police officer turned to me and said, “We are not a hotel. I cannot provide accommodation for you and your eldest.” I was with my eldest child from a previous marriage. When the perpetrator came and shared his side of the story, the approach changed. He shared the same story, with some differences. I was asked, “Where is your document?” I said, “In my bag.” The police officer said, “I can see here that it has expired. We cannot help you at all. You need to go to immigration and your embassy.”

[Jess Phillips]

Q So you went as a victim of domestic abuse and the police told you that there would be no accommodation for you and that, because your status was unsettled, you actually now had to just go to your embassy, even though you had reported to them as a victim of violence.

Gilmara Garcia: Yes, remembering that I came to England and I went straightaway to the countryside. So, first of all, I had no immigration. How was I to seek any support as a homeless person in London. Anyway, the perpetrator said to the police officers, “No worries, I can pay her one night, but tomorrow she cannot come back to the property.” The police just brought that response to me: that they would provide a lift to the Travelodge hotel—I don’t know if I can say the name, but anyway. And then, the next day, I went to the primary school of my kids to say, “I’m leaving. My youngest is staying. Please, when I send an email, answer me how she is, because I need to come back to my country.” After all, that was the suggestion to myself.

[Jess Phillips]

To go home to Brazil?

Gilmara Garcia: The headteacher at that school provided me with the fare to get to London. I went straightaway to London Bridge to the Home Office they have there. They did not know what to do. They said, “We need seven days for you to come back to your country. Where will you be?” After all, it was me and these vulnerable people with me. I was the entire day in the building.

After that, I was with the Metropolitan police. The first officer—thank God—came and said, “What are you doing here?” I tried to explain—it was more mimicking than speaking, but still she understood me—and she contacted a support worker who goes around to homeless people in the night. She put me in a hostel to spend the night and said the next day, “Please go to the embassy and seek help. But before that, try to secure a place to sleep the next night.” When I fled, it was the middle of December and being rough in that period is not a good memory at all.

[Jess Phillips]

Sleeping rough?

[The Chair]

Jess, I have a few more Members. Do you mind if I see a couple of others and return to you?

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

Q Actually, before I say anything, I would like to hear the witness continue to respond to hon. Members. Her story is important, and it is important that we hear it.

[Jess Phillips]

Q We only have a short space of time, and we need to make sure that those of us who have to scrutinise the Bill get the message about what needs to change in it. So you had to sleep rough in London—is that what you are saying?

Gilmara Garcia: Yes.

[Jess Phillips]

So you slept rough with your children?

Gilmara Garcia: Child.

[Jess Phillips]

How old is your child?

Gilmara Garcia: Now, nearly twelve—nine or so at the time.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Was that because you were not able to access any support because of your immigration status?

Gilmara Garcia: No one knew what to do with me. The police did not know what to do. They just suggested that I go to the Home Office. When I got to the Home Office, they said, “We have no accommodation. We need seven days to prepare your ticket; then you can come back.” That was my decision in that moment—to come back where I feel safe. And I couldn’t.

[Jess Phillips]

So you were left to sleep rough on the streets of London. I will let other people come in; I just wanted to set the scene.

[The Chair]

This will have to be the last question.

[Christine Jardine]

Q Now your situation has changed. Would it have been different if you had had recourse to public funds, and do you now have recourse to public funds?

Gilmara Garcia: Definitely. Every time, I repeat that if, in the first beginning, the process follows with a safety report, everything will be different. It is now four years later, and I am still suffering the consequences.

[The Chair]

Order. I am really sorry, but that has brought us to the end of this session. On behalf of the Committee, I thank you very much for coming in and giving your evidence. I know it is difficult in such a constrained time, but you gave the Committee a lot of helpful information. Thank you.

Examination of Witnesses

Somiya Basar and Saliha Rashid gave evidence.

00:00

[The Chair]

Thank you very much for joining us. We will now hear oral evidence from Somiya Basar and Saliha Rashid. We have this session until 2.45 pm. Please introduce yourselves, and then I will invite members of the Committee to ask you questions.

Somiya Basar: Ladies and gentlemen, I am Somiya Basar.

Saliha Rashid: My name is Saliha Rashid. I am a survivor of gender-based abuse, and I am also a campaigner. I am here today representing a group of survivors that have been part of Women’s Aid’s “Law in the making” project.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

Q Saliha, if you feel able to, please tell us about your experiences as a female victim of domestic abuse, but also with your blindness.

Saliha Rashid: Yes, I come from a community where, growing up, I was always told that because I am blind and a woman, I could not have high aspirations or become independent. When I sought support to become free of this and to become independent, I found many barriers. There was a lack of understanding in relation to disability and issues around gender-based violence. I found that services were not accessible. There was a lack of information in accessible formats.

As a group of survivors, we come from a diverse range of backgrounds, and we have had different experiences, but, quite commonly, we have all experienced reaching out to a system that has failed to support us—a system that has been unable to meet our diverse needs and, for many of us, a system has been re-traumatising and re-victimising.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Thank you. The Women’s Aid campaign is a great campaign, so I am pleased to hear that you are part of it. If you are familiar with the contents of the Bill, what do you think the domestic abuse commissioner can do to help women in your position?

Saliha Rashid: I think that for disabled survivors there needs to be a statutory duty conferred on all organisations to provide information in accessible formats. I support the campaign by Stay Safe East around repealing the carers’ defence clause in part 5 of the Serious Crime Act 2015, which is on domestic abuse. I think that awareness-raising is a key priority for our group, because we have found a lack of awareness around these issues, both within statutory and non-statutory services.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Just to finish up with Saliha, through your campaigning do you think that, at the moment, in different areas—you can probably only talk about your own local authority area—there are enough specialist services available for victims with disabilities?

Saliha Rashid: No, I think there need to be adequately funded services for disabled survivors, as well as for survivors from other minority groups, such as LGBT survivors and BAME survivors.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Would you support some sort of ring-fencing of these sorts of specialisms being written into the law, to ensure that they are provided?

Saliha Rashid: Definitely—it is important that this issue is recognised. I think that minority groups have specific needs, and it is important that those needs are outlined. I also think that there needs to be more guidance around this.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Thank you very much. Now I am going on to Somiya. Thank you very much for coming in. I have read a little bit about the story of your children and about your travels around the world to try to get back access to your children. Can you tell us about that as briefly as you can—not necessarily from the beginning, but from when you found yourself in Britain. Your ex-partner is a British citizen—is that correct?

Somiya Basar: Yes. And so are my children.

[Jess Phillips]

Q And so are your children, so your children are now British citizens. What is your immigration status?

Somiya Basar: Currently, we have applied for me to remain in the country as a parent, and we are waiting for the Home Office to make a decision. It has been eight months so far, and I am relying on support from Southall Black Sisters, because I do not have access to public funding—I have no recourse to public funds because of my immigration status. This has crippled me financially and kept me in limbo.

[Jess Phillips]

Q But you came to this country because your children had been brought here from South Africa—is that correct?

Somiya Basar: Yes.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Your children have been brought here from South Africa. Do you currently have access to your children?

Somiya Basar: I do have very limited access to my children. It took me four and a half years to be able to get to common ground. My daughter was three when she was abducted; she has very little recollection of me. I could not come here because of visa constraints, as my children are British citizens and I am not, and I had to go pillar to post to be able to come to common ground and to be able to have access to my children. My daughter’s elder brothers have to remind her and to ask her, “Do you remember that this is our mother?”, and she says, “No, I can’t remember.”

[Jess Phillips]

Q If you do not mind my asking—please feel free to say if you do not want to answer any of the questions I ask—did you suffer violence and abuse at the hands of your ex-partner?

Somiya Basar: When I got married, it was based on cultural customs in India. I was living in Bombay, and I was 19 when I was married to a British citizen whom I did not know. I wanted to further my studies, but my parents thought differently and according to our custom. I did not want to disappoint them, so I agreed. My idea of marriage was quickly shattered, because it was not long before I began to feel that I was married to be a slave. I was the housemaid; I was there for him to use as an object to have babies. I was the nanny, and I was the nurse.

The situation soon developed into physical, emotional and financial abuse—verbal belittling at every opportunity. My husband had total financial control over me. He controlled every aspect of my life. I was strongly disallowed from making contact with my own family, which has left me isolated and alienated from my family. I was not allowed to have friends or to work outside the house, except for at the family business. I remained in the marriage because of the constant threats that if I would not conform or do as they said, my children would be taken away from me. Because of the fear of losing my children, I remained in the marriage, which lasted for 12 years.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Do you think that it is common for women in your situation to stay in a marriage?

Somiya Basar: I do think it is common for a lot of women, usually due to the fear of losing of their children and the fear of facing humiliation in society. They remain in the marriage because they are constantly reminded that if they do not conform there will be repercussions.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Now that you are here in Britain, you have limited access through the family courts, presumably, to your children. You are fighting your immigration status. How long have you been in the immigration system, if you do not mind me asking?

Somiya Basar: Eight months now, but I would like to tell everybody that it took me three years to get to the United Kingdom. My children and I have been living with this ordeal for four and a half years. My daughter was three years old; she is seven years old today, and I have two older children who are 14 and 15 years old.

[Jess Phillips]

Q When you have interacted with services in the United Kingdom, do you feel that they understand the issue of abandonment across borders? I am afraid that I have seen lots of cases of women abandoned as part of the pattern of domestic abuse, and their children removed. Do you think there is any understanding of you as a victim of domestic abuse?

Somiya Basar: Not really, because there is a lack of awareness about the abandonment of spouses. Even though we are married to British citizens living abroad, we do not have any rights to remain in the country. It took me three years to try and understand how I could get on common grounds with my children. There is a lack of awareness. People do not know how to deal with convoluted cases such as this one. This has hampered me and I have lost a lot of precious time with my own children—so much so that they are alienated and it is going to be very hard work to be able to re-establish my life with my children.

[Jess Phillips]

Q In this country you are currently entitled to support through a pilot scheme that was funded through Southall Black Sisters, but you are not entitled to any other support.

Somiya Basar: I am not entitled to any support whatsoever.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Are you currently expected to pay any premium to use the health service?

Somiya Basar: Yes. Had it not been for Southall Black Sisters supporting me with their own funds and with accommodation, subsistence, money for trips, advice and help at many levels, I would not have had any chance to be able to come here after so long, to be able to be with my children, to have a life. If it wasn’t for them supporting me at many levels, I wouldn’t have been able to come here. I would have been homeless. I would have been absolutely devastated and destitute, because when my ex-husband abandoned me he left me destitute. After 12 years in my marriage, he retained all the savings, the earnings and the assets I had worked for. He deliberately left me destitute.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Do your children have access to any support about the situation that they have been in throughout their childhood? You might not know, but are they able to get any support through their schools?

Somiya Basar: I approached the school when I came here. My older son has special needs, but the school did not even recognise that. He had a major speech delay. He saw the abuse. As he was growing up, he saw me being abused. He was abused by the father, sometimes physically, in a very bad manner. He has been left with a lot of difficulties. I don’t think much justice is done because they need to have a lot of counselling to understand that it was no fault of mine that the children were left without their mother. It was because of the father’s choices, because the father decided to alienate the children and move away from me. He used his British passport to alienate the children from me, knowing full well that I was the only one on an Indian passport and it would take me forever to get there, because I did not have any recourse, any source of income. I had no connections in the United Kingdom whom I could rely on. He used his British passport full well.

[Jess Phillips]

Thank you for sharing your story with us.

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

Q Thank you for sharing your story. I am sure it is very difficult having to keep repeating your story, but thank you. It is very powerful.

You have obviously been getting help from the Southall Black Sisters, which is good to hear. Have they or anybody else referred you to the national referral mechanism, which is for victims like you?

Somiya Basar: From what I understand, it takes forever for that system to work, and I don’t think that system works as efficiently as the pilot scheme by Southall Black Sisters. I don’t think I am an expert here and I do not understand the terminology, but what I understand is that the other system that you are referring to takes forever. It is not a system that works efficiently to the full benefit of the victim.

[Nickie Aiken]

Q But you do not think you have been referred.

Somiya Basar: I am not aware of it.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

Q Thank you for coming today. As an individual, as a mother to British children and as a victim, have you at any point felt that the British Government and the British state is on your side?

Somiya Basar: I really felt abandoned, even by the British state. I think they have failed me. Had there been any other channel of being here, I would have been notified by the embassies, because the embassies in the different countries that we lived in knew exactly what was happening with myself, with my children. At some point the father had abandoned the children with me in South Africa with no immigration status. The British embassy knew full well that we were in dire straits, and not much help was available, so I think I have been failed.

[Peter Kyle]

Q Thank you. Saliha, do you have anything to add on that same point?

Saliha Rashid: Quite commonly, across the board in terms of the group that I am here to represent, we have felt like the system has failed us, whether that is in the family courts or the criminal justice system. Many survivors have been failed by the criminal justice system time after time: for example, repeated failures to enforce protection orders. Even accessing legal aid has been problematic for many women. Many had to navigate the legal complexities of the system with very little support, which impacted on them both emotionally and financially.

[Peter Kyle]

Q You say that you have been failed by the system, but could you give us some specific areas where the system does not actually exist for you? You cannot be failed by a system that you do not have access to. In some areas you have no recourse to public funds. In that situation, the system does not fail you; the system does not exist for you. Is that the right way of looking at it?

Saliha Rashid: Yes, I agree with what you are saying. In many cases the system does not exist, but where systems do exist—for example, the family courts—women feel that so often they are not believed. For many women, it has been re-victimising and re-traumatising. One woman from the group described it as horrific, traumatic psychological warfare, and mind games that just replicated the abuse in the relationship. This is a system that exists, but also seems to fail to listen to children and to keep them safe. That is what women have reported.

[Peter Kyle]

Q Saliha, you heard the previous question from my colleague about referred services. Since you advocate for other people as well, is it your experience that referred services are available, accessible and easy to obtain for people in your situation and the people you represent?

Saliha Rashid: Speaking from a disabled victim’s point of view, no, because the services that exist either have an understanding of issues relating to disability but no understanding of domestic abuse and gender-based violence, or it is the other way around and they understand domestic abuse but there is no awareness of disability and how they are linked.

[The Chair]

I have Mike Wood, Virginia Crosbie and Andrew Bowie, unless anybody else wants to ask questions, and we have nine minutes, just to give you a guide for how long to make your questions.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Q I will keep my question very short. Somiya, given your terrible experiences, what would you like to see the new domestic abuse commissioner do to ensure that the voices of survivors of domestic abuse are brought to the front of how we respond to that challenge?

Somiya Basar: Today I am speaking on behalf of everybody; I know a lot of women in a similar situation and it is my duty to speak on their behalf. The Government have this opportunity to right the wrongs and they must lift the ban on recourse to public funds. Most of the times, our perpetrators have used that to further exploit and blackmail us, because our immigration status is used against us. In my case, I did not have access to public funds and I was able to come to the United Kingdom and join my family and be with my children.

Time is also of the essence here; if we do not get help on time, it is as if we did not get help at all. No recourse to public funds should be lifted; help should be available to everybody who needs it, irrespective of their immigration status. The only qualification to be in the system to be able to obtain help should be that we are human beings and we should be treated that way, not differently because of our immigration status, and addressed with dignity and respect like anybody else has to be in this country. If somebody was born here and a resident, they would not have been treated as I would have, and this is an opportunity for everybody here to right the wrongs.

[Mike Wood]

Q On the specific point about the independent commissioner to lead on and tackle domestic abuse right across the country, what impact do you think having that kind of independent person established within this legislation will have?

Somiya Basar: I am not following your question. Could you simplify it, please?

[Mike Wood]

Sorry. The legislation we are considering would create a new independent office of domestic abuse commissioner, whose role is obviously to lead, to co-ordinate and to be an independent voice separate from Government Departments, working with charities, survivors and other interested parties. How do you think that role could also be used to ensure that the voices of survivors are heard more effectively than perhaps they have been in the past?

Somiya Basar: I think the answer lies in your question. The voices of the people who need to be heard, and of those who are affected, have not been heard so far. The voice of everybody affected must be heard. The independent commissioner who is going to be appointed will have to raise many issues, some of them related to the immigration barriers. With all the barriers that we as immigrants have, and not being able to access recourse to public funds, I think more understanding would help them understand how to make changes to the Bill, and what is required.

[Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)]

Q Thank you both for coming here today; you are both incredibly brave. I wanted to ask Somiya how she heard about Southall Black Sisters.

Somiya Basar: When I was struggling and was pleading for help from a number of NGOs, both in South Africa and in the United Kingdom, I was told in South Africa that they could no longer help me because the children were British citizens, and then living in the United Kingdom I was told they could not help me because I was not a British citizen. Then, after exchanging a lot of correspondences with organisations and NGOs in the United Kingdom, a family law firm based in London got in touch with me. Legal aid was granted after a very long struggle, and legal proceedings began. Eventually, my immigration solicitors connected me with Southall Black Sisters, because I had to be here but I had nowhere to stay, no source of income, and nothing to rely on.

[Virginia Crosbie]

Q How did the family law firm find you?

Somiya Basar: I think they were referred by one of the organisations, called Indian Ladies UK, because I had been exchanging correspondences with hundreds of organisations in the United Kingdom. For the three-year period that my children were abducted until the family law firm in London found me, I did a lot of work on my level to research and find help, and that is how Southall Black Sisters got in touch with me.

[Virginia Crosbie]

Q This question is to both of you. Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to other women in a similar situation?

Somiya Basar: It is a struggle to access any sort of help. Even though I am a mother—a parent—to three British citizens, it has been a struggle for me to come this far. I imagine how it is for others who do not even have that assurance of having children who are of the common nationality here.

[Virginia Crosbie]

Q What advice would you give them?

Somiya Basar: I would ask them to do the hard work and research, and ask for help. Maybe if you are lucky, after three years, somebody will get in touch with you!

Saliha Rashid: My advice to other women in an abusive situation would be that there is light at the end of the tunnel. There is help available out there; there are organisations such as Women’s Aid that can provide support. For the survivors out there, communities may say that we brought shame, but I always say their shame is our honour, and that is what we hold on to every single day.

[The Chair]

That is a very good note on which to end this session. We are almost at the end of it anyway, so I thank both of this session’s witnesses very warmly on behalf of the Committee. As has been said, coming to give personal testimony of this kind is a very brave thing to do, so we really do appreciate it. Thank you very much. We will move on to the next session.

Examination of Witnesses

Lucy Hadley and Andrea Simon gave evidence.

14:45

[The Chair]

Q We will now hear evidence from the Women’s Aid Federation of England and the End Violence Against Women Coalition. We are grateful to our two witnesses. Once you are ready, will you introduce yourselves to the Committee? I will then ask members of the Committee to ask you questions.

Lucy Hadley: I am Lucy Hadley, the campaigns and policy manager at Women’s Aid Federation of England. We are a national federation of local domestic abuse services across England, with 180 members delivering around 300 local services to women and children. I am here to talk about the expertise of our federation and the survivors we work with on the Bill.

Andrea Simon: My name is Andrea Simon. I am head of public affairs for the End Violence Against Women Coalition. We are a national coalition of more than 85 specialist women’s organisations, academics and other experts working to end violence against women and girls in all its forms. We campaign for improved responses to VAWG both nationally and locally.

[The Chair]

Thank you. We have until 3.15 pm for this session.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Welcome, both; it is good to see you. Could you give us your view on the Bill and, in particular, how you think the domestic abuse commissioner will be able to help your organisations help survivors?

Lucy Hadley: We really welcome the Bill. There has been a long wait to see it here in Parliament, and we are really pleased that it is back. The current context shows how urgently we need to improve protection and support for survivors. There is currently a real postcode lottery in access to support across the country, which is one of the main reasons why the domestic abuse commissioner can make a massive difference to survivors and their access to support.

The impact of covid-19 has been clear: women are telling us that abuse is escalating but it is harder to leave. At the same time, 85% of the service providers we spoke to in March said they had had to reduce or cancel elements of their service provision. The pandemic has landed on top of a difficult funding crisis for our sector. It is vital that the Bill brings forward the legal protections and support that survivors need, and that that is backed with the sustainable funding that life-saving specialist domestic abuse services require across the country. The domestic abuse commissioner, in mapping that provision and monitoring services, can make a real difference in access to support for survivors.

Andrea Simon: I agree. The domestic abuse commissioner in particular is a welcome addition to the Bill. We welcome the powers to ensure that public bodies respond to the commissioner’s recommendations, and the commissioner’s remit in tackling the postcode lottery in service provision.

I think you heard earlier, when the commissioner gave evidence, that we must go further in terms of resourcing a wider range of the community-based services that VAWG victims rely on. It is currently a crucially missed opportunity in the Bill that we do not have a statutory duty that speaks to that wider provision.

It is really important for the End Violence Against Women Coalition that the Bill sets up the crucial principle of equal access to protection and support for all survivors of domestic abuse. We cannot have a situation in law that leaves certain victims behind. In particular, we highlight that migrant victims of domestic abuse are currently left out of the protective measures proposed in the Bill.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Thank you; that is helpful. I did not get a chance to ask the commissioner this, but are you aware of her plans, once we pass the Bill, to map community-based services across the country so that she has the powers to do so? Presumably you welcome that.

Lucy Hadley: Yes, we do. There is a wider question about the mechanisms through which funding is delivered, and it is also about the amount of funding. We currently see year-long funding pots, and commissioners who do not take a strategic approach to domestic abuse and violence against women and girls service provision. We need to overhaul not only the means of long-term, three to five-year funding—secure funding, across the different public bodies that fund support for survivors, whether they are local authorities, police and crime commissioners or the healthcare sector. We also need to ensure that we are funding these services in a more secure way, stopping competitive tendering where it is no longer required, and ensuring that local authorities and other public bodies are held accountable forfunding these services securely and in the long term. That is where the commissioner can really help.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q I will ask just one more question, because I know other colleagues will want to take this up. What are your thoughts on the use of domestic abuse protection orders to help survivors, stop perpetrators and stop the cycle of abuse?

Lucy Hadley: I think the protection order could be really welcome. Our main concern, and what we hear most of all from survivors, is that poor enforcement is the problem with the protection order system. There are a range of protection orders—non-molestation orders, occupation orders and the domestic violence protection order—and survivors’ No. 1 concern with that is poor enforcement.

In our Law in the Making project, which engaged a group of survivors in the development of the Domestic Abuse Bill—you heard from one of those survivors earlier—one woman told us, “My last 11 years were built on 13 harassment warnings, four restraining orders and one non-molestation order, averaging a breach a month.” It is not easy to get a protection order, and when we do get them they are not enforced, time and time again. For us, the key concern with the DAPO is the implementation and the enforcement, and that applies to the new requirements on perpetrators, whether they are requirements to attend a perpetrator programme or to attend drug and alcohol programmes. If that is not in force, and there are not the resources to ensure that the programmes that people are accessing are safe, well monitored and enforced by the police, we are concerned that the orders will not do what they promise to do.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Of course, a key difference between these new orders in the Bill and other orders is that if you breach the order, that is a criminal breach.

Lucy Hadley: Yes, and that is really important. It has been a problem with the DVPO to date, and it is really welcome that that is included.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Q To what degree or does this actually do what is required for the Istanbul convention? If it does, great. If not, what needs to be done?

Andrea Simon: I would say that it does not go far enough in enshrining one of the key principles of the Istanbul convention: article 4(3), which speaks specifically about types of discrimination and how the implementation of the convention by parties should involve taking measures to ensure that the rights of victims are secured without discrimination on any of the grounds that are listed in article 4(3). One of those grounds is migrant status; we do not feel there is enough legal protection in the Bill to ensure that there will not be discrimination in the provision of services and support to migrant victims. To remedy that, it is important to insert the principle of non-discrimination into the Bill. That should be applied to any statutory duty on local authorities, or a wider statutory duty on public authorities to ensure that when they are discharging their responsibilities under the Bill, they are doing so mindfully and in accordance with the requirement under the Istanbul convention not to discriminate against certain categories of victim.

[Christine Jardine]

Q Can you tell us how important you think it might be for victims to have access to local authority welfare schemes? Also, do you think the definition of domestic abuse should apply only to those over 16? Please give a reason for your answer.

Lucy Hadley: I will respond to the question on the definition first. I echo my colleague Andrea’s points on compliance with the Istanbul convention. Another important means of ensuring the Bill is compliant with the Istanbul convention is to include a gender definition, which I know you have heard a lot about today. We believe that the age limit for domestic abuse should remain at 16. We do not feel that it should be lowered, but we absolutely agree that the definition needs to recognise that children are directly affected by living in a household where there is domestic abuse. We know they do not witness it but experience it, and it leads to long-term impacts on their health and wellbeing. Without clarity that they are specifically affected by domestic abuse and are survivors in their own right, we are concerned that we will still see inconsistent responses to recognising children as victims, particularly in the family courts and in other parts of the public sector, so we really support the proposed change.

On the issue of local welfare schemes, we would absolutely like the Bill to do more on welfare for survivors. The Bill rightly recognises economic abuse as a key part of the pattern of abuse that a perpetrator imposes on a victim, and economic abuse has really significant impacts on access to safety for survivors, and on their ability to leave a relationship and rebuild an independent life. Sadly, many welfare reforms have compounded women’s barriers to leaving, from the benefit cap to the two-child tax credit limit and many more. We would like the Bill to introduce a guarantee that the Government will assess the impact of welfare reforms on survivors, and we would also like the Bill to exempt survivors from the benefit cap, because it restricts their ability to move on safely from refuges and to build an independent life after suffering abuse.

Andrea Simon: It is probably unhelpful to extend the criminalisation of under-16s by reducing the age limit. We believe that it is important to have an urgent response or action plan for intimate partner and sexual violence that occurs between under-16s who are in a relationship. At present, the experience of some under-age victims of very serious gender-based and violent crimes committed by perpetrators who are also under 16 can be minimised in a way that they would not if the perpetrator was over 16. That needs to be taken seriously and recognised. We agree 100% with the need for the definition to recognise children and their experiences of domestic abuse, which are often connected to their parents’ experiences, but are also distinct. There are certainly many gaps that need addressing, in terms of service provision for children and the resources that are needed to address children’s needs.

[Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)]

Q As a former magistrate in domestic abuse courts, I have seen women suffer in court and have more trauma imposed on them. How do you feel about the new measures to prevent cross-examination in family courts and to ensure that we can get special measures? How important do you think they are?

Lucy Hadley: At Women’s Aid, we think they are absolutely essential measures, and we are so pleased that the ban on cross-examination is finally being brought forward in the Bill. For survivors who are being re-victimised and re-traumatised in the family courts, it is so important that the ban be in place. I think you heard earlier that we would like it to be strengthened and to apply to all cases where domestic abuse is alleged, not just where there is an evidence test for it. Unfortunately, many women who experience domestic abuse will never tell anyone about the abuse, so having a form of evidence is a challenge.

We would like the Bill to go much further on the family courts, and to deliver a safe family court system for survivors and their children. One of the experts by experience in the project I mentioned earlier told us that the family courts were “horrific, traumatic, psychological warfare”, and that the proceedings replicated the abuse of her relationship. That is what we hear time and again.

The family court estate can feel very unsafe for survivors. Sixty-one per cent. of survivors we surveyed in 2018 had no access to special protection measures at all in court. Those are really basic things like screens, separate entrances and exits, and waiting rooms, which are vital to keep them safe from the perpetrator while they go through family proceedings.

We would like to see the guarantee of special protection measures in the Bill extended from the criminal courts to the family and civil courts, because it is vital that women experience consistency across the different jurisdictions. Many women will never go to the criminal courts, but they will use the family courts, and it is important that they get the same treatment.

Finally, we would like a systemic change in the approach to safe child contact with a perpetrator of domestic abuse. There are really serious issues about the understanding of domestic abuse and coercive control by the family judiciary and professionals in the child contact system. Despite robust judicial guidance in the area—practice direction 12J—we continue to see a very strong presumption that parental involvement in a child’s life is in that child’s best interests, regardless, seemingly, sometimes, of any safeguarding concerns about domestic abuse. We would like to see an end to that assumption of contact in domestic abuse cases, with a focus on child contact arrangements that are always safe and in a child’s best interests.

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

Q We were talking about children and the definition. It seems that both organisations accept that children can be victims, as well as observers. Is that correct?

Andrea Simon: Yes.

[Liz Twist]

Q But the concern is about criminalisation. Will you tell us a little more about that, and are there ways to work around it?

Andrea Simon: Is this for under-16s?

[Liz Twist]

Yes.

Andrea Simon: I think it is probably unhelpful, as I said, to look at criminalising under-16s in terms of the offence of domestic abuse. There are dynamics for young people who are in relationships that are very concerning and worrying, and they need to be tackled, but we are keen that we do not conflate different types of abuse. There are very specific ways of dealing with child sexual exploitation and child abuse, and to conflate that with domestic abuse would be problematic. That is why it is important to recognise, acknowledge and deal with that, and it is certainly important to deal with and tackle attitudes and behaviours among young people in relationships, but it doesn’t necessarily need to sit within this frame.

Lucy Hadley: I agree. We are talking about the impact of living in a household where adults, predominantly, are perpetrating domestic abuse, and the impact that has on a child. Absolutely, there are lots of—sadly, far too many—cases where children and young people experience domestic abuse in their own relationships, but as Andrea said, that requires a strategy, focus, attention and resources, and ways to tackle healthy relationships and to recognise what is not healthy and what is potentially coercive and controlling behaviour. Hopefully, this sex and relationships education that is to become statutory for schools will go a long way to help with that, but the risk of the law conflating child abuse and domestic abuse, and criminalising children who are perpetrating unhealthy behaviours between themselves, is concerning.

[Liz Twist]

Q There are a number of issues here, are there not? One is the issue of under-16 relationships, and clearly that is a real concern, but there is also the issue of how we best protect children who live in a household where there is domestic abuse. They might not only observe that, but feel the direct impact of it. How can we best protect those children, their rights and their access to services?

Lucy Hadley: We absolutely support making clear in the definition that children are impacted by domestic abuse, and that they are survivors in their own right. The amendment tabled today would do that, in addition to statutory guidance that explains the types of impact that domestic abuse has on children, and why just witnessing domestic abuse is not what we mean here; it is about living in an environment of fear and control that has really devastating impacts on children’s wellbeing and development. Clarity in the law and clear guidance would really help.

Andrea Simon: We must be clear as well that children are not just one grouping. There are children in migrant families who are very much failed by the inability of a parent with no recourse to public funds to access the kinds of support and assistance that they need. Children in those families face a number of impacts, such as enhanced child poverty and not being accommodated safely because of their parent’s inability to access safe accommodation.

Where there are language barriers, there are cases where children in migrant families act as translators for their parents. To have to describe to the authorities the abuse that one of your parents has faced is extremely traumatic. That is the context for some migrant children in abusive households.

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

Q Could you outline for us the role that the domestic abuse commissioner will have in helping the court service to understand domestic abuse?

Lucy Hadley: I think the domestic abuse commissioner’s appointment is really helpful right across the public sector. She has duties, and public bodies are required to respond to her recommendations in a range of different areas, from criminal justice to health, as are other Government Departments. That is really important.

However, we need to recognise that the domestic abuse commissioner’s remit is focused on driving up standards, improving practice and ensuring that we have consistent responses to survivors across the public sector. I absolutely think that the commissioner would be able to map special measures, for example, in court systems, or map different practices in different parts of the public sector. However, without the robust legal framework that the Bill could deliver for ensuring equal access and equal provision of measures such as those for special protection, or to ensure that migrant women with no recourse to public funds can routinely and consistently access support, it will be difficult for the commissioner to hold accountable the bodies that they need to. We need the law to be really clear on consistent access to protection and support for survivors; the domestic abuse commissioner can then hold public bodies accountable for that

Andrea Simon: The domestic abuse commissioner has said that having a cross-government framework is really important. We have had the VAWG strategy for some 10 years—a cross-departmental strategy focused on tackling and ending violence against women and girls. The responses of every part of Government need to be co-ordinated. That is very important for the domestic abuse commissioner’s work.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Lots of my questions have been answered. I used to work for the same organisation, so I know that Lucy works with organisations that work with victims of modern slavery. Andrea, do you work with any such organisations, or have any knowledge of modern slavery?

Andrea Simon: Somewhat, because in a previous role I worked in the trafficking sector.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Have you ever dealt with the national referral mechanism?

Andrea Simon: I have, in a previous role, yes.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Me also, many, many times, when I worked for the organisation that Lucy works for. Have you ever seen cases of domestic abuse taken through the national referral mechanism?

Andrea Simon: That is not the purpose of the national referral mechanism.

[Jess Phillips]

Could you explain the purpose of the national referral mechanism?

Andrea Simon: It is to deal with trafficking victims. You would not refer a victim of domestic abuse to the national referral mechanism.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Let us say that a woman had a spousal visa, or did not but was here with a partner, and was essentially being treated like a slave in their home, which would not be uncommon. Would support organisations—including Women’s Aid, where Lucy works—ever refer those women to the trafficking service that exists in this country, run by the Salvation Army?

Andrea Simon: No.

[Jess Phillips]

Q You would never do that. Has any part of the VAWG strategy in this country ever made this suggestion for migrant women? Have there ever been any conversations, in the meetings that you have had, saying that migrant women should be using the national referral mechanism?

Andrea Simon: No.

[Jess Phillips]

Q It is just that the issue has come up a few times today, and I wanted some clarity. I would like a tiny bit more clarity specifically on that. If a migrant woman in, say, Bradford was in a situation and went through the national referral mechanism, what sort of support could she expect from that?

Andrea Simon: It does not necessarily provide support. There is a reflection period—I have forgotten the name—a recovery and reflection period.

[Jess Phillips]

It is called a reflection period.

Andrea Simon: Yes, but it is not the specialist wrap-around support that is run by and for black and minority ethnic and migrant women. That is not replicated through the national referral mechanism.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Would it necessarily be gender-specific?

Andrea Simon: No.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)]

Q We all want public money to go as far as possible, and to go where it will be most helpful. As a result of covid, some £76 million or so is going into the sector to support victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence. How can this Bill ensure that that money goes where it is most needed, and that we, as a society, get the most bang for our buck and the most justice for the money that we are spending?

Lucy Hadley: Just to be clear, it was £27 million for domestic abuse and a further £13 million for sexual violence; I think the other funding pots were for vulnerable children and for other vulnerabilities during this time. That money is absolutely essential; it is really welcome. As I mentioned before, covid-19 has hit this sector at a time when it was already really vulnerable. It has been experiencing a funding crisis for a very long time, so it is vital that the money reaches the services that are protecting and supporting some of the most vulnerable people during this period.

What our member services tell us is that one-off funding pots provide them with no security and no ability to plan ahead or retain and recruit staff for the long term. What we would really like to see underpin the Bill’s very important statutory duty on local authorities to fund support in accommodation-based services is a commitment to long-term funding, so that year on year, services or local authorities do not have to competitively bid into different funding pots. That would provide us with a framework, so that services could plan ahead, get on with doing what they do best, which is supporting vulnerable women and children, and not spend significant amounts of time on tendering processes or bids for different funding pots.

We have estimated that fully funding the Government’s statutory duty would cost £173 million a year in England; that would ensure that the national network of refuges could meet demand. As we know, we are 30% below the recommended number of bed spaces in England, and 64% of referrals to refuges are turned away, so we would like a long-term funding commitment underpin the duty.

[Alex Chalk]

Q May I drill down on one issue that has come up a lot: regional variation, and making sure that the service is more uniform and consistent? As you rightly point out, a lot of money is going through police and crime commissioners. How do you think this Bill will help to provide the tools to ensure that police and crime commissioners in county A are doing as good a job as police and crime commissioners in county B, so that we get the consistency that women and victims deserve?

Lucy Hadley: The duty will include requirements on local authorities to report back to Government. We would really like stronger national oversight of the duty, because refuges are a national network of services. Two thirds of women in refuges are from a different local authority area, so we cannot just leave this to local authorities. We would like to see the national oversight proposed by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government clarified in the Bill. That would help with the national oversight of those different local approaches that you are talking about.

We would really like to see police and crime commissioners and other funders get much more involved in funding support for domestic abuse. That is where the commissioner’s role in mapping and monitoring service provision is really important. There are concerns that a statutory duty on accommodation-based services alone is not the same as the duties that the commissioner has.

[The Chair]

Order. I am afraid that brings us to the end of this very valuable session. I thank our two witnesses very much for giving evidence.

We now move on to the next session. As the Committee is aware, one of our witnesses is giving evidence down the phone, so we will pause for a minute while we make the connection.

Examination of Witnesses

Ellie Butt and Suzanne Jacob OBE gave evidence.

15:15

[The Chair]

Q We will now hear oral evidence from Refuge and, via the audio link, SafeLives. Thank you both very much for giving evidence. I hope everyone will be forgiving of the fact that this is an unusual way of giving evidence, and it may take a minute or two to get it all working properly. Can our two witnesses introduce themselves for the record? Perhaps I will ask Suzanne to do that first.

Suzanne Jacob: Hello everyone. Apologies for not being able to be there in person. My name is Suzanne Jacob, and I am chief executive of SafeLives, which is a UK-wide domestic abuse charity working to end abuse all over the UK. We believe in a whole-picture response to domestic abuse, which means addressing the needs and challenges of every family member—those harming as well as those who are being harmed—and linking issues. We do not see domestic abuse in a silo, but consider how it is closely linked and correlated with issues such as mental health and so on.

Ellie Butt: Good afternoon. I am Ellie Butt, and I am head of policy and public affairs for Refuge, which is a national charity that provides specialist services for survivors of gender-based violence, including refuges and community-based services, and we run the national domestic abuse helpline.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much. We have until 3.45 pm for this session.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Great to have you both with us. Suzanne, I will ask you about perpetrators, because that is a really important part of the Bill. The Government and PCCs have invested in Drive, which is a programme to address serial perpetrators. To what extent is it making a difference?

Suzanne Jacob: Drive is a very important tactical intervention against perpetrators of domestic abuse. It deals specifically with high-harm and high-risk individuals, which means that they pose a risk of serious harm or murder to one or more family members. It is making a difference, and we are extremely proud of the consortium of organisations and funders who have supported it. It has been a very good team effort so far.

Drive responds to one particular cohort of those who use abuse. There is a very broad spectrum of individuals who use abusive behaviours in their family life. With 80-plus other organisations, we are calling for not just Drive but DAPOs and other really important tactical provisions to be set within the context of a comprehensive strategy about the perpetrators of domestic abuse. In exactly the same way, for years we have had a really concerted strategy called Pursue around counter-terrorism, and we have had the same for organised crime. It is overdue, and it could be a really good sign of the Government’s ambitious intent to have a strategy around those who use abuse.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q That is helpful, thank you. What is your view on programmes for perpetrators being included as a positive requirement when DAPOs are issued?

Suzanne Jacob: I think it is really helpful. We are very supportive of the amendment, which Members will have seen, around quality assurance for those programmes. Quality as well as quantity is vitally important when it comes to perpetrator responses, because the risks are very great and we know that, as with any industry, you can get the corner shop or backroom options, trying to do things on the cheap, which is not safe and not effective. So we very much welcome the provision and we would like to see something further, and something solid, in there about the quality assurance process for that.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Thank you, Suzanne. I have one question for Ellie. You will have seen that the Government are bringing forward an amendment to the Bill, to provide that victims of domestic abuse are automatically considered to be in priority need for homelessness assistance. How will this help victims, in your view?

Ellie Butt: We really welcome that amendment. It is something that we worked with other organisations in this sector and the homelessness sector to bring about. It is important particularly for survivors without children, who currently are not entitled to priority need automatically. It will be an enormous help for that group of survivors and we welcome it.

I think there is a lot more to do around housing for survivors of domestic abuse. Hopefully we will come on to talk about it, but the legal duty for refuges is particularly crucial, because there still are not enough places to meet demand; but, yes—absolutely—it is brilliant that that change is being made, and it will offer protection to that particular cohort.

[Victoria Atkins]

Thank you. Colleagues will have lots of questions, so I am going to draw myself in, as it were, now.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

Q My first question is to Ellie, but Suzanne, if you can hear me I will take you as well in the same question. We had the designate domestic abuse commissioner in earlier on and she described how we were taking huge strides and being innovative in our approach to tackling domestic violence, where there is a proper integration of the domestic abuse commissioner position to begin with. Where you do see her, or whoever might hold that post in the future, actually having the most impact?

Ellie Butt: We really welcome the creation of the role of domestic abuse commissioner and the appointment of Nicole Jacobs, who I think is already doing brilliant work in this field. We think her particular strength will be understanding what service provision is going on, mapping that and looking at its quality—the gaps—and reporting and making representations to the Home Office and Parliament about it.

Something that I would really like to see, as well, is her bringing in areas of Government that I think currently do not do enough work in this field. For example, the Department for Work and Pensions has an enormous role here. Something that the Bill is going to do is define economic abuse, within the definition of domestic abuse. That is brilliant, but we want to see much more in terms of protecting survivors of economic abuse. We want to see some changes to the welfare benefits system to bring that about, including making advance benefit payments grants, rather than loans, for survivors of abuse, and the single household payment system being made into a separate payment system. I think Nicole has the capacity in her role—or whoever might follow in that role—to look at what those Departments, which we do not usually hear about when we talk about domestic abuse, are doing. I think there is an awful lot of potential there.

It is also important, though, to recognise that her role is currently a part-time role, with a relatively small budget. She can do lots in bringing issues to light and improving our understanding, but major gaps still need to be rectified through changes to the law and funding, and policy as well.

[Andrew Bowie]

Q Suzanne, I do not know whether you heard my original question, but if you had a shopping list for the new designate domestic abuse commissioner, what would you prioritise for her to focus on?

Suzanne Jacob: Apologies, because I am struggling to hear Ellie, so I may at times repeat some of her no doubt very good points. Everyone in the sector hugely welcomes not just the creation of the role, but the appointment of Nicole Jacobs specifically. She is an extremely adept and well qualified person, and as many people have said she is already making a difference in the role. I think we have to be a little bit careful in terms of overstretching our expectations not just of what the person can do but of what the role can do, and making sure that we do not blur the boundary between the Government’s responsibility and the responsibility of the independent commissioner.

It is particularly important to make sure that we do not end up with things parked with the commissioner that can and should be dealt with much more quickly. For example, at SafeLives, we are concerned that as currently drafted, the statutory duty does not live up to the big ambition that we know the Government have around responding to domestic abuse, supporting as it does just 0.5% of the total of the more than 2 million victims who experience domestic abuse every year.

The mapping process that has been suggested for the commissioner, I would suggest, is a repetition of quite a lot of mapping processes. I have been at SafeLives for five and a half years and I think we have taken part in at least one, if not more, mapping processes with the Government every year that I have been in post. I suggest that, in terms of priority need, it is that cross-Government picture that will be really important. The commissioner made the point clearly that the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice in particular have borne the burden of domestic abuse for many years, but actually every single part of Government has a big role to play. We have not seen all parts of Government playing that role particularly well in the past.

In terms of priorities, it would be brilliant to see the commissioner, as Ellie said as well, resourced to address things such as the family court, domestic homicide reviews, mental health connections to domestic abuse, and the needs of children and young people, which primarily sit outside the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. That is where I would love her to start.

[Peter Kyle]

Q Ellie, you will often be the first point of call when people call the helpline. What are the barriers to support that go beyond the helpline?

Ellie Butt: The national domestic abuse helpline is a national resource that is often, as you say, the first place a women might call if she thinks that she is experiencing domestic abuse, wants to talk to somebody, or is looking for a service or some information or advice. We have seen demand for that service increase hugely since the covid-19 pandemic struck. Our calls and contacts are up by 66% and web traffic, which includes the ability to live chat with our helpline team, has increased by more than 900% in the last few weeks. It is a hugely important and in-demand service.

There is the challenge of just ensuring that we can meet that demand. It is also important for the helpline team and for women calling the helpline that they have somewhere to go and there is a service for them when they call. That is why what is really needed to accompany the Bill is funding for the full range of specialist services that women and children need. We know that there are not enough refuges to meet demand in this country. I have been looking at the stats this week and the number of women calling the helpline, seeking a refuge place and there not being one suitable for them has been slightly increasing over the last few weeks. That is a huge worry. There is a real opportunity with this Bill to fix that and to get the duty right, so the full range of services that women need is there for them.

I know that you have already heard lots of evidence about this today, but the support for migrant women is not good enough. There are often very few options for them if they have no recourse to public funds. Again, the Bill is a real opportunity to fix that so that all women can access the range of services from the specialist third sector and from public services. Those are some of the key challenges when women call the helpline.

[Peter Kyle]

Q With regards to the commissioner, everyone in this room shares your sense of excitement about the creation of the role and pleasure that the appointment has been made. How important is it to you that the role of the commissioner is independent of Government, and is demonstrably independent of Government? Does that make a difference to you?

Ellie Butt: Yes, it does. It is really important that the commissioner has her independence so that she can determine what issues she wants to look into, speak truth to power, have difficult conversations with decision makers, and have the confidence of her independent role so that the organisations that have given evidence today and survivors themselves can work with her. I think it is really important and should be protected and strengthened as much as possible.

[Peter Kyle]

Q  When you look at the legislation as it stands, do you feel it goes far enough? Would you ideally like a commissioner who is freer from Government and reports elsewhere?

Ellie Butt: I know there have been different recommendations about whether the domestic abuse commissioner should report to Parliament or the Cabinet Office. I do not necessarily have strong views on that; it is just crucial that, wherever she is reporting, she has independence. I am open to the Cabinet Office idea, but the relationship with the Home Office is also important, because it is a cross-Government issue, but the Home Office has a key responsibility in this area.

[Peter Kyle]

Q My final question to Suzanne is about cross-examination in family courts. It is a bit strange speaking out into the ether, but I know you are there somewhere, Suzanne. The legislation outlaws the vast majority of cross-examination. Do you believe it goes far enough? If you think it should go further, specifically what else would you like to see?

Suzanne Jacob: I think you have heard from many of the witnesses today what an incredible ordeal family court is at the moment. Anything that can improve that process is important to do, so we at SafeLives are very supportive of the amendments that Women’s Aid has suggested, in terms of going further and getting rid of cross-examination from all parts of the court process when someone is facing an alleged abuser or ex-abuser. That is really important.

There are also a number of other suggested changes from other organisations around the role and expertise of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, for example, which we think are important. There is currently something innately adversarial about the family court process, which makes it an incredibly painful thing for both adults and children to go through. Many, many women who go through the family court process would tell you that they would rather they had just stayed with the abuser rather than go through family court, which is a horrible indictment of our current processes.

[Alex Chalk]

Q I have a couple of brief questions and then something particular, if I may. All of us here will want to make this Bill the best it can be, of course, but do I understand you to welcome in broad terms the fact that there is a Domestic Abuse Bill, in principle?

Ellie Butt: Yes, absolutely.

[Alex Chalk]

Q May I take that a little further? Do you welcome what is contained within it, even if there may be other things you want? Can I take it that there is nothing in here that you think takes the cause of protecting victims backwards? Would you agree that this is all a step in the right direction?

Ellie Butt: I would agree with that. Some of the measures in the Bill have the potential to have a positive impact, but there are some significant problems that need ironing out for them to achieve that potential, particularly the duty to assess need and provide for domestic abuse safe accommodation. There are some big questions about that, one of which is the funding—it really needs to be fully funded to work. Colleagues at Women’s Aid have estimated that that is about £175 million a year. Then what happens to those services that do not fall within that duty? There is a real risk that we could lose those, which is exactly what we do not want.

The Bill has been criticised in places for being too focused on criminal justice. While I think a full range of reforms is needed in all the different areas of life that affect survivors of domestic abuse, there are particular changes that we can make to the criminal law that would increase protection for survivors. Something we at Refuge work on a lot is abuse through technology. There is a big gap in the criminal law at the moment around threats to share intimate images, and survivors do not have recourse. It is a hugely powerful tool of coercion and control, particularly post separation, and there is a real gap there that the Bill could address quite straightforwardly. There is a lot in there, and I take your point, but I also think we need to take the opportunity we have now and make it as good as it can be.

[Alex Chalk]

Q You would not be doing your job if you did not say it could be improved—I quite get that. May I ask one other thing? One particularly powerful bit of evidence that you gave was about how, in recent weeks, the number of calls to the national domestic abuse hotline, which you run, has skyrocketed and you have used live chat to assist. We know that the new domestic abuse commissioner will have a role to scrutinise how all those services are being provided. Would you welcome her coming in to say, “Look, you have had £2 million from the Government to assist with bolstering your services. I, the domestic abuse commissioner, would like to get under the bonnet of what you are doing at Refuge, to really find out whether it is doing what we all hope it should be doing.”?

Ellie Butt: Yes, she is very welcome.

[Alex Chalk]

Is she welcome to come in?

Ellie Butt: Of course. Well, not right now, because we are all working from home—but absolutely. Minister Victoria Atkins has visited the helpline. The domestic abuse commissioner would be more than welcome to do that.

[Alex Chalk]

Q The reason I ask is that we want, of course, to make sure that this critical resource is doing what we expect. We hear evidence from you and we take it at face value, but do you agree that the commissioner can play a role in adding to public confidence that that public money is having the impact that we all wish it to have?

Ellie Butt: Absolutely. I am sure that she can and, at the same time, draw attention to what is not being done and where gaps are. You will have heard already that domestic abuse services are largely run on a shoestring. I would say this, but I think Refuge does brilliant work and lots of the organisations in the sector do brilliant work, but there is absolutely room for that to be scrutinised, for improvements to be made where they need to be made, and for gaps to be filled where they are not funded and there is unmet need.

[Liz Twist]

Q Ellie, can I ask you about children? On Second Reading, a number of MPs talked about their concerns about how children would benefit from the changes in the Bill. Could you tell us where you think it could be improved for children?

Ellie Butt: We support the argument that children need to be in the definition of domestic abuse. Children are victims in their own right; they are never just witnesses. There are some small improvements being made in understanding that, but it needs to go much further.

One thing that struck me when I first started working for Refuge and has never stopped is that on any given day, half the people in our refuges—we provide around 48 refuges—will be children, yet we receive little to no funding to do work and support them directly; we fundraise for that. That is not right. These are hugely vulnerable children who have experienced the trauma of growing up in a house with one parent who is abusive. We need to do so much more for children, including providing specialist services for them.

[Liz Twist]

Q A concern has been raised that if children are not included in the definition, there is a chance that there will be less provision of community-based as well as accommodation-based services. Is that a concern that you share?

Ellie Butt: Yes, it is. We would definitely support them being in the definition. The definition is going to be really important as a driver of awareness and understanding. If they are not in there, that will have an impact. It is going to be used and quoted in training and strategy development and when people are making funding decisions about services in their area. It is really important that if we have a statutory definition, it needs to be comprehensive and include the impact on children as well.

[Liz Twist]

Q Thank you. Can I ask both Suzanne and Ellie what changes you would seek to make to welfare provision, in order to ensure that victims and their children are able to escape violence and oppression? Suzanne, could you start?

Suzanne Jacob: Apologies, but I want to just go back briefly to the previous question, because I did not get the chance to come in. The question was about whether we welcome the Bill overall and think that the current content is okay.

We hugely welcome the fact that there is a Bill. We have always supported it and we will continue to support it. What I would say is that when survivors have looked at the current content of the Bill, their patience and enthusiasm is not quite there anymore, and there is a great deal that we could do about that. What I would not prioritise is having a Bill; what I would prioritise is having the right Bill. Given that we have, for lots of very good reasons, had to wait quite a long time for the Bill to make its way through, I think we can afford to take a little bit more time to make sure that some of the things we have been talking about and other people have been talking about in their evidence are properly addressed, and not just pushed aside in the need to get the Bill on to the statute book.

In particular, in terms of what is currently in the Bill, as I mentioned before, the statutory duty is a very concerning part of the Bill as it is currently drafted. I know that it has very good intentions behind it—I do not doubt that for a second—but it falls into that big, gaping hole between Government Departments and responsibilities, because what we have got is something that speaks only to the very tiny minority of domestic abuse victims who use accommodation-based services and absolutely excludes everybody else.

Having heard the Prime Minister talk eloquently at the hidden harms summit a couple of weeks ago about the role of independent domestic violence advisers, lauding them and saying just what valuable work they do for tens of thousands of people a year up and down the country, it seems very odd that the Bill contains a statutory duty that purposely excludes IDVAs.

I turn to the question about children. SafeLives has grappled with the idea of whether the definition is inclusive enough of children and whether the age limit should be changed. We very much support the Barnardo’s amendment, which suggests that rather than nudging at the age limit—with all the complexities that that brings, as Andrea and Lucy talked about a moment ago—we are in favour of children being recognised as victims in their own right and removing those age barriers. Somebody who is in an abusive situation, whether they are aged five, 13, 24 or 54, is a victim of domestic abuse.

Regarding welfare provision, split payments are something that everyone across the whole sector is crying out for. Surviving Economic Abuse has called for them as something that would make a difference, and it seems to most of us to be common sense.

[Liz Twist]

Q Ellie, did you want to comment on the welfare issue?

Ellie Butt: Yes. It is a huge issue for women in our services. As I said, it is really good that economic abuse will be in the new definition, but we need to do more to try and prevent that abuse and support survivors. Suzanne has already mentioned the single household payment structure, which makes it very easy to control the entire household income. That can act as a real barrier to leaving, because women simply cannot access any of the money that they need to leave.

The other problem is the minimum five-week wait when you apply for universal credit. Lots of women who come into Refuge apply at that point, because that is when their circumstances change, or that is when they apply for welfare benefits for the first time. Then they have that minimum five-week wait, and for many of them it is much longer; because of economic abuse, they might not have been allowed to have a bank account, or they might have fled without their ID documents. It is a really long period of time in which they are largely reliant on food banks and other forms of charitable provision.

Advances are available, but they are loans; they are not grants. They have to be repaid immediately, and they are quite significant deductions. It would be hugely welcome if, in this Bill, the Committee decided to make those advances grants rather than loans. That would hugely help women who are at the point of fleeing an abusive person, as they would not have to make the choice between safety and the real, acute financial hardship that I do not think anyone in this room would think is right.

[The Chair]

Thank you. We only have a couple of minutes, so we will have a quick question from Liz Saville Roberts.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Q We have the domestic violence disclosure scheme and DAPOs, but they both maintain the onus on victims to take the initiative. There has been talk about a register for serial stalkers and domestic abuse offenders, along the lines of the violent and sex offenders register. Why can that not move ahead? What is preventing it? It seems a logical step, to take the onus off the victim or potential victim and shift it on to proven offenders.

[The Chair]

I am afraid that this will have to be a very short answer.

Suzanne Jacob: I am sorry, but I could not hear the question.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Q What is preventing the adoption of a register of serial stalkers and domestic abuse offenders, along the lines of the register of violent and sex offenders, given its importance in shifting the onus away from the victim and on to the perpetrator?

Suzanne Jacob: At SaveLives, we believe very strongly that there needs to be comprehensive work wrapped around perpetrators of abuse. We believe that there need to be individual caseworkers of the kind that are supported by Drive, which the Minister mentioned, and indeed all sorts of other programmes. However, we also believe there needs to be a really strong multi-agency response, co-ordinated either through a multi-agency risk assessment conference, or MARAC, which is an existing procedure, or through a dedicated perpetrator panel.

The creation of another register is not something that we currently support because we know that the post-Soham recommendations were that the police are overwhelmed with the different databases and systems that they have got.

Ellie Butt: At Refuge we agree; we are unsure whether a register would make the significant difference that we need. Part of the problem is that a lot of perpetrators are not known to the police, and that is one of the concerns with Clare’s law as well.

[The Chair]

I am sorry, but that is the end of this part of the sitting. I thank both of our witnesses very much for their evidence this afternoon. It is much appreciated.

Examination of Witnesses

Giselle Valle and Lyndsey Dearlove gave evidence.

15:45

[The Chair]

We will now hear oral evidence from the Step Up Migrant Women campaign and from Hestia. Thanks to our witnesses for coming. Will you please introduce yourselves for the record? Then members of the Committee will ask you questions.

Lyndsey Dearlove: I am Lyndsey Dearlove. I am head of UK SAYS NO MORE—Hestia’s national prevention campaign—and from the charity Hestia.

Giselle Valle: Hi. My name is Giselle Valle. I am director of the Latin American Women’s Rights Service. We are a human rights organisation led by and for Latin American women. We are a feminist organisation working with migrant women. Very shortly we will be leading the Step Up Migrant Women campaign and coalition of over 50 organisations in the migrant sector, women’s sector and social justice sector.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Thanks for coming. I was going to ask you to explain what the Step Up Migrant Women coalition is, but you have done that. It is lots of different organisations. The Step Up Migrant Women’s coalition is calling for several things to be part of the Bill that currently are not. Can you give us a quick rundown of those?

Giselle Valle: Yes, we are asking for four things. The first one is to include provision mirroring the Istanbul convention on protection for all victims of domestic abuse. The second one is establishing a separate reporting pathway for migrant victims of domestic abuse. The third one is an extension of the domestic violence rule and destitute domestic violence concession to include not only a longer period of time for the concession, but also higher eligibility for women who are not married to British citizens. The last one is to allow migrant victims to remove the no recourse to public funds requirement in visa applications for migrant victims of domestic abuse.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Specifically on domestic violence and destitution—it used to be called something else, and I still want to call it that—you can get destitution funding only if you are on a spousal visa. Is that correct? So that means you come here as a partner of somebody who is British or European and was living in another part of the world. Is that correct?

Giselle Valle: That is correct. It only applies to spouses of British citizens living outside. For example, one of the survivors who gave testimony today—Gil—was completely left outside on the basis that she was not married. So it leaves a high amount of domestic abuse among migrant victims outside of the protections.

[Jess Phillips]

Q On the women you work with at LAWRS, as well as in the Step Up Migrant Women coalition—let us leave the people who are on a spousal visa to one side—what sorts of visas do the other groups of women that you support have?

Giselle Valle: The ones that are lucky to have the required visas can be on partner visas or family reunification visas. This is a crime that can also touch on children when there is domestic abuse within the family, not other types of abuse. We also have women who are on working visas or student visas who have become undocumented, sometimes through no fault of their own—a lot of the time, really. There is a wide range of visas that women are on.

[Jess Phillips]

Q So if you are a student in this country and you came over here from, let’s say, Venezuela, and you were abused by your partner, you currently would not be able to access a refuge. Is that correct?

Giselle Valle: You are not able to access a refuge; you are not able to access any state support; and you are more likely than not to be turned away by the police when you try to report these crimes. The services you are going to be able to access are going to be very limited.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Have you seen any cases where victims of domestic violence have come forward and ended up in immigration detention?

Giselle Valle: Yes. We have a report with King’s College London that was published last year that pointed to four cases of women who came to report a crime and found themselves in detention.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Thank you. Quickly to Lyndsey, I think that Hestia are specifically looking at some of the issues around children in the Domestic Abuse Bill, if I remember the 17,000 briefings that I have read in the past week. What exactly do you want to see from the Bill?

Lyndsey Dearlove: One of the key things is seeing children recognised as victims in their own right. That in turn will mean that they can access funding, which will then mean investment in recovery. We have seen time and time again that provision for children is very varied across the country, and also dependent on funding: depending on what year you went to a service, for example, you would get support.

The other piece is the fact that lots of support for children is centred on accommodation. If you are accessing a refuge, then you have support because you are in the home, but a huge group of people are not accessing refuges and living within their own homes, being supported by independent domestic violence advocates. Those children in particular are seeing the same level of domestic abuse and experiencing very similar impacts on their emotional, psychological and practical needs, but have no access to support. What we want to see is a strong focus on the provision for support as that turns into protection and stopping the repeat victimisation of individuals. For us, it is about having a very clear mention of how children are victims in their own right.

[Jess Phillips]

Q From your experience as a provider of services—you provide refuge accommodation, is that correct?

Lyndsey Dearlove: Yes, we do.

[Jess Phillips]

And community support?

Lyndsey Dearlove: Yes, we do.

[Jess Phillips]

Both of them. Okay, great.

Lyndsey Dearlove: And MARAC.

[Jess Phillips]

Q And MARAC—multi-agency risk assessment conference. From your experience in the areas where you operate, if a child living outside of a refuge—let us say, a high-risk MARAC case—came forward to the MARAC, how many times out of 10 do you think that child would be getting specialist support for the domestic abuse they are suffering?

Lyndsey Dearlove: I spent a couple of years as a MARAC co-ordinator, and I managed a MARAC in London. In that time, the provision of support for young children was about whether they met the threshold for social services, and in that instance, the support was about keeping them safe. At no point was there any offer of provision to enable children to look at their own mental health and examine their traumatic experience, because that provision just did not exist within the community.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q We all speak in acronyms, but for anyone who is not familiar with the term MARAC, can you please explain what it is?

Lyndsey Dearlove: A multi-agency risk assessment conference falls very much in line with the co-ordinated community response model, which is about bringing as many organisations together as possible and them all seeing that domestic abuse is a core issue. It entails a group of individuals who are named by their organisations to present and represent the cases on which they work. The majority of MARACs focus on the entire family: provision is put in place to keep the victim safe along with their children, but they also focus on prevention and holding the perpetrator to account.

When MARACs work well, they can be really effective. However, one of the challenges with MARACs is that although we have a huge need for people’s cases to be heard, the threshold for reaching and being heard at MARAC is often being deemed to be high risk. Obviously, risk is incredibly dynamic when it comes to domestic abuse, and with MARAC being once a month, your risk can change from day to day: you could have been able to use it, but then you cannot.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q I am interested in your thoughts on children, Lyndsey. I think we all accept and agree about the impact that domestic abuse can have on children living in households. I do not know whether you are familiar with clause 1 of the Bill, which specifically refers to abuse and to children being used as a form of abuse. Do you think that will help?

Lyndsey Dearlove: I think it is very important for us to recognise it, and it needs to be recognised by the professionals within the criminal justice system. We know from numerous experiences—it is something that victims of domestic abuse tell us nearly every day—that domestic abuse does not end at the point of separation, and that in the criminal justice system, especially around family courts, children are consistently used as a weaponised tool to control and prevent somebody from moving on into a new space.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Giselle, thank you so much for joining us today. I was struck by your comment that the women whom you are helping are likely to be turned away by the police. Why do you think that is? The police should investigate any offence, regardless of one’s nationality or immigration status.

Giselle Valle: Because in our experience what happens is that the police focus very quickly on immigration status. Once they find that somebody’s immigration status is not secure, they outright deny the service and say, “Just go back to your home country,” or they refer them to the Home Office so that they get sent back to their country. This process ensures not only that the women will not be supported, but that perpetrators are actually getting away with it, just on that basis alone.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q How common do you and your organisation believe this is?

Giselle Valle: In our organisation it is quite prevalent. A referral to the Home Office instils such fear that it is really difficult to convince women to go to the police, even when they are supported by our organisation. A freedom of information request—I think it was one or two years ago—revealed that about 60% of police forces in the country make referrals to the Home Office, which essentially closes the door on women who are experiencing domestic abuse and thinking about reporting it to the police, but who realise it would be highly dangerous for them and sometimes for their children, so they refrain from doing so.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q I appreciate that it was a FOI request, but do you know what was asked by the police of immigration enforcement?

Giselle Valle: The question was about referrals to the Home Office. They said, “Yes, we do.”

[Victoria Atkins]

Q The reason I am asking is that it may have been that the police were checking the status. I am trying to understand where the 60% figure has come from.

Giselle Valle: I think the question is about referrals, not about checking immigration status. It is about actual referrals to the Home Office.

[Peter Kyle]

Q Obviously the conversation we are having is framed around the Bill, because we are starting the process of the Bill Committee. There is a lot more that you want in terms of protecting children and young people. Lyndsey, if the Bill did not exist, how would you approach the legislative challenge of protecting young people and giving them the kind of protection that you believe children need?

Lyndsey Dearlove: I think there are two parts to it. The Bill now speaks to big issues, but there are some practical issues that can make a real difference for children who have experienced domestic abuse. Some of that is about looking at their interaction with the NHS and at how they can maintain their appointments. One woman, who has allowed me to tell her story, came into our refuge after she had waited about 18 months for a referral to a speech therapist; she was concerned about her daughter’s speech. The social worker in the area told her that she had to leave and move into a refuge. After arriving in the refuge, she waited another 8 months for a referral to speech therapy. She was then rehoused, but her child was too old to benefit from speech therapy. Having a protected status on NHS waiting lists can be really important and can enable somebody to make the decision to leave and flee, without having that as a hindrance.

The other factor is looking at children’s access to schools and making sure they have that as soon as possible. Within primary schools the time can be quite reduced, dependent on which area of London you are in. If you are talking about secondary schools and GCSEs, getting a child back into school and into a school rhythm is exceptionally important. We now see that children have been forced to travel, pre-covid-19, across two or three boroughs. Unfortunately, in one instance, a gang picked up this young person, whose movement was known because they were going backwards and forwards, and used them to transport drugs. We know those opportunities increase vulnerabilities for children. If we can do some of the really simple, practical measures that can reduce that, they do make a big difference.

[Peter Kyle]

Q The commissioner would have the power to make recommendations to other Government Departments. Although not everything is mentioned in the Bill, there is a vehicle for taking things forward and engaging with other Departments. We cannot predict the future, but do you think that, based on the powers you see in the Bill, the commissioner will have an unignorable voice in trying to get the changes for the two circumstances you have just illustrated?

Lyndsey Dearlove: I am going to be honest and say this: when multi-agency risk assessment conferences were launched in the UK, we all came together as professionals and we stepped up. We did excellently for the first couple of years at making sure the right information was on the right days, and that everybody was sitting in the room listening to the right topics. We know that has dissipated over the past couple of years, so holding to people to account and having legislation in place will always be valuable. We cannot underestimate the value of having a Bill that talks about children and makes provision directly for children who are experiencing domestic abuse.

[Peter Kyle]

Q Is that diminution because of the normalisation of that, or the frequency? Why would that happen?

Lyndsey Dearlove: It is about prioritisation. It is about capacity. It is about having the right person in the post who gets the right set of training. We know that people move on into different roles, and there is a transition. It is about what we must not have. Someone said to me very early on that we must not have people who are championing issues around domestic abuse who then retire or move on to different roles, and that championing disappears. We have to have a consistent voice, because our victims are consistently telling us the same thing.

[Peter Kyle]

Q So we need something that is unignorable? Part of that is about creating the opportunity for it, and part of it is making sure that the vehicle that is created is filled by the right person—not just now, but into the future.

Lyndsey Dearlove: Yes, and the domestic abuse definition is incredibly important. That is used so much either to enable people to access services, or sometimes as the gatekeeper. It is vital to have the right definition that speaks to all the people who experience domestic abuse and understands those experiences. Including economic abuse within that is absolutely imperative.

[Nickie Aiken]

Q I was interested in what you said about the MARACs, having been responsible for MARACs in a previous life. What do you think the Bill will do, if anything, to strengthen MARACs and the ability to work across agencies?

Lyndsey Dearlove: The Bill talks around MARACs quite efficiently and gives additional powers to the police and the criminal justice system. However, it does not look at the third sector’s involvement in MARAC, or at making it a statutory obligation for people to be at that table and ensuring that the people who come to the table bring the right information and act on it.

In a way, the Bill will be great because we will see a resurgence in attention, but the reality is that in a couple of years’ time we will be saying the same things. We cannot let that happen. MARAC, and attention to detail around victims of domestic abuse and safety planning, must remain an incredibly important and prioritised issue in all agencies.

[The Chair]

Does anyone else have any questions? In that case, thank you very much for your evidence this afternoon.

Examination of Witness

Dame Vera Baird QC gave evidence.

00:00

[The Chair]

We will now hear from Dame Vera Baird QC. When you are settled, please introduce yourself formally to the Committee, and then we will move on to the questions.

Dame Vera Baird: My name is Vera Baird. I have been the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales since last June.

[Jess Phillips]

Q There has been a huge amount of talk about commissioners in here today—it’s been commissioner, commissioner, commissioner—so it is good to have another one in front of us. As well as your role as the Victims’ Commissioner—I think other people are going to ask you about that and about how the two roles will work in tandem—I want to ask you a couple of questions about some of the experience you gained from being a police and crime commissioner. That is a vital resource, but we have not been given any evidence by the police today, which is potentially not great.

Quite a big part of the Bill is about domestic abuse protection orders. I know that when you gave evidence to the Joint Committee, you had some concerns about how, certainly in the pilot, they were being used—about whether they were onerous and whether police forces were likely to use them versus bail options. Could you go into that a little bit for us?

Dame Vera Baird: We put it in written evidence to the last Bill Committee. Yes, we did have some concerns about DAPOs. What is very desirable, and admirable in the Government, was the decision to pilot DAPOs so that we can work out the pros and cons of different aspects of them.

There are a number of things: civil, criminal, by the complainant, by the police and by a third party without the complainant’s consent—that one worries me immensely. There is obviously a great range of things. The very positive thing about DAPOs is the addition of the capacity to add positive requirements on a DAPO. Used well, I think that could have a quite transformative effect, although I suspect it will have to be very proportionate. One would want to say that this is a route to getting good-quality perpetrator programmes in terms of the conduct of a perpetrator who has got a DAPO with a positive obligation to go on a perpetrator programme, but I doubt whether that would be proportionate actually. I suspect that all you could do is to require him to go and have an assessment for a perpetrator programme. I am not a great civil lawyer; in fact, I am not a great lawyer at all.

[Jess Phillips]

Well, you are a better one than me.

Dame Vera Baird: You have advantages I don’t have.

[Jess Phillips]

I have other skills.

Dame Vera Baird: Years ago, there was a conditional caution for women. The condition on the caution was to go to have your needs assessed at a women’s centre. I was worried that that was not sufficiently strong, but it clearly could not be much more. You cannot order somebody on a 10-year course or a five-month course as a condition of something small like a caution. In fact, it didn’t matter in that particular example, because the women’s centre, once it has assessed someone’s needs, will keep someone to get them through. I do not know if the same is going to apply here.

I am guessing that the Government must have looked at this and that the positive requirements will have to be in proportion to the fact that it is an order about curbing your conduct of a fairly minor kind. Although it looks as if it might open the door to early intervention with perpetrators to put them on a positive way out, I am not sure whether that is not over-optimistic. But that is how I greeted that aspect of DAPOs when they first came out.

What I think is problematic about them is whether they will be enforced. Quite a small percentage of domestic abuse cases have DVPOs in the first place. They are used really very rarely. It is somewhere between 1% and 2%. One suspects it will be the same again in connection with DAPOs. Why would it be different? I do not suppose the third-party provision or the individuals provision is going to multiply it by 10. The Government have some quite optimistic views about how many of these would be granted. It is not just that they are not used, but that they are not enforced when they are broken. That calls them into question.

[Jess Phillips]

Q So you think there needs to be a review process, and you welcome that it is a pilot.

Dame Vera Baird: I do, and I definitely want it to be piloted. They have to reconcile that position between an individual getting one and there being some positive attachment. Somebody is given the responsibility to supervise that positive attachment, but if it happens to be, “Go on a perpetrator programme while you’re still staying with her,” she needs to have a voice in that as well. There are a lot of complexities, but when I have reflected on it, they are better than DVPOs. One hopes that they will become the go-to and that DVPOs will disappear.

[Jess Phillips]

Q It will take time. Let us stick with the idea of perpetrators, not necessarily of domestic abuse but of other crimes, whose criminality could be linked to their victimisation through domestic abuse. Having run a women’s centre for many years for female offenders, I am only too aware of the levels of domestic abuse of women in that particular estate. Their victimhood is one of the most important things about that. Do you have anything that you think needs to go into the Bill, or into the amendments that may be proposed, to look at how we change the way we see victims in the criminal justice system?

Dame Vera Baird: I do. The definition of domestic abuse now shows the multifaceted nature of control and that it is used, specifically, to exercise control. We are now getting a broader understanding that that is the nature of domestic abuse and that it makes a person incapable of doing something without the consent of the perpetrator, who has so undermined their self-esteem that they have lost all will to do their own decision making.

You have to acknowledge that, in the same way that a victim will not go to the supermarket without being told that they can, or if they are told that they are cannot, and will not talk to their mother if they are told they cannot, they can also be told to commit criminal offences. Some 60% of women in custody have been victims of domestic abuse, and many of them are victims of domestic abuse as they are committing offences, so it speaks a very loud story about how victims can and are being used in that way. Those women have done relatively small things—probably dealt small amounts of drugs on behalf of their perpetrator—and a great deal more damage has been done to them than anything they have done in terms of their criminality.

There is an urgent need, in my view, to parallel that understanding, which the definition clearly shows is about undermining will and gaining full control, to have a defence that offers a person in that position the opportunity to say to the court, “I would not have done this if I hadn’t been compelled to do it.” It is analogous with section 45 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, where there is absolutely such a defence for a relatively low level of criminality, and no one would ask for more. In terms of the difference between the way in which people who are victims of modern slavery are, as it were, enslaved, and the way that victims of coercive control are totally controlled, I cannot draw a cigarette paper between the two—not that I smoke.

[Jess Phillips]

Me neither.

[The Chair]

Thank you. So that people can indicate, if they are not on the list, I am now going to call Minister Chalk, then I have Mike Wood, Christine Jardine, Peter Kyle and Liz Twist.

[Alex Chalk]

Q Dame Vera, there are so many questions I would like to ask you, but I will ask just a couple if I may. To pick up on the point that you just mentioned, you are of course the Victims’ Commissioner, and you therefore want to stand up on behalf of those who are victims of crime, correct?

Dame Vera Baird: Yes.

[Alex Chalk]

Q Given the point that you just made, we always have to bear in mind that people can be victims of crime perpetrated by women as well as by men, yes?

Dame Vera Baird: Yes, of course.

[Alex Chalk]

Q We have to make sure that there remains confidence in the criminal justice system so that those who are victims of crime, whoever commits that crime, get justice. That is important, is it not?

Dame Vera Baird: Of course it is, and the interaction between a victim and a defendant is often present in a range of material ways.

[Alex Chalk]

Q Can I ask you about something that we have not talked about too much but that I think is very important—domestic abuse protection notices? The Bill puts a lot of power in the hands of the police to say to someone, “Right, I suspect that you are putting someone at risk of domestic abuse.” On the basis of not a lot of evidence, they can effectively say, “Right, I’m applying a notice. If you breach that, it’s arrestable, and you are going to be inside until you get before a magistrates court.” We think that is appropriate, strikes the right balance and is necessary. Do you have any concerns? Does that strike the right balance? Does it go too far?

Dame Vera Baird: It seems to me to strike the right balance. There is often the need for an urgent move to be made to remove the risk, and that seems quite right to me. I lament very strongly the loss of pre-trial bail conditions. They are a simpler way to do it than a notice like this, so please do restore pre-trial bail to the police.

[Alex Chalk]

Q Thank you for that, and thank you for the point you made about the notices, because they are robust. It is helpful to have your views on that.

The final thing I want to ask about briefly is special measures directions and the ability for people to give their best evidence. Do you welcome what is in the Bill to allow vulnerable people to feel more comfortable about the court process, and to do themselves justice when they are before a court speaking about something that may be very traumatic for them?

Dame Vera Baird: But it does not go nearly far enough, Minister. You have extended special measures in criminal proceedings so that they are automatically available for a domestic abuse victim—absolutely excellent —but in family proceedings, and indeed in civil proceedings, people who are vulnerable or intimidated are just as vulnerable or intimidated as they are in criminal proceedings, and just as much in need of giving their best evidence. I really have no understanding of why you do not just extend special measures to all courts. They are subject to proper identification of vulnerability and a process that follows, and the judiciary have the final say. It seems to me that that is far and away the best thing to do. It is very straightforward and simple, and can give people that advanced assurance that they are going to be able to give their evidence in a protected way. That is obviously what you are aiming for by extending them to domestic abuse victims in criminal cases.

[Alex Chalk]

Thank you for those observations.

[Christine Jardine]

Q You were talking about victims of domestic abuse. In dealing with victims of domestic abuse, how often do you come across evidence of it being a misogynistic crime? How often are they victims of some sort of misogyny? Do we need to look at how the two interact?

Dame Vera Baird: That is a very interesting point. There may be that situation, but it has not made itself—if I can put it this way—systemically evident to me. Lyndsey was talking about the MARAC, and we had a thing in Northumbria called MATAC, which was a MARAC for perpetrators. You could see men who had left behind a trail of damaged women. They were not high-level and dangerous, but they were repeat. They got on extremely well with their mothers, who took them in every time, and the next girlfriend along the line, who took them in every time. Indeed, they had no difficulty with female probation officers, female staff and so on. I do not know whether there is an evident link between the two, but I see domestic abuse more as a determination to control that individual than as a piece of evidence of general misogyny.

[Christine Jardine]

Q Something that has come up several times today is children as victims of domestic abuse. Do we need an explicit recognition of the fact that a child does not actually have to be the victim? Being a witness de facto makes them a victim of the abuse, and that goes forward through their lives. Do we need some sort of recognition of that?

Dame Vera Baird: Yes. I am quite clear that children in a family in which there is domestic abuse are victims of domestic abuse, not bystanders or witnesses. In my view, that needs to be made explicit in the legislation. People have already talked about what could follow—better support, welfare, services and so on. It would also bring them into the Victims’ Commissioner’s remit, where they ought to be.

I think that change would also weaken children’s invidious position in the family courts, where it is possible to find that domestic abuse has been perpetrated by partner A on partner B, but that partner A, the perpetrator, is none the less parenting well. However, if it is understood that a child is a victim of A’s perpetrating violence—or domestic abuse without violence—on B, it will be much harder for the court to find that the person who has victimised them is parenting well. I am very troubled by the presumption of shared parenting that seems to trump practically everything else in the family court. I am very hopeful that, if one expressly makes children victims, that will undermine the strength of that presumption.

However, I hope—far more strongly even than that—that, at some point in the development of the Bill and its passage through Parliament, the Family Law Panel will report, and that what it suggests can be taken into the Bill’s provisions. In a way, to go ahead with this Bill without waiting for the outcome of that review is to miss a key opportunity. Let us face it: this is a once-in-a-generation Bill. They only come up that often, so it should be as comprehensive as possible and should certainly include some recommendations from that review.

[Mike Wood]

Q Dame Vera, there have been suggestions that the remit of the domestic abuse commissioner may be changed to being a rather different, more general violence against women and girls commissioner. What are your thoughts?

Dame Vera Baird: I would have preferred it to be a VAWG commissioner in the first instance, and indeed would still prefer it to be there now. One thing that is very evident—this is obviously not a criticism of the domestic abuse sector—is that the sexual violence sector is underplayed in the context of domestic abuse, which is a much bigger numerical problem, and is seen as something more linked with violence, but actually almost inevitably involves sexual exploitation and abuse.

If you want to abuse your intimate partner, a key tool is to sexually abuse them so that you undermine them even further. Had it been a VAWG commissioner, I think it would have meant that there was a better opportunity to bring forward the sexual violence sector, and to see the organisations in it as very important and needing the same sort of systemic funding that the domestic abuse sector is now beginning to get, particularly following this Bill, if the Government extend the statutory duty, as I know many people have suggested. That will be good for the sector, but the sexual violence sector needs funding just as effectively, so I think a VAWG commissioner would have been good.

I do not know why, but, in a sense, the Bill seems to me, from a sort of small p political point of view, to be slightly hung in the past. I understood why it was kept narrow, and that it was to cover only domestic abuse and only a domestic abuse commissioner, while the Government did not have a majority; if it became bigger, and therefore more controversial, because extra clauses and amendments were put on it, or if it widened into VAWG, there was not a majority to get it through. But now there is a huge majority to get it through. You can afford to take on all these exquisite ideas that are coming to you and have done all day. I really think you should pause and think about doing that. I am in such a hurry to get it home, so that it can help, but all the same, there are many more things that you could do with the Bill—many more.

[Mike Wood]

Q Following on from that, I want to raise an issue about funding. Obviously, you worked extremely effectively with the designate domestic abuse commissioner to help get covid funding to victims groups, both within the domestic abuse sector and more broadly. I thank you for everything you have been doing on that.

Touching on an issue that Jess raised earlier, how do you see the future relationship between the two roles, working together to magnify their effectiveness rather than duplicating each other’s work?

Dame Vera Baird: I think we have got off to a flying start, really, because it has all been condensed and magnified by the presence of covid. We had to get our heads together and do what we could. If we can have a close continuing relationship—after this experience, I see absolutely no reason why not—then, because we are sponsored by different Departments, we might be able to bring the Departments closer together in the interests that Nicole and I share. That would be a great boon, because one of the things that slowed up the delivery of funding to the charities that I think are now getting it is the difficulty of tying up funding from one Department with funding from another; you need a package that joins the two. I am hopeful that we might be able to play that role, too.

At the moment, there are no clashes of interest, and I cannot envisage any. The domestic abuse commissioner has a call at 11 o’clock on Monday with helpline providers and people in the domestic abuse sector where much of the talk is undoubtedly about victims of domestic abuse. At the same time, I have a call with all the victims hubs that the PCCs fund, and much of the time we are talking about victims of domestic abuse. There is a clear overlap, but we can tell the difference.

I may take a bit of licence here; perhaps I should not, but Minister Chalk helped me to mention the overlap between victims and defendants, which persuades me to talk a little about perpetrator programmes, which I am keen to see. That on the face of it does not look like a Victims’ Commissioner issue, but it is one because you always need to invest in victims’ services within a perpetrator programme. I would really like to emphasise how important it is never to take funding from the victims sector to give to perpetrators but, on the other hand, to fund separately a proper system of perpetrator programmes that get people early on.

The phoneline at Respect has had a large increase in calls during covid, I think because when people are boxed up with their own inclinations, they are frightened by them and able to reach out. That is one cohort of people. At the completely opposite end is a cohort of people currently dealt with by the Drive project, who are very different indeed. You need to have a whole matrix of tools in the box to ensure that at whatever stage a perpetrator is brought out to be changed, you have got that whole system to fit them into the right place. That is also a bit missing from the Bill. Having said positive things about DAPOs and how they may go forward, I would have wished for more expression of an urgent need to have a systematic programme for perpetrators.

[The Chair]

Thank you. I will call Liz Saville Roberts, then Peter Kyle, Virginia Crosbie and Liz Twist. We are finishing at 4.45 pm, so if there is a moment—[Interruption.] No, we are finishing at 4.30 pm, so we have almost no time at all. I am really sorry; this is a shorter session.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Q You talked about the coercive and controlling nature of relationships. In the past we have talked about the need for a domestic abuse register. I know there is resistance, but given the reality of victims’ experiences and the fact that DAPOs, notices—to a degree—and certainly the domestic violence disclosure scheme keep the onus on the victim to act, what can we do to move gradually towards a register? I know there is resistance from the police, with concerns about the additional workload, but we need to change the culture. That came up with the MARAC earlier on. What do we need to do to bring a register forward?

Dame Vera Baird: I am not over-keen on the idea of another register. What would probably be good for the kind of serial but not necessarily high-risk perpetrator I mentioned would be to get them into multi-agency public protection arrangements. It is probably better to think in terms of an institution that is already present, and get perpetrators into that, than it is to invent another separate way of recording the fact that they are a perpetrator.

[The Chair]

I’m afraid that is the end of the session. I apologise for that; I was in the half-hour session groove. Thank you for giving evidence.

Examination of Witnesses

Simon Blackburn and Sara Kirkpatrick gave evidence.

16:30

[The Chair]

We will now hear evidence from the Local Government Association and from Welsh Women’s Aid. Please introduce yourselves to the Committee, and we will then move on to the questions.

Sara Kirkpatrick: Good afternoon and thank you so much for inviting me. My name is Sara Kirkpatrick and I am the CEO of Welsh Women’s Aid. I am trying to be short and sweet. I could introduce my organisation but that feels a bit unnecessary.

Simon Blackburn: I am Simon Blackburn and I am the chair of the Local Government Association’s Safer and Stronger Communities board, and the leader of Blackpool Council.

[The Chair]

We will move on to the questions, I call first on Alex Davies-Jones.

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

Q Sara, would you give us some information on your experience given the changes in legislation made by the Welsh Government, and maybe some of the impacts we are looking at in the Bill. Will you give us some of your experiences on that, and have they worked?

Sara Kirkpatrick: Some really exciting things have come out of the Welsh legislation, particularly the idea of taking that broader lens—the lens of violence against women and girls—in recognising that domestic abuse is an aspect of violence against women and girls. So there is that commitment to a gendered understanding and a gender-informed offer which does not exclude but ensures that all services are offered in an appropriate way, because gender-informed services are hugely important. For me, that part of the legislation is one of the most exciting things.

The other thing would be the “Ask and Act” legislation that we have enacted in Wales. It has ensured that training for statutory organisations is provided and has really secured connections with specialist services, so that we are not asking non-specialist organisations to provide support. We are ensuring that they are equipped to do their job well and to connect effectively with specialist survivor organisations across the country.

[The Chair]

I am sorry to have to say this, because I know it is enormously difficult, but please try to respond to the microphone even though you are not facing the person. It is for Hansard in particular. It is nobody’s fault, it is just a problem with the layout. We are probably all right now.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Q What changes do you think are needed in the Bill to ensure that the Government protect the victims and their children in Wales?

Sara Kirkpatrick: For me, the significantly important part is to ensure that this legislation—England and Wales legislation—aligns with the Welsh legislation so that we do not have gaps or inconsistencies where things fall through. Some matters are devolved and some matters are not devolved. One thing of particular concern to Welsh Women’s Aid, specifically around family law, is that the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service is a department within the Welsh Government—Cafcass Cymru is a different organisation from CAFCASS in the UK—and family courts are part of the Ministry of Justice offer, so it is about ensuring that those things align, so that no citizens of Wales are disadvantaged by the gaps between legislation.

It feels important to me to say that it is incumbent on Westminster that there are no gaps. The idea of the devolved Administrations is that the citizens of different countries get the best in their country, and we do not want people to be worse off.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Thank you.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q My first question is to Councillor Blackburn. I hear Blackpool has been sunny this week—I declare an interest.

The Bill places a duty on tier 1 local authorities to provide support services to domestic abuse victims and their children in safe accommodation. Do you welcome that? What can we do to help you and your colleagues to implement that?

Simon Blackburn: We absolutely do welcome the duty and we want to make sure that local authorities are equipped to enact that duty in an appropriate way. There are a number of points to make.

Although the provision of safe and secure accommodation for victims, survivors and their children is absolutely fundamental, it represents a failure in all the systems. We should not be in a place where that is the only thing that local authorities are doing. There should be early intervention and prevention work taking place to make sure that women are not being removed from their homes and that, wherever possible, it is the perpetrators lives that are being disrupted.

Funding for domestic abuse services comes from the Government to a variety of different actors; local authorities are only one of those. Some funding is distributed directly to the third sector, some to police and crime commissioners and some to parts of the health service. It is important that we think about whether an opportunity ought to apply to those organisations as well. I do not think local authorities are the only people that can fix this.

In broad terms, we welcome the emphasis and the responsibility, but we want to see early intervention, prevention and community-based services given as much weight as accommodation-based services.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Could you help us with domestic abuse local partnership boards, which will be used to help ensure that this duty is delivered? There have been a lot of questions, understandably, about the impact of domestic abuse on children. The local partnership boards are required to include someone who is representing the interests of the children of adult victims. What advice would you give to your council colleagues about how these boards can be most effective in addressing the needs of local residents?

Simon Blackburn: It is important that the needs of children are put at the forefront of what local authorities do. In all social work assessments that should come through and be very clear. There will be differences in practice between one local authority and another. There may be a more informal disposal—for want of a better word—such as asking parents to engage with parenting classes or providing family support. The point at which that tips over into the local authority offering a formal assessment of need will vary from one area to another, depending on the services available. What should be consistent throughout is the threshold at which, for instance, a section 47 inquiry begins, because a child is deemed to be at risk of significant harm. That should not vary from one area to another.

In terms of the boards and partnerships that you refer to, I would think there would need to be somebody senior from the children’s social services department on that board. It is also possible that some form of guardian ad litem, or some independent representative of the needs of children, could sit on that board.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Finally, the Government are bringing forward an amendment to the Bill to provide that victims of domestic abuse are automatically considered to be in priority need for homelessness assistance. What are your views on that proposal?

Simon Blackburn: It is clear that victims and their children are in need of priority assistance and certainly local councils would not shy away from that. There are, however other groups of people who local councils have been asked to give priority to, such as former servicemen and women, ex-offenders and victims of modern slavery. The council housing and social housing stock can only be so elastic. For instance, in my own local authority in Blackpool, were a victim or survivor to require a four-bedroomed house, I have five such houses and they are all occupied at the moment, with a waiting list potentially between five and 10 years.

We would need to look at some flexibility in terms of funding, and at discharging that duty potentially in the private sector—where, of course, it is not possible for a local authority to guarantee a lifetime tenancy, because we would be dealing with a private sector landlord. Given sufficient stock, absolutely, but we know there are major challenges across the board for local authorities up and down the country in building enough council and social houses. We absolutely would not shy away from the duty.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q I have just one more question, if I may. We have heard a lot about the definition today. What impact do you think that will have for commissioners in deciding which services to commission?

Simon Blackburn: In terms of the definition?

[Victoria Atkins]

The definition of domestic abuse in clause 1 of the Bill. What influence do you think that will have on commissioners when they are designing and commissioning services?

Simon Blackburn: I think it is potentially quite transformative. In the past it has been possible for people to interpret domestic abuse very narrowly. The broadening of the definition and the fact that we are taking things such as economic abuse into account certainly enable local authorities and other commissioners, such as police and crime commissioners, to look for more provision of specialist services, as Sara said earlier on, rather than asking providers to deliver things in which they do not necessarily have expertise. Of course, that comes down to the total quantum of money available to deliver on that, but I would welcome the expansion of the definition.

[Victoria Atkins]

Thank you very much. I will leave Sara to my Welsh colleagues.

[The Chair]

I will run through who I have seen so far. I have Rebecca Harris, Liz Saville Roberts, Fay Jones, Liz Twist, Virginia Crosbie, Nickie Aiken and Jess. Rebecca Harris?

[Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) (Con)]

I am fine.

[The Chair]

You are fine. Who was second? Liz Saville Roberts.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Q Sara, thank you very much for coming here today, and thank you for raising the matter of CAFCASS and the fact that it operates in quite a different way in Wales. I wanted to refer to the inquiry by the Commission on Justice in Wales and Lord John Thomas’s report that came out at the end of last year, which indicates that in Wales we effectively have in many cases a twin set of bodies—those operated through the Home Office, those operated through the Ministry of Justice here, and those functions put in place by Welsh Government. How do we manage the situation? What are the lessons we should learn in relation to what the Domestic Abuse Bill is doing and the fact that we have a diverging environment in Wales, although of course we would want to use funding and opportunities as they come for common interests?

Sara Kirkpatrick: I am so sorry, but could you clarify the question you are asking me?

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Q In Wales, we have a twin-track set of justice bodies: those that come from the UK Government and those that have been put in place by Welsh Government. That is relevant here, because we have the domestic abuse legislation and we also have the CAFCASS situation, which is different in Wales from how it is here, and we are talking about children’s experiences here as well. What would be interesting for people who are not familiar with the Welsh justice environment to hear is how comfortably or uncomfortably this new legislation will sit in Wales and how we should be looking at that planning stage here.

Sara Kirkpatrick: The answer is that we should be cognisant of it at every stage within the legislation. For me, one of the stumbling blocks is the word “national”. I often hear things described as national that are actually UK-wide; then I hear things that are described as national that are actually England and Wales; then I hear things described as national that are England only, and Wales, which also has national, is slightly different.

I think it is hugely important to ensure that alignment and to make sure that there is that two-tier system. To do things differently does not have to mean that there is a gap between, but you have to be cognisant that those things are sitting next to each other. If you disregard that, that is when the problems will arise—if we do not look at the very beginning and say, “This legislation is coming into two countries; the Domestic Abuse Bill that Westminster is doing is a hugely exciting and innovative piece of work, but we have to look from day one and see whether it works in both places.” If it does not work in both places, we have to be really clear about where the gaps are and what the differences are, and also learn.

Your colleague asked me earlier what we could learn from the Welsh legislation, and Victoria asked a question about the definition. For me, the broadening of the definition is hugely important, so that it ensures that we get the different types of abusive behaviour and the different types of domestic abuse—that is very important—but also the gendered nature and the disproportionate effect of domestic abuse on women and girls and on migrant women. We need all of that stuff in there, and we need not only to have that in the definition; we need to back up our commitment by collecting data and disaggregating that data so that we can ask, if we make a commitment to do something, “Did we do that?” We should go back and check. One of the things that always frustrates me is when we make a commitment to do something and then we pat ourselves on the back without looking at the detail and saying, “Did we?”

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Q One of the issues that has come from my English colleagues as well is the availability of funding. Far be it for me to tell the Welsh Government what they should do with their funding—that is a fundamental rule of devolution, obviously—but none the less there is going to be a question as to how this operates from the Home Office to PCCs and with the different structures that we have in Wales.

Sara Kirkpatrick: Yes. There are different structures in terms of what money is devolved and what money is coming directly from Westminster. There are different settlements for different things. Welsh Women’s Aid is a membership organisation and we are currently running members’ meetings every single week, and we are incredibly privileged—sadly, that is because we are in a pandemic—to be able to engage with our members on a frontline basis and hear what their challenges are.

One of the challenges is that frontline services get confused. The information is put out from Westminster or the information is coming out from different commissioners and organisations are being asked to prove a need, which is fair enough, but they become confused because a declaration will come from Westminster that says there is money for everyone. Is that money for everyone, or is it just for some people? Clarity is so important. First is a proportionate settlement, but second is clarity about that settlement.

The last thing I would say is that Wales is physically different. This happens in England as well, actually: sometimes we take a very metro-centric view. We think that we have a lot of public transport and we think that the roads are easy. I have just walked around London today, and it has been very easy to get from one place to another. That is less true in rural areas. When we are talking about a proportionate settlement, we need to take into account the fact that rural communities have a smaller population, but it takes longer for individuals to get from one place to another. A single service provider cannot provide the same service and get everybody to a single site in the way that they can in metropolitan environments, because there is more rural in Wales—or I notice more rural in Wales, perhaps because I talk to the members.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

That is very useful. Thank you.

[The Chair]

I have four or five people who want to come in, and we have 10 minutes, so that is the guide for how long they should try to speak for. I call Fay Jones.

[Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)]

Q I am over here, in Welsh corner. I am pleased that you mentioned rural areas, because I represent Brecon and Radnorshire, which has a large border with England. I am very interested to know, building on your earlier answer, what you see as a practical difficulty that could arise from any divergence between England and Wales, if you see any such divergence. Then I will have a quick follow-up question.

Sara Kirkpatrick: Again, it is about being cognisant of that and ensuring the alignment. The other thing is that, from my experience of working with victims and survivors, they are quite mobile—both victims and survivors, and perpetrators. Sometimes, it is not just about how we choose to enact; it is about where people choose to engage. While they might be on one side of the border, the services they choose to access, where they connect or where their family lives might be on the other side of that border. That feels like an important consideration.

We are supposed to be providing services and making legislation that fits the needs of survivors, rather than expecting survivors to fit the offer of the legislation. That is often a challenge we are presented with: we create some rules and ask people to fit them. To me, the big thing about the border would be to be aware that people move on either side of it. Again, it is about making sure that there is alignment, so that people are not disadvantaged. It is also about being clear, so that people know on which side and what would benefit them.

Is that a clear enough answer? I don’t want to ramble, and I feel I have covered it.

[Fay Jones]

Q It was. The Home Office funds some programme that Welsh Women’s Aid runs, particularly one around early intervention on perpetrators. Will you talk about some of the successes that has had?

Sara Kirkpatrick: Are you talking about Change that Lasts?

[Fay Jones]

Yes.

Sara Kirkpatrick: Excellent. That is a relief. Welsh Women’s Aid and the Women’s Aid Federation of England came up with the Change that Lasts model initially. It is a three-stage model, which looks not only at early intervention but at community awareness, training of professionals and specialist support services. We both—Welsh Women’s Aid and Women’s Aid Federation England—got into partnership with Respect, which is actually my formal employer. Change that Lasts in Wales is my former baby, and it is about an early intervention offer.

I was heartened to hear what Simon said earlier about not waiting until people need rehousing. The Change that Lasts approach, and the perpetrator strand of that approach, is about recognising that not all those who are using harmful behaviour are yet entrenched perpetrators of domestic abuse who are using patterns of abusive behaviour. Some people, in my experience, are concerned about their behaviour at an early stage. They seek support from GPs and citizens advice bureaux, and they have been known to seek support from faith leaders.

If there is an offer out there where people can address and consider their own behaviour, consider the impact of their behaviour and be given simple strategies to do something differently, there is no guarantee that they will take those strategies on board, but, by creating a narrative that says, “The problem is that you are choosing to use problematic behaviour, and there is an opportunity to make a different choice”, we move the responsibility to where it should be. We move the responsibility, and that is the idea behind Change that Lasts, the perpetrator strand, which is being delivered in Wales.

Change that Lasts has got some really promising results on the early engagement. The feedback is that people are attending and remaining engaged. These are self-referral clients, and the feedback from their partners is that it has been a positive and beneficial experience. I do not want to overclaim, because it is in its early stages—it is being evaluated by London Metropolitan University—but the early signs are that when you meet someone early in their journey and you give them an opportunity to make changes, some of the grasp the opportunity.

[Virginia Crosbie]

Q Thank you for coming, Sara. You spoke about the challenges of rural. What additional challenges have you had with the coronavirus and with actually getting victims to come forward? How have you encouraged people to come forward?

Sara Kirkpatrick: Some of the ways that people have been encouraged to come forward are that in the country a lot of promotion has been done—putting messages out about the Live Fear Free helpline, using social media, and engaging with both local celebrities and local politicians—and somehow I have managed to be a local celebrity and do a video.

There is that idea about putting simple, non-targeted messages in as many places as we can. Local supermarkets have been putting leaflets, just with information about the Live Fear Free helpline, into all shopping deliveries. One of the nice things about a non-targeted offer is that it does not arouse the suspicions of a perpetrator, because everybody gets it. When a targeted offer is made, it has the potential to increase risk.

That is some of what is being done; it is just that much more general putting the message out there, over and over again. In terms of rural communities, what we are hearing is that, because rural is more difficult from that point of view—there is limited access to transport and so on, so at this point everybody is quite isolated—people who were already isolated are consequently more isolated, because they have no neighbours. There is no network that you can run to if you would want to. So it is much harder.

[Virginia Crosbie]

Q Gorwel, the domestic violence charity on Ynys Môn, seems to be very successful in reaching out to families and working with schools. In your experience, what is the best way of supporting families? Is it more prevention?

Sara Kirkpatrick: Do you mean before the pandemic?

[Virginia Crosbie]

No, I mean in terms of supporting vulnerable families.

Sara Kirkpatrick: Before we end up in a situation—again, it is that idea that the best way of prevention is education, early offers and non-targeted messages. One of the wonderful things about Wales is the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015. It relates to the idea of challenging at the earliest opportunity—the concept that with any form of oppression there is no low-level, tolerated abusive, oppressive gender discrimination. All of that is not okay. Then you are sending a message that removes the fertile ground where more entrenched harmful behaviours can take root. So I think that is the big message, really.

[The Chair]

We have two minutes. I know Nickie wanted to come in.

[Nickie Aiken]

Q There has been a lot of discussion today about whether children are direct or indirect victims of domestic abuse if they are within a family or household where domestic abuse is taking place, but they are not actually being abused physically themselves—but they are witnessing a parent. How do you feel—I am speaking particularly to you, Councillor Simon, with your local government hat on— about whether children should be considered victims, whether they are indirectly or directly affected?

Simon Blackburn: Children are direct victims—

[Nickie Aiken]

Should they be considered victims?

Simon Blackburn: When I was a social worker—I used to be a child protection social worker—I had numerous arguments with my bosses and the police along the lines that even if the children were not present in the house, and were staying at grandma’s, for instance, and there was an altercation and their mother was hurt by their father or her partner, the children were none the less victims, because when they returned home the trauma, whether physical or emotional, is there, and it impacts on Mum’s ability to parent and her ability to manage relationships with the children. So it does not even matter if they are physically present. They are direct victims, in my view.

[Nickie Aiken]

Q How do you think councils could deal with that if the definition covered children?

Simon Blackburn: The Children Act, the legislation under which all social workers operate, is clear that children are at the front and centre of every assessment that is completed, so I am not sure that there is a need for anything. There may be a need to emphasise that. There may be a need for Ofsted and the Department for Education to remind local authority social services departments of that, but I think that is already very clear in legislation.

[The Chair]

We have run out of time for this sitting. I thank our last two witnesses very much for coming along.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Rebecca Harris.)

17:00

Adjourned till Tuesday 9 June at Twenty-five minutes past Nine o’clock.

Written evidence reported to the House

DAB01 Prison Reform Trust

DAB02 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists

DAB03 Transform Justice

DAB04 The ManKind Initiative

DAB05 Rape Crisis England & Wales (RCEW)

DAB06 Centre for Women’s Justice (submission on non-fatal strangulation)

DAB07 Andrew Todd

DAB08 Centre for Women's Justice (further submission on pre-charge bail)

DAB09 Cris McCurley

DAB10 Soroptimist UK Programme Action Committee (UKPAC)

DAB11 Helen Bichard, Trainee Clinical Psychologist

DAB12 Amnesty International UK

DAB13 Equi-law UK

DAB14 Refugee Council

DAB15 FNF Both Parents Matter Cymru

DAB16 Grazia Magazine

DAB17 Magistrates Association

DAB18 Southall Black Sisters

DAB18D Southall Black Sisters: Annex 4 (detailed amendments to the Bill)

DAB19 Step-Up Migrant Women Coalition

DAB20 We Can’t Consent To This

DAB21 Age UK

DAB22 Local Government Association (LGA)

DAB23 Resolution

DAB24 JUSTICE

DAB25 Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)

DAB26 Working Chance

DAB27 Men & Women Working Together (MWWT)

DAB28 Mr RS Wells, Director of, Domestic Abuse Business Support Ltd “Bridging the Gap Project”

DAB29 Employers’ Initiative on Domestic Abuse

DAB30 Royal College of Psychiatrists

DAB31 Latin American Women’s Rights Service

DAB32 Joint submission from 29 VAWG (violence against women and girls) sector organisations

DAB33 Refuge

DAB34 Drive

DAB35 Lucy Snow

Finance Bill (Second sitting)

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 4th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

The Committee consisted of the following Members:

Chairs: Siobhain McDonagh, † Andrew Rosindell

† Badenoch, Kemi (Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury)

† Baldwin, Harriett (West Worcestershire) (Con)

† Browne, Anthony (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)

† Buchan, Felicity (Kensington) (Con)

† Cates, Miriam (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)

Flynn, Stephen (Aberdeen South) (SNP)

† Jones, Andrew (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)

† Millar, Robin (Aberconwy) (Con)

† Norman, Jesse (Financial Secretary to the Treasury)

† Oppong-Asare, Abena (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)

† Phillipson, Bridget (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)

† Ribeiro-Addy, Bell (Streatham) (Lab)

† Rutley, David (Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury)

† Smith, Jeff (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)

† Streeting, Wes (Ilford North) (Lab)

† Thewliss, Alison (Glasgow Central) (SNP)

† Williams, Craig (Montgomeryshire) (Con)

Kenneth Fox, Chris Stanton Committee Clerks

† attended the Committee

Public Bill Committee

Thursday 4 June 2020

(Afternoon)

[Andrew Rosindell in the Chair]

Finance Bill

14:00

[The Chair]

Good afternoon, colleagues. Consideration of the Finance Bill recommences. I remind everyone that Hansard reporters would be grateful if hon. Members could email electronic copies of their speaking notes to [e-mail]. If everyone could remember to do that, that would greatly assist those recording the proceedings. We now return to line-by-line consideration of the Bill.

Clause 13

Voluntary office-holders: payments in respect of expenses

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)]

What a delight it is to see you in the Chair, Mr Rosindell. As I touched on earlier, this is one of those clauses that I do not think elicits any spirit of contention on the different sides of the room.

Clause 13 creates a statutory income tax exemption for payments and reimbursements of reasonable private expenses incurred by voluntary office holders in carrying out the duties of their offices. Individuals undertaking voluntary work for an organisation such as a charity or local benevolent society are not generally classed as office holders or employees, so the payment or reimbursement of any reasonable expenses incurred by those individuals when doing the work of that organisation is not liable for tax. However, in some circumstances, an individual who does unpaid work for an organisation may also be an office holder. That is because they are appointed to a role that exists regardless of who occupies the position at any one time. They are referred to as a “voluntary office holder” in tax legislation. People in that position include, for example, magistrates and special constables.

An office holder, including a voluntary office holder, is chargeable to tax on any earnings from their position and subject to the tax rules for expenses and deductions on the same basis as employees. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs’ long-standing practice is that no tax arises on private expenses paid or reimbursed to voluntary office holders so long as they receive no reward for carrying out the duties of their office and any payments or expenses do no more than meet the expenses incurred. That treats voluntary office holders in the same way as volunteers in relation to expenses paid or reimbursed by their organisation, but the treatment is at the moment only concessionary.

This measure therefore places the current concessionary treatment on a statutory tax footing. That ensures that reasonable out-of-pocket private expenses paid or reimbursed to voluntary office holders in relation to their duties of office remain tax-exempt. The exemption recognises the role of voluntary office holders and the services that they provide. It ensures that the tax treatment of their private expenses continues to be comparable to that of volunteers, and it provides certainty by placing that treatment on a statutory footing.

Those who hold voluntary offices often—in fact, almost invariably—give valuable service in our communities. It is right that we legislate to provide certainty for people in such roles and bring the tax treatment of their expenses in line with that for others who volunteer their time. This is a simple and sensible technical change, and I therefore urge that the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Rosindell, and I welcome you to the Chair.

Opposition Members have no issue with the intention behind clause 13. It is right that the tax treatment of those carrying out valuable work on a voluntary basis is put on a statutory footing so that it is the same for all voluntary office holders, across the board.

Of course, most individuals who do unpaid voluntary work for an organisation are not office holders or employees, and I would like to take this opportunity, at this time, to express my gratitude for the amazing work that volunteers are doing right across our country in responding to the crisis we are experiencing. The work they are doing includes running food banks. Amazing volunteers in my constituency are providing that kind of support to vulnerable people and, frankly, to too many families. I yearn for the day when they will be able to be redeployed in other areas of activity because the support provided by the Government—the state—is adequate for all families to put food on the table. Many other volunteers at this time have been delivering meals or supporting people with prescriptions. There is a whole range of help and support being provided, which just demonstrates how important a role volunteers play in our society. That is of course no substitute for the necessary action we expect from Government, which has sadly been too lacking in recent years, and after a decade of big changes. That has meant that volunteers have filled the gap that should be filled by the state itself.

As for the scope of the clause, the Chartered Institute of Taxation has identified some technical issues, and I hope the Minister will be able to respond to some points about them. The first is about the lack of a definition of a volunteer office holder in this legislation and the fact that that may lead to some confusion as to whether charitable or other unpaid trustees would be regarded as office holders for the purpose of this exemption. The Minister was right to point to office holders such as special constables and magistrates—and perhaps those who are office holders in community amateur sports associations—but I would be grateful if he could clarify the scope of the clause.

The second concern that the Chartered Institute of Taxation has identified is whether this legislation will achieve its intended purpose, given that the clause covers expenses incurred in carrying out the duties of the office, but not explicitly those expenses that enable such duties to be carried out—for example, childcare costs. I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify the position and put on record that such costs would be tax-exempt for voluntary office holders under the legislation.

[Jesse Norman]

I thank the hon. Lady for her questions. These are two technical issues that she is right to cover. The position of Revenue and Customs, and of the Government, is that there is adequate clarity about the scope of the clause. It passes into law only a considerable body of accumulated practice in dealing with expenses of the kind that we have described. As I have mentioned, commissioners have discretionary powers—those collection management powers—to manage these taxes and duties, and are able to exercise those powers in particular circumstances. So if there is a concern that, somehow, the scope of the clause is inadequately defined, there remains extra statutory power for the commissioners to exercise those collection management powers in so far as they wish.

The hon. Lady is also absolutely right to raise the secondary issue of what counts as an allowable expense. The answer is that a definition of reasonableness exists in general in people’s minds and in law—of course, it reflects the facts of a case and is context-dependent. The core idea is that the payment or reimbursement should do no more than meet the actual expenditure that has been incurred by volunteers.

To give an example, someone may be volunteering for a charity, perhaps as a treasurer, which is an office holder, and doing most of their work from home. If the charity offers them a small weekly payment to cover the additional cost of using their home, that is a reasonable expense. To take a different example, if someone is volunteering as a magistrate at their local magistrates court for one day a week and seeks reimbursement for their childcare costs for the week, even if the court agrees to that, the full week will not be considered a reasonable reimbursement for private expenses, because it does not relate to the actual expenditure that has been incurred.

I can clarify, to that extent, the point the hon. Lady made. I think that tracks relatively clearly our normal intuitions about working, as well as working practice elsewhere in the voluntary sector. With that said, I would like to move that the clause stand part of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 13 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 14

Loan charge not to apply to loans or quasi-loans made before 9 December 2010

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Jesse Norman]

This is the first of seven clauses— clauses 14 to 20—that bear on the loan charge. I do not need to tell any Member of the House of Commons that the loan charge has elicited a degree of controversy in some quarters. It might be helpful if I remind the Committee of the nature of the loan charge and what it actually is.

The clause amends the date from which disguised remuneration loans are subject to the loan charge specifically from 6 April 1999 to 9 December 2010. That has the effect of removing loans entered into before 9 December 2010 from the scope of the loan charge.

Disguised remuneration, as it is described, is a form of abusive tax avoidance, where individuals seek to avoid paying income tax and national insurance contributions by receiving payment through a loan that is itself never repaid—a remuneration practice that costs the Exchequer hundreds of millions of pounds a year. In many cases, the loans are paid over and above a smaller payment that goes through the pay-as-you-earn system, and the payment is made, perhaps on a monthly basis, in the form of an accumulation of a loan. The loan never, in my experience, has interest charged to it. The expectation is that it will never be repaid. It is typically administered through an offshore vehicle, which highlights how contrived this approach is to the avoidance of tax.

The loan charge was designed to combat that form of tax avoidance. It was introduced as a new measure in 2017. In September 2019, the Chancellor commissioned Sir Amyas Morse to conduct an independent review into whether the loan charge was an appropriate policy response to the use of such disguised remuneration schemes. Sir Amyas had full control over the review’s management and recommendations. He received evidence from a very wide range of individuals affected. He spoke to interest groups, Members of Parliament, tax specialists, legal experts and many other stakeholders.

Sir Amyas’s report, which is 76 pages in length, is a thorough and exacting review document, which painstakingly worked through the issues and recommended notable changes to the policy, including substantial carve-outs regarding who was affected. The Government accepted all but one of Sir Amyas’s recommendations, and more than 30,000 people will benefit from the changes. This clause, along with others in the Bill, make changes to bring about those recommendations in so far as they require statutory change. Work is under way by the Government to implement the recommendations that do not require legislation.

Sir Amyas’s careful and considered report examined the question of the date from which the loan charge should apply. He concluded that the law regarding the tax treatment of disguised remuneration loan schemes was clear from 9 December 2010, when draft legislation was published setting out that income provided through schemes using third parties, such as loan schemes, would be subject to income tax and national insurance.

Clause 14 amends the date from which disguised remuneration loans can be subject to the loan charge and removes those loans entered into before 9 December 2010 from the scope of the loan charge. The clause, along with clauses 15 to 20, legislates for several recommendations from the independent review on the loan charge. It takes about 11,000 people out of the loan charge entirely, and it reduces the tax charge of around 21,000 individuals. I therefore commend the clause to the Committee.

14:15

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell, not least as a parliamentary neighbour.

As the Financial Secretary has outlined, this is the first of a number of clauses related to one of the most politically contentious issues—certainly across the House—in the Bill. By way of introduction, it would be helpful if I set out the Labour party’s position on the loan charge overall and on how we intend to approach the clauses and amendments this afternoon.

It will come as no surprise to any Member of this House that the Labour party takes a dim view of tax avoidance. We believe that tax is the price we pay for a civilised society, that it is important that all of us—individuals, organisations and businesses—pay our fair share of tax, and that when people contrive to avoid their tax, they rob and short-change all of us of the revenues needed for the state to do the essential things it needs to do, whether that is keeping our country and our borders safe or providing the public services on which all of us rely.

Turning to the loan charge specifically, we have not opposed the Government’s changes, as we recognise their general approach to clamping down on tax avoidance schemes in this way. What I want to do with this clause and those we will discuss later this afternoon is to give an airing to many of the detailed and contentious issues that have been raised by Members of all parties right across the House.

The all-party loan charge group has more than 200 members, drawn from parties right across the Chamber. When we come to the later stages of the Bill on Floor of the House, Members will no doubt want to put forward amendments and push the Government to go further in some respects. It is therefore important in our proceedings here in Committee that we delve as deeply as possible into these issues, so that all Members can understand the Government’s thinking and the way in which policy evolved and then consider whether it would be appropriate to bring forward further changes and what those changes might be.

Let me turn now to clause 14. As we have heard from the Financial Secretary, these changes are made in response to Sir Amyas Morse’s independent review into the design and implementation of the loan charge. It was commissioned by the Government, but it is fair to say on behalf of Members across the House not only that the Government appreciate the work Sir Amyas Morse did—it is a thorough piece of work—but that we thank him too. He has done a great service to Parliament and to the wider public debate.

The Financial Secretary mentioned that the Government have accepted all but one of the recommendations from the review and, at some point this afternoon, he should elaborate further on the particular recommendation that the Government have chosen not to accept and implement and explain why.

Here, of course, we are looking specifically at the amendment to the date from which disguised remuneration loans are taxed under the loan charge from 6 April 1999 to 9 December 2010. The 2019 loan charge justified looking back to 1999 by saying that the Government and HMRC had always said that the schemes did not work, but Sir Amyas found that this was not the case before the 2011 legislation. Approximately 40% of the pre-2011 tax years in scope of the loan charge did not even have an investigation into them opened up by HMRC. Even if HMRC had made its position clearer, taxpayers are entitled to rely on the law as interpreted by the courts, and, clearly, legal proceedings have had a bearing on the Government’s considerations.

We will return to HMRC across the afternoon, but this is probably an appropriate time to say two things in relation to it. First, I place on record my thanks and the thanks of the official Opposition to all the staff and leadership at HMRC for the difficult work that they are doing overall at the moment on all our behalves, in the extraordinary circumstances we are all living through. Secondly, let us not forget that HMRC also has a slightly technical and complicated piece of work going on in the background, by which I mean the implementation of Brexit. In normal times, the demands placed on the Revenue are significant, but these are extraordinary times with unique challenges. I want to make that really clear up front, not least because I am about to criticise HMRC.

I must say, having served on the Treasury Committee in the previous Parliament and in the 2015 Parliament, that my discussions with HMRC in relation to the loan charge did not fill me with a great deal of confidence about the way in which it approached this issue over a great many years.

On the controversy generated around the issue of retrospection, where charges are being applied retrospectively, and why that is a really difficult principle and challenge for Members to accept, we in this House, whichever party we represent, do not like the idea of retrospective legislation. We do not like the idea that decisions—certainly levies or charges—apply retrospectively.

HMRC would have given the Government a much easier ride if it had done its job more thoroughly in terms of looking closely at individuals’ tax affairs over many years. One of the things that shocked me most, both as a constituency MP looking at my loan charge casework and as a member of the Treasury Committee, was that those individuals were filing their tax returns over many years. HMRC has said for a great many years that it has considered disguised remuneration schemes such as those covered by the loan charge, and specifically those covered by the loan charge, to be unlawful and contrived schemes, yet, in so many cases, no enforcement action was taken. People were happily sending in their tax return at the end of the tax year, not hearing anything further and assuming that that was good news: “If HMRC has looked at it and considered the tax return, then it must be fine.” Clearly, that is not the case.

I really hope that Ministers have properly dragged officials over the coals—not literally, of course, but metaphorically. In terms of the political controversy, the pain of a lot of victims—in a lot of cases there are victims of the loan charge, as well as people who sought to ruthlessly exploit it, not least the promoters, and there are a lot of people in our constituency casework who I would consider to be victims of the loan charge—would not have taken place if the tax inspectors had done their job more thoroughly and picked up on this activity earlier.

Constituents at my advice surgeries on Friday afternoons, many of whom have been in serious financial distress, have told a story familiar to Members across the House: “My circumstances were unusual. I am not a tax expert, but I took professional tax advice and made arrangements thinking that they were within the law.” The point is that, had HMRC picked up on some of these issues earlier, some of those constituents would have corrected their tax affairs much earlier, they would not have been in this position, and this debate on clause 14—on when the loan charge should take effect—would have been rather more redundant. None the less, we are in the position this afternoon where the date has been settled on as a result of the work not just of the courts, but of Sir Amyas himself in the report. We therefore support these clauses.

I would like the Minister, when he replies on this clause, to touch on a few issues. First, I would like him to say something about the discrepancy between the action being taken on taxpayers and on enablers of tax avoidance. That has been another significant controversy. It is not just the case that people have been scouring the internet in search of ways to minimise their tax liabilities. A number of promoters have been engaged in the promotion of aggressive tax avoidance schemes and have put their clients in an invidious position. I am sure I speak for people across the House in saying that we need tougher action against those promoters, who do a real disservice to the wider profession of financial service advisers. I do not believe, despite the reassurances we have been given by Ministers during successive rounds of parliamentary debate on this issue, or by HMRC in hearings of the Treasury Committee, that the action matches the rhetoric.

I would like the Minister to say more about what action is being taken against the promoters of these schemes.

As the Minister will be aware, the all-party parliamentary group is dissatisfied with the date set out in the Bill. Its report on Sir Amyas’s report picked up on some of the expert views that Sir Amyas drew on in setting out his conclusions. As set out on page 28 of the APPG’s “Report on the Morse Review into the Loan Charge” of March 2020, a number of experts were consulted during the review and asked the simple question of whether they agreed or disagreed with the statement that

“schemes entered into on or after 9th December 2010 would clearly generate an income tax consequence.”

Of the 14 or so experts listed on page 30 of the APPG report, a number did not comment, but—as the Minister and his officials will see when they review this, if they have not already done so—a number of those tax advisers disagreed with the statement.

The APPG cites that point in support of its view that the retrospective application of the loan charge is still going back too far. Given we are likely to return to this issue at later stages of the Bill, it would be helpful for all Members of the House—those who are APPG members and those who are not, but who may at some point be asked to express their view in a Division of the House—if the Minister responded to the point about how the date was arrived at, and whether there was a clear and consistent view or whether some of the arguments about retrospection are either highly relevant or redundant.

As the Minister explained in his introductory remarks, clause 14 enacts a recommendation of Sir Amyas’s report that rights a wrong. The Opposition will certainly not oppose the Government doing the right thing after a thorough review of the evidence and the judgments of the courts.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Rosindell. I agree with much of what has been said by the hon. Member for Ilford North. The SNP believe, fundamentally, that people should pay the tax that they owe, but it is clear from the evidence put to the all-party parliamentary group and in various reports that HMRC’s implementation has not involved appropriate communication with affected individuals. We believe that a review is in order to ensure that nobody is made homeless or bankrupt as a result of the loan charge.

I would also ask what consideration the Government have given to people’s ability to pay due to coronavirus, which may change people’s circumstances and their ability to repay. What consideration has HMRC given to those circumstances and how they might affect somebody’s ability to pay? It certainly will be beneficial to HMRC to get the money at some point, but if there is a strict time limit, within which people just cannot pay because they do not have the money and need to put food on the table, that needs to be taken into consideration.

It is something of a scandal that tax professionals advised clients to use these loopholes. There needs to be a further review into the advice given by those professionals and some comeback on the promoters of the schemes, who have clearly encouraged people to take them up. Individuals may have gone into them with their eyes open or their eyes closed, but the promoters of the schemes almost certainly knew what they were doing, what they were advising and what their intention was. We should go after those people aggressively, to ensure that they are not only held accountable for what they have done in the past, but prevented and disincentivised from coming up with similar loophole schemes in future. The very nature of our complex tax system means that the people out there who can benefit from those loopholes will always seek to find them. If we can send a clear message that that is unacceptable and there are consequences for doing so, that is worth considering.

My hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) tabled early-day motion 296 welcoming the publication of Sir Amyas Morse’s loan charge review, the UK Government’s amendments to the relevant legislation through the Finance Bill such that loans made before 2010 will no longer be subject to the loan charge, and delaying the self-assessment deadline until 30 September 2020. The initial analysis suggests that more than 30,000 individuals will benefit from these and related measures, but we still believe that a pause in the policy is necessary before continuing to provide a report, assuring Members that HMRC is working constructively with those seeking a reasonable repayment plan—one that recoups the unpaid tax while avoiding the unacceptable risks of bankruptcy and homelessness. If HMRC is not in a position to deliver that, an independent arbitration mechanism should be used to achieve it.

14:30

Those reasonable arrangements take into account what campaign groups have highlighted about the impact of this on mental health. There is significant evidence to suggest that the mental health of people involved in this has been seriously impacted. We should not diminish the impact on individuals and families. People have lost their lives through this.

The Scottish National party supported new clause 26 to the previous Finance Bill, which would have reviewed unrelated tax code changes and compared them with those related to the loan charge. Despite the amendment not seeking to change or review the loan charge itself, it allowed us to express our concerns, alongside other parties, and we were happy that the UK Government conceded on that provision, in order to avoid yet another Commons defeat at that time.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) wrote to the then Treasury Minister, the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), seeking assurances that evidence would be provided to parliamentary hearings. This goes to my earlier point that we need evidence, and that we need to be able to interrogate and ask questions of that evidence. Somebody sending a briefing is useful, but being able to have some back and forth with people who know more about this than we perhaps do would allow us to make the right decisions. Evidence from the likes of the all-party parliamentary loan charge group or other experts in the field might have been incredibly useful to the Committee.

[Jesse Norman]

I thank the hon. Members for Ilford North and for Glasgow Central for their speeches. The hon. Member for Ilford North started by setting out the principles of, as it were, a Labour approach to tax avoidance and evasion, and described how, in the Labour view of things, tax avoiders were in fact guilty of robbery, which I thought was a very big claim. Robbery is not a word I would ever use in this context, but there is a serious problem of avoidance and evasion, and—as I will come on to, and as the hon. Member for Glasgow Central mentioned—there is a serious problem with the promotion or enabling of tax avoidance and evasion schemes.

I thank the hon. Member for Ilford North for his comments in support of Revenue and Customs, with which I fully concur, as I am sure does everyone in this Committee and the more than 10 million people who now have their livelihoods or jobs supported by schemes that HMRC has put in place in a very short period. He also rightly praised Sir Amyas Morse, saying that the Labour party accepted the Morse review as a piece of work. He is absolutely right about that. Sir Amyas, on his retirement, elicited unimpeachable measures of approval and statements of support from across the House.

Where I think the hon. Gentleman is wrong is on the question of retrospection. He will be aware that the loan charge is a new charge and is therefore not retrospective legislation. The common understanding of retrospection is that it somehow changes the law as it was at the time when people operated, but the whole point is that, as Sir Amyas found, from at least 9 December 2009, the law was as indicated. One can dispute the period before that, and HMRC retains the ability in the case of certain years to pursue people for tax due before that period. But the review made clear—this is very important—that Sir Amyas Morse accepted the principle of the loan charge. The review made significant changes to the application of a principle that Sir Amyas accepted.

We are bound to return to these themes later on in our discussions, but it is worth touching on them now. The hon. Member for Ilford North raised the provision that the Government did not accept in the Morse review, which was the idea that arrears in tax should be written off after 10 years. The reasons that the Government did not accept that were twofold. The first was that it would have had the effect of treating people who had engaged in these disguised remuneration schemes and benefited from this approach more favourably than other people who might be in arrears in tax with the Revenue, which the Government felt was not appropriate.

The second reason was that the Revenue and Customs has highly effective time-to-pay arrangements, which have been further extended in the case of the loan charge, to allow people on lower incomes an additional seven years of time to pay as a minimum. Those arrangements are very flexibly and intelligently administered by the Revenue and Customs, and they are already being utilised by people in significant numbers before the coronavirus pandemic and undoubtedly as a result of it. There is no need for a statutory change, and such a change would have had the effect of treating scheme users more favourably than others.

The hon. Member for Ilford North raised the all-party parliamentary loan charge group and the Loan Charge Action Group, which has been very vigorous on social media and elsewhere. Colleagues’ input is always valuable, but we should take this one with a little pinch of salt, because it is the product of an enormous amount of concerted political lobbying of an extremely intense kind on Members who are members of that group. In that sense, it does not exercise what I would consider the kind of independent judgment that we would want an all-party parliamentary group to exercise.

The contrast is with the Morse review itself, which was an admirably independent-minded piece of work. It by no means took a Government line in any of its recommendations and showed itself all the more valuable for that. It was itself a comprehensive response to the concerns that had been raised. If people have concerns about, for example, the choice that Sir Amyas made to locate the point of cut-off for the application of the loan charge to 9 December 2009, they have merely to read the relevant chapter, which is an extremely thorough and careful reconstruction of the legal process and the enforcement process up to and after that date.

I am struck by the fact that many of the themes that came through in the Morse review were picked up by a rather important recent case which related to the loan charge—Zeeman and Murphy v. HMRC—in which the judge said:

“This is not a tax on fictitious income or benefits, but on genuine remuneration received for work done or services rendered, paid in the form of a loan. The recipients of the money have had the advantage of its use for some time…over many years.”

That is true. The judge went on to say that

“it was well within the generous margin of appreciation for Parliament to decide that it would tackle the matter in the way that it did, and impose a present tax liability in respect of money whose use, tax-free, had been enjoyed by the recipient over a number of years.”

I do not want to comment on that, because I do not think that proceedings in a law court should be commented on by Members of Parliament, but I draw it to the Committee’s attention.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 14 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 15

Election for loan charge to be split over three tax years

[Jesse Norman]

I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 15, page 9, line 8, at end insert—

‘(11) The Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs may by regulations provide that sub-paragraph (7)(a) applies to a specified class of persons as if the reference to 1 October 2020 were to such later date as is specified.

(12) In sub-paragraph (11) “specified” means specified in the regulations.’.

This amendment will allow HMRC to extend the deadline for making an election to split the loan charge over three years for particular classes of person liable to the loan charge by virtue of Schedule 11 to the Finance (No.2) Act 2017.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments 2 and 3.

[Jesse Norman]

The clause allows taxpayers to make an election to spread their outstanding disguised remuneration loan balance evenly across three tax years. The effect is to give to taxpayers greater flexibility on when the outstanding loan balance is subject to tax. In some circumstances, that will mean that the loan balance is subject to lower rates of tax than if taxed only in the 2018-19 tax year.

As I described, the Government accepted all but one of Sir Amyas Morse’s recommendations, which included that taxpayers should be able to choose not to stack their outstanding loan balances into a single year. In deciding to allow individuals to elect to spread the loan charge over three years, the Government balanced the aim of reducing the number of people affected by higher marginal rates of tax against the administrative burden on individuals, employers and HMRC.

The Government wanted to ensure that people have a choice about whether to make an election. Some taxpayers may prefer to settle their loan charge liability in one year, providing certainty for them going forward. For many individuals, however, the option to spread the loan charge balance over a three-year period will allow for the amounts to be repaid over a longer time than otherwise required, and potentially with a tax advantage, had they paid the loans in the years received

Part 1 of schedule 1 provides consequential amendments to schedules 11 and 12 to the Finance (No. 2) Act 2017 to give effect to clause 14 of the Bill. The changes amend further references to the date of 6 April 1999 to remove references to approved fixed-term loans, which related only to loans made before 9 December 2010 and so are no longer affected by the loan charge—they have essentially been taken out of scope. Those consequential amendments are necessary to give effect to the legislative changes introduced following the recommendations by the independent review into the loan charge.

Part 2 of schedule 1 makes the consequential amendments to the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003 necessary to give effect to clause 15 of the Bill, which allows an individual to make an election to spread their loan charge balance over three consecutive years: specifically, the years 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21. Furthermore, part 2 sets out consequential amendments to the Social Security (Contributions) Regulations 2001— S.I. 2001, No. 1004—to ensure that the liability to national insurance contributions can also be spread over three years. Part 2 also introduces amendments to ITEPA to ensure that where a person dies before 5 April 2019, the schedule 11 loan charge will not apply.

Government amendments 1 and 2 to clause 15, and Government amendment 3 to clause 17, seek to achieve the same aim of giving Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs the flexibility to defer the dates set out in those clauses. Clause 15 deals with the date by which an election must be made by an individual subject to the loan charge where that person wishes to split their tax liability over three years. Clause 17 deals with the date by which an individual subject to the loan charge must submit a complete and accurate 2018-19 self-assessment tax return and pay the balance of their 2018-19 tax liabilities if they are to avoid paying interest.

Recognising the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the potential ability of some loan charge taxpayers to finalise their affairs in time to meet those dates, as raised by the hon. Member for Glasgow Central, the Government think it prudent to enable HMRC to defer those dates for particular classes of loan charge taxpayers, should that prove necessary. Accordingly, the amendments will enable HMRC by laying regulations to defer the dates for a specific class of loan charge taxpayers. For many individuals, clause 15 will reduce the amount they need to pay. It will also reduce the administrative burden on individuals, employers and HM Revenue and Customs.

14:45

Schedule 1 makes the changes to prior legislation necessary to give effect to clauses 14 and 15 and ensures that the loan charge does not apply if a person died before 15 April 2019. In addition, Government amendments 1, 2 and 3 enable HMRC to respond positively to challenges that may be faced by some loan charge taxpayers, to ensure that they are not prejudiced due to factors beyond their control. For those reasons, I commend clause 15, schedule 1 and Government amendments 1, 2 and 3 to the Committee.

[Wes Streeting]

As the Financial Secretary has outlined, these relatively straightforward Government amendments allow for flexibility in making the election to spread the loan charge possible. I have some questions for the Minister about that, but I also want to raise several issues about his earlier remarks, which are relevant to this clause and the Government’s amendments, as well as some of the other issues that we will consider this afternoon.

First, in relation to the all-party parliamentary loan charge group, of course we are aware that the secretariat is the Loan Charge Action Group and that it contains lots of people who are subject to action by HMRC and have a direct personal interest in changing the law and affecting the course of Government policy. The Minister has done a real disservice to Members on both sides of the House, however, by suggesting that the all-party parliamentary group is not independent and does not exercise independent judgment.

It is common practice in this place for external organisations to provide the secretariat for all-party parliamentary groups, but if it were the case that any of those secretariats, whose work is funded to support the work of parliamentarians, were in any way directing the work of Parliament or of Members, that would be an issue for the Committee on Standards. No Member should be exercising their voice or their vote because of outside financial pressure or well-funded lobby groups. We are always expected to exercise our independent judgment.

The co-chairs of the all-party parliamentary group are the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey), with whom the Minister previously served in Government, albeit he was a yellow Tory, rather than a blue one; my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), who I would never suggest was anything other than independent, otherwise I would feel the physical force of her independence around the back of my ear; and the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning), who is widely respected on the Conservative Benches and was respected across the House as a Minister. The group also has widespread support from more than 200 MPs on both sides of the House, including the former leader of the Conservative party, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith). It is important to distinguish between that and the lobby group, which is perfectly entitled to its views, and is not always wrong, by the way.

That brings me to my second point. The Minister would have more of a leg to stand on in robustly criticising the all-party parliamentary group or the Loan Charge Action Group if they had not found the Government banged to rights. I did not labour the point during our previous exchange, but it is embarrassing for the Government and HMRC to have been landed with a report such as the report by Sir Amyas. We were told several times by Ministers at the Dispatch Box, and by HMRC in Select Committee hearings, that, “There is nothing to see here. There is no problem. HMRC is exercising its functions and discharging its responsibilities appropriately.” Yet, through Sir Amyas’s report, we have found that that was not the case.

We are now having to legislate for changes, and the Government are making changes that do not require changes to primary legislation, because the Government and HMRC were found not to have their affairs properly in order in relation to the application of the loan charge and the way the policy has panned out. The Government ought to be a bit more humble about some of those issues.

On the Government amendments, the Chartered Institute of Taxation thinks that the 30 September 2020 deadline for making an election to spread the loan charge should be amended. It considers that an extended deadline of 31 January 2021, which is the normal deadline for amending 2019 self-assessment tax returns, should apply. We are all aware of the impact of the current covid-19 pandemic, and the chartered institute recently pointed out that some taxpayers will require additional time in some cases because the records and documents that taxpayers need to access are not currently or readily available to them. With businesses in lockdown, it might not even be possible for them to access offices, particularly shared offices, even if they wish to do so. Will the Minister address that point, and might the Government consider a change along the lines requested by the chartered institute at a later stage? Also, why is it not possible to revoke an election to spread the loan charge or to be able to amend the election up until 30 September 2020 by submitting an amended return? Will the Minister address that point, too?

[Jesse Norman]

I thank the hon. Member for Ilford North for his remarks. To be clear, I am not suggesting for a second that the APPG’s members are in any sense dependent. Let me put that on the record. There is no impeachment or attempt of any such kind from me in relation to individual Members of Parliament. I was making a different point, which is that the APPG itself has come under an enormous body of concentrated and often extremely forceful pressure from people affected by the measure. There is therefore a contrast between their position and the position of Sir Amyas Morse, who is able to take a view that is independent in the sense that it is not aggressively constrained by one side or the other, but with the capacity to make a decision based on expert guidance and advice.

On whether the Government are always right, I would not suggest that for a second. We commissioned the review because the Government recognised that there was widespread public concern. Far from seeking to ignore that or brush it under the carpet, they retained a very high quality person and fully supported an independent process, thoroughly influenced and infused with both consultation and expert advice, to address the concerns. They were also suitably humble in accepting all but one of the recommendations, with the exception that I have indicated. It is absolutely not the case that it has been the view of the Government that any party to the dispute has a monopoly on correctness or rightness, and certainly the Government do not see themselves in those terms.

On the core thrust of the policy, Sir Amyas was clear. He accepted the principle of the policy and the validity of the loan charge as an approach to the concern about disguised remuneration, which takes enormous amounts of money out of the potential support of our public services. It is important to recognise that that was his position.

The hon. Member for Ilford North mentioned the Chartered Institute of Taxation and its call for an extended deadline. The deadline at the moment is the end of September and there is a period still to run before that. We understand the concern and of course we continue to reflect on the position, but that is the deadline and there is no overwhelming case at the moment for moving it. Therefore, it is important to give certainty to people who are in this position that that is the deadline for the submission of information and settlement of the loan charge. There can be no movement on that front, and it is important to be clear about what the status is at the moment. With that said, I commend the clause to the Committee.

Amendment 1 agreed to.

Amendment made: 2, in clause 15, page 10, line 14, at end insert—

‘(3F) The Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs may by regulations provide that sub-paragraph (3B)(a) applies to a specified class of persons as if the reference to 1 October 2020 were to such later date as is specified.

(3G) In sub-paragraph (3F) “specified” means specified in the regulations.’ —(Jesse Norman.)

This amendment will allow HMRC to extend the deadline for making an election to split the loan charge over three years for particular classes of person liable to the loan charge by virtue of Schedule 12 to the Finance (No.2) Act 2017.

Clause 15, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Clause 16

Loan charge reduced where underlying liability disclosed but unenforceable

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Jesse Norman]

The clause implements recommendations 3, 4 and 5 of Sir Amyas Morse’s independent review. It sets out that the loan charge will not apply to loans outstanding at 5 April 2019 and made in the tax year 2015-16 or earlier, whwwen the avoidance scheme was disclosed to HM Revenue and Customs, and HMRC had not taken action by 6 April 2019 to protect the year, for example, by opening an inquiry. The clause sets out how a reasonable disclosure is made, when a loan charge reduction applies and how that reduction is calculated. It also sets out what is meant by a qualifying tax year and a qualifying tax return.

Reasonable disclosure is defined as a disclosure made in either an income tax self-assessment return or a corporation tax self-assessment return, where a person is chargeable to tax on employment income, or an income tax self-assessment return where a person is chargeable to tax on trading income. The term “return” includes any accompanying accounts, statements or documents. Reasonable disclosure may be made in one or more returns of the same type relating to qualifying tax years either by an individual or, in the case of employment income, an employer. That builds on HMRC’s existing compliance approach.

A qualifying tax year is the tax year 2015-16 or earlier, or for corporation tax accounting periods commencing before 6 April 2016. Information must be included to identify the loan, the person the loan was made to, if not the taxpayer, the arrangements the loan was made under and other information to make it clear that the loan should be chargeable to income tax. In the case of employment income, this does not include the declaration that a loan was taxed as a benefit of a “cheap loan” where the benefit declared is the loan paid at a reduced interest rate, or indeed a zero interest rate.

The clause does not apply where there was no reasonable disclosure made for years 2015-16 and earlier, nor does it apply for 2016-17 onwards, regardless of whether a reasonable disclosure has been made or HMRC has taken steps to recover the tax. The clause thus ensures that the Government can implement three of Sir Amyas Morse’s recommendations from his independent review of the loan charge. I commend it to the Committee.

[Wes Streeting]

There is not much for me to add to what the Financial Secretary set out. Will he confirm that HMRC will be able to adopt a practical approach to interpreting what is a reasonable disclosure? For example, in some cases a taxpayer will not have had to file a self-assessment tax return for a tax year, but their employer or their business will have disclosed the loans and so on in a return of their own, in which case we consider that that would be an adequate disclosure by the taxpayer. Is that the Minister’s understanding? It was pointed out to us by the Chartered Institute of Taxation that

“amendments to paragraphs 1B…of Schedule 11 to F(No.2)A 2017 included in the Finance Bill legislation, as compared to the original draft legislation, appears to permit disclosures in tax returns other than the taxpayer’s to be taken into account.”

I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed whether that is indeed the case.

00:01

[Jesse Norman]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. The principle is as laid out in the legislation and it should be recognised as wider than might originally have been contemplated, as concerns were raised during the consultation process on the draft legislation about the definition of reasonable disclosure, and the Government responded to those. The definition of reasonable disclosure in the legislation introduced in the Finance Bill has thus been widened to include disclosure in either an income tax self-assessment return or a corporation tax self-assessment return. The effect of that is to enable disclosure by either an individual or an employer to meet the definition of reasonable disclosure.

Disclosure can be made in more than one tax return of the same type and, as I have said, a tax return includes any accompanying accounts, statements or documents and has therefore been widely specified. How that is to apply in a specific context is, of course, a limitlessly varied matter, and limitless ingenuity will doubtless be deployed in showing that it can be applied to whatever the circumstances are, but that is the standard that the legislation lays down.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 16 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 17

Relief from interest on tax payable by a person subject to the loan charge

Amendment made: 3, in clause 17, page 13, line 36, at end insert—

“(5) The Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs may by regulations provide that this section applies to a specified class of persons as if—

(a) the references in this section to the end of September 2020 were to such later time as is specified, and

(b) the reference in subsection (3)(b) to 1 October 2020 were to such later date as is specified.

(6) In subsection (5) “specified” means specified in the regulations.”—(Jesse Norman.)

This amendment will allow HMRC to extend, for particular classes of person subject to the loan charge, the period within which liability to income tax and capital gains tax for the tax year 2018-19 may be discharged without incurring interest on those liabilities.

Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

[Jesse Norman]

Clause 17 makes a technical amendment to remove the charge of late payment interest for customers and taxpayers who are liable to the loan charge for the period 1 February 2020 to 30 September 2020 on any self-assessment liability. The effect of that is that taxpayers will not be disadvantaged by the extension to the deadline given to them to submit their 2018-19 self-assessment return and to pay the tax due. Late payment interest will accrue from 1 February 2020, if this revised deadline of 30 September 2020 is not met.

The clause also provides that no late payment interest will be due on payments on account for 2019-20, where the payments are made by 31 January 2021 or are included in a payment arrangement by that date. Again, if the payment deadline of 31 January 2021 is not met or there is no payment arrangement in place by that date, the changes will not apply. Interest would then accrue from the statutory due dates for the relevant payments on account, which are 1 February 2020 and 1 August 2020.

While the clause will operate prospectively for the vast majority of affected payments, it will have limited but, I should emphasise, wholly positive retrospective application. There are cases where the Government are minded or have to act retrospectively, in part to do justice, and this is one of those. Any affected payments made before the date this Bill receives Royal Assent will be included, so that taxpayers who made their returns and payments before Royal Assent are no worse off than others who make their returns and payments later, but before the extended deadline.

[Wes Streeting]

As the Minister outlined, the measure is a technical one, so I do not have much to say about it, except to say as I did on clause 15 that I wonder whether he could outline, particularly for people who follow our proceedings closely, the reason for setting the deadline for filing the 2019 self-assessment return as 19 September 2021. The same issues that I raised previously may present themselves to taxpayers in the light of the lockdown measures that are currently in effect.

[Jesse Norman]

I must say that I am not quite sure I understand the question, but what has happened so far is that the loan charge deadline has been extended to 30 September this year. The clause allows relief from interest payable by those who are subject to the loan charge in that context; but if the hon. Gentleman would like to clarify his question I will try to answer it.

[Wes Streeting]

It is simply the case that some people who may need to access relevant documentation to provide to the tax authorities might struggle to do so in light of the lockdown measures that are in place. So, just as I raised in the previous discussion on clause 15, I am asking what flexibility can be made available. That is what I am getting at.

[Jesse Norman]

I understand. I think the hon. Gentleman said the date is 19 September 2021, and that is what threw me, because I do not think that that date applies to the issue that he has raised. As I have described, Revenue and Customs is, in the middle of the covid pandemic, exercising an extraordinarily careful sensitivity to personal circumstances. If there are personal circumstances that, because of the coronavirus, may have made it impossible to make a payment of the kind in question, I have no doubt that Revenue and Customs will take account of that in its consideration, before reaching a judgment.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 17, as amended, accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 18

Minor amendments relating to the loan charge

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Jesse Norman]

Again, this is a minor and technical measure that makes minor legislative adjustments to implement changes to the loan charge, including changing the date by which loan charge information must be provided to HMRC from 1 October 2019 to 1 October 2020.

When the loan charge was introduced in the Finance (No. 2) Act 2017 there was a legal requirement that those who had an outstanding disguised remuneration liability on 5 April 2019 would be required to submit information on their disguised remuneration loans before 1 October 2019 through an e-form. When the Government accepted Sir Amyas’s recommendation that there should be an option to spread the loan charge balance over three tax years, through an election, it was decided that the best way to do this was via an online form. The Government also used this opportunity to encourage those who had not already submitted information on their disguised remuneration loans to do so, by changing the statutory date from 1 October 2019 to 1 October 2020. I should say that clause 18 also corrects a minor drafting error in the original legislation.

[Wes Streeting]

It would take a wit beyond my imagination to find something interesting to say about this provision, so I shall resume my place.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 18 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 19

Repaying sums paid to HMRC under agreements relating to certain loans etc

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Clause 20 stand part.

New clause 7—Loan charge: report on effect of the scheme—

‘(1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must commission a review, to be carried out by an independent panel, of the impact in parts of the United Kingdom and regions of England of the scheme established under sections 19 and 20 and lay the report of that review before the House of Commons within six months of the passing of this Act.

(2) A review under this section must consider the effects of the provisions on—

(a) business investment,

(b) employment,

(c) productivity, and

(d) company solvency.

(3) A review under this section must consider the fairness with which HMRC has implemented the policy, including whether HMRC has provided reasonable flexibility around repayment plans with the aim of avoiding business failures and individual bankruptcies.

In this section “parts of the United Kingdom” means—

(a) England,

(b) Scotland,

(c) Wales, and

(d) Northern Ireland;

and “regions of England” has the same meaning as that used by the Office for National Statistics.’

This new clause would require a review of the impact of the scheme to be established under Clauses 19 and 20.

[Jesse Norman]

It must be a tedious amendment indeed that has not excited the imagination or genius of the hon. Member for Ilford North, so I am grateful to him for clarifying that.

Clauses 19 to 20 implement recommendation 6 of Sir Amyas Morse’s independent review, ensuring that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs can refund the elements of settlements that were made since 2016, paid to settle unprotected years either before 9 December 2010 or between 9 December 2010 and the start of the 2016-17 tax year, where the taxpayer had made a reasonable disclosure of their scheme usage in their tax return.



Clause 19 requires HMRC to set up a scheme under which it may refund qualifying amounts of certain voluntary payments. Such refunds can be made only where the qualifying amount was paid under a settlement agreement made with HMRC on or after 16 March 2016 and before Budget day on the 11 March 2020. Additionally, the qualifying amount must have been paid in relation to a loan made before 9 December 2010 where HMRC did not have power to recover the amount due at the time the agreement was made, or it must have been paid in relation to a loan made after 9 December 2010 and before 6 April 2016 where a reasonable disclosure of the use of the loan scheme was made to HMRC at a time when HMRC had the power to recover the amount due, but did not take any action.

Clause 20 sets out the details that may be contained in the refund scheme. This may include who is eligible to apply for a refund, how an application should be made and the factors that will be taken into account by HMRC in calculating the refund due.

I now move to new clause 7, an SNP new clause, which would require the Chancellor of the Exchequer to commission an independent review of the impacts of the repayment scheme established under sections 19 and 20, and to lay the report of that review before the House of Commons within six months of the passing of this Act. Of course, it is very important that we should consider the impact of all tax policy on individuals and, in this case, of the repayment scheme on the approximately 2,000 taxpayers, including companies, the self-employed and employees, who may be entitled to claim a refund under the scheme.

Although that is the case, the Government do not think there is any cause to undertake an additional report. The Government have already accepted Sir Amyas Morse’s recommendation in his independent, thorough and expert report that the Government should report to Parliament on all aspects of our implementation of the loan charge changes before the end of 2020. This was recommendation 14 of the independent review into the loan charge. It was accepted by the Government at the time, and it already adequately fulfils the requirement put forward in new clause 7. For that reason, I commend clauses 19 and 20 to the Committee, but I ask that the Committee reject new clause 7 if it is put to a vote.

[Alison Thewliss]

I thank the Minister for his remarks. He recognises the importance of the schemes, but I think it is also important to recognise whether the effect of the policy is sound. We need to review and keep under review how this is actually working, and we need to understand the impact of the scheme.

This is why we have asked for a review to consider the effects of the provisions on business investment, employment, productivity and company solvency. We want to look at parts of the United Kingdom—Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland—to see if there is any differential impact as well. It may be the case that some aspects impact on different sectors in different areas more so than others. I know that colleagues in the north-east of Scotland may want to highlight the impact on the oil and gas industry, whose employees have been in touch as part of their constituency business.

It is important to understand what the impact has been, and I think we are guilty, and the Government are certainly guilty—all Governments are guilty—of bringing things forward in the Finance Bill and making proposals, then not really following up and not really understanding the impact. That is often how we arrive at difficult situations such as the ones we are seeing today. I would certainly encourage the Government to consider this again. It is important that what they do is correct, and if it is not correct, it is important to understand that as it rolls out. On the refund scheme, I just want to ask how exactly it will work, when people can expect to obtain any refunds and, indeed, if there is any timescale in place for that.

[Wes Streeting]

I will come on to address new clause 7, proposed by the hon. Member for Glasgow Central, shortly because that opens up a broader range of issues worthy of review, such as the scrutiny of HMRC’s implementation of all this.

Clauses 19 and 20 legislate for the proposed disguised remuneration repayment scheme 2020—in broad terms—only. The clauses provide HMRC with considerable discretion as to how to operate the scheme. For example, while there is a right to a review of a repayment decision refusing repayment, that is only by way of representations to HMRC within two months of the decision. There is no independent review of the process. Given what I saw on the Treasury Committee of HMRC’s conduct on the loan charge, that is a serious oversight and mistake. People should have recourse to an independent process, and I am concerned that that is not the case as proposed.

00:00

The London Society of Chartered Accountants wrote:

“Following the Morse review, this provides for repayment of tax already paid by some taxpayers under the earlier loan charge provisions. In addition, interest should be paid at a preferential rate and there should be restitution of loss of income.”

The society firmly believes that

“if a taxpayer has been wrongfully taxed, he should be returned in full to his starting position, so that he has not suffered any loss”,

and it notes that, in loan charge cases, tragically,

“the consequences have been much more severe for some people, including bankruptcy, loss of home, broken marriage and, in a few tragic cases, death by suicide”,

which I will come on to say more about shortly.

Why is there no independent review process or right to appeal for HMRC’s customers? Will the Minister also explain how the Government will ensure that the scheme is operated by HMRC in the manner intended by the Government, given that the Bill leaves HMRC such broad discretion in the operation of the scheme?

We have heard representations from the all-party parliamentary loan charge group, notwithstanding the Minister’s critique of the all-party parliamentary group, if I may put it that way. The APPG described HMRC’s behaviour as “unacceptable”, stating that it

“at times represents clear misconduct and bullying.”

That is a serious charge for the APPG to level at HMRC, and I am curious to know the Minister’s views. Certainly, in my experience of taking evidence from HMRC at Select Committees, its approach to the loan charge, broadly speaking, warrants some degree of independence and right of appeal.

Finally on the points made by the London Society of Chartered Accountants, we need to consider the impact on individuals. For example, if an individual were forced to sell their home, but subsequently liable for a refund, what would the Minister envisage as reasonable in terms of putting the situation right in such circumstances?

Turning to clause 20, the Chartered Institute of Taxation notes that clause 20(5)(a) and (b) refer to “any other person”. The provision authorises HMRC to make repayment conditional on the applicant and “any other person” agreeing to the termination or variation of a qualifying agreement, or making a new agreement. Will the Minister provide some clarification as to whom “any other person” might be? What was the thinking behind that particular part of the Bill?

Clause 20(6)(a) allows the repayment scheme to make provision for the effect that the settlement agreement has had on an applicant or “any other person”. Further to that, subsection (7) allows provision to be made to ignore repayment for the purposes of whether a person is subject to any other liability. Typically, more recent settlement agreements included a provision for the writing off or waiving of a loan as part of a settlement agreement with HMRC. Will the Minister confirm that that means that a loan write-off, for example arising from or in relation to the settlement agreement, will not cause a tax charge to be triggered where repayment is made in respect of the tax year now dropping out of the loan charge?

If that is correct, those concerned will not have paid income tax on the making of the original loan under the loan charge on the subsequent waiving of the loan, and so indeed would be fortunate relative to other individuals in different circumstances. If that is the case, will the Minister provide a justification for that, and an explanation for the discrepancy in how different groups of taxpayers will be impacted by the new legislation?

Is it correct that post 11 March this year, settlement proposals, including those that HMRC deferred while the independent review was conducted, do not include a provision for the writing off or waiving of any part of a loan that falls within a qualifying year—that is, loans made before 9 December 2010 and those made since then, but before 6 April 2016, where reasonable disclosure has been made? If that is correct, these individuals would seem to be rather less fortunate, so again, an explanation for the discrepancy in how different groups of taxpayers will be impacted by the new legislation would only be reasonable.

I will now turn to the SNP’s new clause 7, and make some broader observations in relation to the implementation of this scheme. As we have heard from the hon. Member for Glasgow Central, new clause 7 effectively institutes a review that must be carried out by an independent panel to look at the implementation of the scheme. I was particularly struck by the reference in the new clause to that review including a consideration of

“whether HMRC has provided reasonable flexibility around repayment plans with the aim of avoiding business failures and individual bankruptcies.”

This is important, for two reasons. First, as I have said, there is a great deal of anxiety across the House that HMRC has not always acted fairly; from the evidence we took on the Treasury Committee, that is my own view. Knowing that an independent review is in the offing might concentrate the minds of tax inspectors and the management of HMRC on ensuring that the broad discretionary powers this Bill affords them are exercised responsibly. If the Minister is not content to listen to our representations and those of others that there should be a right of independent appeal, which would be unfortunate, there should be at least some checks and balances in place to scrutinise the work of HMRC and make sure that this scheme has been effectively implemented.

Of course, the Treasury Committee in the Commons and the Committees in the House of Lords might want to undertake some of this work in any event. However, with respect to the Treasury Committee—for which I, as a former member, have a great amount of respect and affection—I do not think that it would pretend that the scrutiny work we were doing on the loan charge was in any way a substitute for the really in-depth work undertaken by Sir Amyas Morse when he conducted the independent review. He had the ability to go into HMRC, to look behind the cupboards and underneath the floorboards, and grill and interrogate how things have been managed. Select Committees have a place, but we are talking about something that is far more focused and technical, and I hope that consideration is given to that fact.

I think that knowing the review is coming will affect behaviour in a positive way. Hopefully that review will be straightforward, and HMRC customers—our constituents—will find themselves treated more fairly than they might otherwise have been. That would certainly give me and, I am sure, other Members across the House a bit more reassurance that the broad powers being given to HMRC will be exercised in a responsible way, and that some degree of oversight is coming down the track.

The other reason why I think this part of new clause 7 is really important is the reference to

“avoiding business failures and individual bankruptcies.”

I do not think anyone—including, by the way, our constituents who have been caught up in this loan charge fiasco—would resent the idea that people who have not paid their fair share ought to do so. Certainly, the constituents whom I have seen at my advice surgeries have given explanations as to how they ended up in this mess in the first place. In the case of my constituents—I am sure I am speaking for other Members across the House—it is hard to overstate the extent of the shame and embarrassment that some of them have shared with me at those surgeries, in quite a distressing way. Lots of people have been caught up in this who no doubt deliberately sought to avoid paying their fair share of tax, and I do not have very much sympathy with those people. However, there are other people who ended up in this mess inadvertently.

I tend to go by the adage, as others do, that if it looks too good to be true, it is too good to be true. I think there are lots of people who are feeling pretty foolish, and who have acknowledged their embarrassment when talking to their MPs. I am worried because when we look at some of the liabilities people are now facing and their individual circumstances, we know that some people have been driven to sell their homes, been forced into real financial hardship, and have seen the collapse of their businesses. I do not think any fair-minded person would imagine that the outcome we all want from this process is people forced into bankruptcy, with their lives in ruins. We want them to pay their fair share, to be held to account where they have done wrong, and to make sure that they are paying their tax in a way that others do, but surely there is a fairer way to go about some of this than simply ruining people. In some cases, HMRC will not end up recouping all the losses to the Exchequer in any case if people are forced over the edge.

That has to be taken seriously. The last figures I saw showed that, to date, there had been seven suicides of people facing the loan charge, and that should weigh heavily on all of us. No one wants to see such a tragic end to this horrible mess. When we look at the size of some of the liabilities people are facing, we see that it is incredibly daunting for them and it places a huge burden on them and their families. Some people feel it is a burden they can longer face, and we ought to make sure that is not the outcome faced by anyone affected by the loan charge.

I want to return to the recommendation of the Morse review that those with incomes under £30,000 should have outstanding balances written off after 10 years of making reasonable payments. The Minister has given his account of why the Government have not accepted that recommendations, but I wish to make two points. First, the threshold that Sir Amyas identified of incomes of less than £30,000 tells us that lots of people who are not incredibly wealthy have been caught up in the loan charge. When we think about tax avoidance generally and about this scheme, it may be that we are talking about people working for one of the big four whose bonuses could happily write off their liability to HMRC, their luxury holiday, other extravagances that they had planned—the money they were planning to put down on that third holiday getaway somewhere nice in the world. We are not going to cry any tears for those people, are we?

However, lots of people involved in this are on much lower incomes. Some of them felt compelled to sign up to the loan scheme because that is what they were encouraged to do by the company or service provider contracting them—this applies in both the public and private sectors. A huge outstanding balance is a much higher burden for someone on a lower income. That is the first point to make, and it relates to financial hardship and individual circumstances.

Secondly, it does not sit well with me that the Government rightly pay tribute to Sir Amyas Morse and the work he has done, recognising his independence and expertise, and the extent to which he has dealt with the issues, but then say, at the end of the process, “We are accepting all your recommendations, bar this one, which we don’t like.” The Government would have a far stronger case if they said that they accepted the recommendations of the review in full. Otherwise, what is the point of independent reviews? This would not be the only Government in the history of the UK Parliament who have commissioned a review, sent a national treasure away to do some work, which they have done thoroughly, and then allowed it to end up gathering dust on the shelf. I recognise and welcome the fact that Sir Amyas can sleep easily at night knowing that his report is being enacted, but it is not right, and it does not sit well with me, that the Government have dismissed this one recommendation.

I also recognise what the Minister said about allowing greater flexibility for the repayment period, including a period of up to seven years. Again, however, I will just make this point: from looking at some of my own constituency casework, I know there are people who face tax liabilities of well over £100,000 whose combined household income would not make it possible for them both to repay that debt, even over that period, and pay their mortgage and look after their children; in one case I know of, there are two children involved, and in other cases there will be a different number of children involved.

15:30

That is a burden that people would find pretty hard to bear, and I wonder whether greater flexibility could be provided to give people a longer period of repayment if necessary. What consideration have the Government given to this issue and what discussions they have had with HMRC about it?

There is another issue that I will address by way of review, or mopping up these issues, as we come to the end of our deliberations around the loan charge. I wonder how familiar the Minister is with the issue of loans being recalled. Obviously HMRC is going after people and we are now hearing of cases of some people who face loans being recalled by parties who claim to have been assigned the rights to those loans, because in some cases loan books appear to have been sold on.

This situation just gets messier and messier, but it seems that some of those people, who are now locked into doing what they think is the right thing for HMRC, are being chased to repay their loans by debt collectors. I would be interested to know what representations the Treasury has had on that issue and whether the Government are planning further action on it.

[Jesse Norman]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his thorough and wide-ranging remarks. He is right that it is a kind of principle of tax policy in a way, or the typical reaction of an individual, and one wishes that the general instinct shared by 98% or 99% of the tax-paying population that he articulated well —namely, that if it looks too good to be true, it almost certainly is too good to be true—was shared by the whole of the population. However, for different reasons, that is not the case. The hon. Gentleman is right to articulate the principle that if it looks too good to be true, it is, and I thank him for doing so. I also thank him and his colleagues for the nuanced interrogation they have given this policy, but not diverging from us on its core thrust.

I want to make it clear that I am not remotely downplaying, undervaluing or minimising the personal feelings of people, or the impact or hardship that they have experienced as a result of this situation. Clearly, there have been cases that have been felt across the House and raised by different MPs, and Revenue and Customs understands that as well. It has made it very clear that it will not force people to sell their main home; that it will not, except in the most unusual circumstances, put people into bankruptcy; and that it will exercise, by adhering to a series of principles, a judicious approach to people’s settlement processes. That includes a principle that no more than half of someone’s disposable income should go to settle a tax dispute, so that families have not only their non-disposable income but at least half of their disposable income to support themselves.

Those principles also include, as I have indicated, a set of basic time periods to make a settlement—of five years in the case of someone earning under £50,000 a year, and of seven years in the case of someone earning under £30,000 a year—and that is part of the practice of Revenue and Customs, and a well-embedded principle.

Furthermore, if people have concerns that they are being badly handled in this process—this also relates to the point that the hon. Gentleman made about an independent review—they can appeal to tax commissioners for, as it were, an investigation and review. Of course, they also have the ability to go to their MP, and Members are very effective in raising tax-related issues on behalf of their constituents.

[Alison Thewliss]

On the point about MPs intervening on constituents’ issues, I would challenge the question around disposable income. A constituent of mine had been asked to pay money back, and the definition that HMRC gave of his disposable income was incredibly tight compared with the definition of it that he had, which included his finding difficulty in giving his children money for school meals. That seemed to be treated as part of his disposable income. His children have to eat; that is not disposable income as such. I ask the Minister to be very careful about how that is described and how HMRC acts on those kinds of things, because it takes a very strict line on disposable income.

[Jesse Norman]

Of course, the approach taken needs to have foundational principles aligned to it, and those can be questioned in specific contexts and by the mechanisms that I have described.

The distributional impact of the way the loan charge disguised remuneration population breaks down has been put into the public domain and analysed by HM Revenue and Customs. For example, a relatively small number of people work in caring professions, contrary to the impression that colleagues may have been given. That is the context in which the final recommendation by Sir Amyas Morse, which is that these debts should be written off after 10 years, has been rejected by the Government. It is a recognition of Sir Amyas’s expertise and independence that 19 of his recommendations were accepted, and the Government have given a full account of the reason why they have rejected the 20th.

In line with Sir Amyas’s recommendations on voluntary restitution, HMRC will refund voluntary restitution already paid for years now out of scope of the loan charge, but will not refund settlements for the underlying tax liability where HMRC had protected its position. That is so that the treatment remains in line with the existing legal framework for HMRC to recover tax. Sir Amyas also recommended that for disguised remuneration loans taken out on or after 9 December 2010, HMRC should only refund voluntary restitution where the scheme user had reasonably disclosed their scheme use. We have discussed that already at some length.

Regarding some of the impact of the different pressures that may be on taxpayers, HMRC will not as a matter of course meet professional costs incurred by taxpayers in reaching their original settlement or claiming refunds, but it may meet professional costs where they have been incurred as a direct result of a mistake or an unreasonable delay in its own dealings with a taxpayer’s affairs. That was not the position when HMRC was applying legislation in place at the time.

Refunding fees to those who have used avoidance schemes would send the thoroughly troubling message that taxpayers who had not used those schemes might not do as well as those who had, which is not one that this House should be particularly encouraging. Of course, if a taxpayer feels they have grounds for making a complaint, the usual mechanisms are available for them to do so.

In his recommendation 14, Sir Amyas called for the Government to report to Parliament on all aspects of their implementation of the loan charge changes,

“before the end of 2020”.

We will do that. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for laying out her concerns in that regard in this debate, and I will ensure that the officials understand and reflect on them when they start to frame this report.

As per Sir Amyas’s recommendations, the report will draw on input from the HMRC customer experience committee. It is very important to realise that the committee includes not only the non-executive directors of Revenue and Customs, but highly experienced independent people in positions of authority and expertise who are specifically customer experience experts in the private sector. The effect of the committee is to support but also challenge the HMRC executive on customer experience-related issues, and to help the Department deliver on its strategic objectives. In other words, part of its point is to ensure that HMRC treats taxpayers with a proper degree of courtesy and service levels, but in no sense becomes oppressive to them.

Let me pick up another important point, which I meant to mention earlier but have not yet: the very strong approach that HMRC is taking on promoters and enablers of tax avoidance. Certainly since I have been Financial Secretary to the Treasury, we have significantly enhanced the already substantial work being done in that area. That includes work that builds collaboration across Government, including with bodies such as the Advertising Standards Authority or the Insolvency Service. It involves proactive communications to help taxpayers to steer clear of avoidance.

HMRC has launched a consultation on ways to combat the promotion and enabling of tax avoidance; colleagues from different parties are welcome to make contributions to that if they wish. The areas it is looking at include tackling promoters and their supply chains, looking at the economics of tax avoidance, disrupting business models and improving compliance and enforcement in other ways. I would like the Committee to understand that HMRC is in no sense minimising the importance of going after promoters and enablers where it can—subject to law, and with new powers if it should be so decided after the process of consultation.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 19 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 20 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

[Alison Thewliss]

What about the new clause?

[The Chair]

That comes later, at the end. We do not vote on that now.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(David Rutley.)

15:44

Adjourned till Tuesday 9 June at twenty-five minutes past Nine o’clock.

Written evidence reported to the House

FB01 Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP)

FB02 Dr Graham Walker

FB04 Jonathan Kidd

FB05 Martin Barber

FB06 Peter Aveyard, Director of Lead BA Limited

FB07 Chartered Institute of Taxation Clauses 7-21 Employment Tax

FB08 Chartered Institute of Taxation Clause 22 Entrepreneurs' Relief

FB09 Chartered Institute of Taxation Clause 23 Private Residence Relief

FB10 Chartered Institute of Taxation Clauses 27-30 Business Reliefs

FB11 Chartered Institute of Taxation Clause 36 Top Slicing Relief

FB12 Chartered Institute of Taxation Part 2 Digital Services Tax

FB13 Andrew Stokes

Domestic Abuse Bill (First sitting)

Committee stage
Thursday 4th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

The Committee consisted of the following Members:

Chairs: † Mr Peter Bone, Ms Karen Buck

† Aiken, Nickie (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)

† Atkins, Victoria (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department)

† Bowie, Andrew (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)

† Chalk, Alex (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice)

Coyle, Neil (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)

† Crosbie, Virginia (Ynys Môn) (Con)

† Davies-Jones, Alex (Pontypridd) (Lab)

† Gibson, Peter (Darlington) (Con)

† Harris, Rebecca (Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury)

† Jardine, Christine (Edinburgh West) (LD)

† Jones, Fay (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)

† Kyle, Peter (Hove) (Lab)

† Marson, Julie (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)

† Phillips, Jess (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)

† Saville Roberts, Liz (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)

† Twist, Liz (Blaydon) (Lab)

† Wood, Mike (Dudley South) (Con)

Jo Dodd, Kevin Maddison, Committee Clerks

† attended the Committee

Witnesses

Nicole Jacobs, Designate Domestic Abuse Commissioner

Pragna Patel, Director, Southall Black Sisters

Public Bill Committee

Thursday 4 June 2020

(Morning)

[Mr Peter Bone in the Chair]

Domestic Abuse Bill

11:30

[The Chair]

Before we begin, I have a few points that we always make. First, please put your devices on silent. Secondly—a rule that I never understand—you cannot have tea or coffee in here, on the grounds that they are supposed to be hot drinks. I would argue that it will have gone cold, but you still cannot have it. Obviously, I stress the importance of social distancing in the Committee Room. If at any time you feel that the social distancing is incorrect, let me know and we will take action.

We have a problem in that every member of the Committee cannot sit round the horseshoe, so some are having to sit in the Public Gallery. I would have liked Members in the Public Gallery to have been able to speak, but unfortunately, because of the recordings that we need to make for Hansard, that is not possible. I tried to put a Member where the hon. Member for Edinburgh West is sitting, but you will have to move, because I have been told that you cannot go there. You are too close to the Member in front.

If a member of the Committee wants to speak, they will have to come into the horseshoe and somebody from the horseshoe will have to step back. That is not ideal, because we are moving around, but trust me, before we started, we tried every form of social distancing to get it to work. If you want to know what social distancing looks like, I am exactly the right height. If you imagine me flat on the floor, you have to walk round me.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

You will be flat on the floor, if the Government have anything to do with it.

[The Chair]

I will not be heckled—this is the easy bit.

Hansard has asked for you to email your written notes or speeches, because obviously these are not normal circumstances, to [e-mail].

Today we will first consider the programme motion on the amendment paper. We will then consider a motion to enable the reporting of written evidence for publication and a motion to allow us to deliberate in private about our questions before the oral evidence session. In view of the limited time available, I hope that we can take these matters without much debate. I call the Minister to move the programme motion that was agreed by the Programming Sub-Committee on Tuesday.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

I beg to move,

That—

(1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 11.30 am on Thursday 4 June) meet—

(a) at 2.00 pm on Thursday 4 June;

(b) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 9 June;

(c) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Wednesday 10 June;

(d) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 11 June;

(e) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 16 June;

(f) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Wednesday 17 June;

(2) the Committee shall hear oral evidence in accordance with the following Table:

[The Chair]

Copies of written evidence that the Committee receives will be made available in the Committee Room.

Resolved,

That, at this and any subsequent meeting at which oral evidence is to be heard, the Committee shall sit in private until the witnesses are admitted.—(Victoria Atkins.)

00:04

The Committee deliberated in private.

Examination of Witness

Nicole Jacobs gave evidence.

11:44

[The Chair]

We will now hear oral evidence from the designate domestic abuse commissioner. Thank you very much for coming today.

Before calling the first Member to ask a question, I remind all Members that questions should be limited to matters within the scope of the Bill, and we must stick to the timings in the programme order. The Committee has agree that, for this session, we have until 12.30 pm.

What I am going to say now is about social distancing. If anyone in the room feels uncomfortable about social distancing, we will deal with it. Please do not hesitate to say if you are worried. I would be most grateful if our witness can speak into the microphone, because although this is one of the modern rooms of the Palace of Westminster, it has the worst acoustics. We have an additional problem, which is that we cannot get all Members around the horseshoe, so, exceptionally, Members are going to speak from behind. Will the witness not look behind when answering, because we lose the sound? If possible, when you are answering a question from behind, could you frame your answer in reply to the question? That way, Hansard will pick up the question as well. This is the first time we have done this, and we are trying to do the best we can.

Could you introduce yourself?

Nicole Jacobs: My name is Nicole Jacobs, and I am the designate domestic abuse commissioner for England and Wales. Just as a short introduction, I was appointed in late September, after having worked for more than 20 years in domestic abuse services, some in the United States but mostly in the UK in various organisations—most recently, an organisation called Standing Together Against Domestic Violence, which is based in west London.

[The Chair]

Before I call the first Member, Jess Phillips, to ask a question, I remind the witness that this is the only time that Ministers have fun in the whole of this process. They get to ask questions too.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Hello, Nicole, and welcome to our slightly weird distanced Committee. Some of my other colleagues will talk to you specifically about the role, the role of the Bill in creating it and some of those other areas, so I want to ask you more broadly about the Bill.

We keep hearing Ministers say, “We will be asking the commissioner to do a review of this, looking at different ways in which there might be a postcode lottery in the country for this, that and the other,” so that is expected to be part of your role. What do you think the Bill does well for the sustainability of services for victims and perpetrators of domestic abuse, and where do you think the main gaps are?

Nicole Jacobs: Thank you for that. I apologise to anyone who has heard me talk about the Bill before, but I appreciate that some Members are new here. I will say what I have said consistently from the start. I welcome almost all aspects of the Bill. There is nothing in it that I particularly disagree with, and I particularly welcome things such as the statutory definition and the inclusion of financial abuse. There are aspects that could be improved—I am sure we will talk about them over the hour—but on the whole, I support the key elements. I particularly support the inclusion of the statutory duty for accommodation-based services, because that has been such a vulnerable aspect of our services over many years.

What I have always thought is missing from the Bill and would greatly support the services sector is the inclusion of community-based services in the statutory duty. Everything I do as the commissioner in thinking about the monitoring and oversight of services—not just specialist services, but the breadth of what we expect of all our community-based statutory services—would be supported if there were greater inclusion in the Bill of the duty for community-based services. They are providing 70% of our services, and they are as vulnerable as refuges have been for years.

I am sure that I will talk about some of my mapping. Part of the reason why I am mapping services is to look at that postcode lottery. The reason why that gets a bit complicated is that all services, no matter where they are, will be cobbling together funding from all manner of places—the local authority, the police and crime commissioner, foundations and trusts, local fundraising and their own fee earning—and they will be doing that to cover the basic crisis response. There are very few places anywhere that would have the breadth of response that we would love to see, in terms of prevention, early crisis intervention, follow-up support and therapeutic support, which we know are really needed. The Bill is missing that element, which is a particularly strong one, and we have many people who have no recourse to public funds, which means there are many barriers to support.

[Jess Phillips]

Q I just want to pick up on that issue of the postcode lottery, which is potentially not harmed in the Bill but is not catered for in the Bill. In a situation where a child is a victim of domestic abuse directly or lives every day with their mother being raped, beaten and abused in front of them, are you confident that, if the child were to come forward, there would be specialist support—or any support—for that child, no matter where they stood up in the country?

Nicole Jacobs: No, I would not be confident of that. I did not mention that in my opening comments, but unless they met a particular threshold for children’s social care—most of the public would think children experiencing domestic abuse would meet such thresholds, but they often do not. Even if they did, there would be a lot of variance within our statutory provision of children’s safeguarding from area to area, let alone anything that is specifically commissioned to address domestic abuse. Children’s services, and services that help perpetrators to change, are probably the biggest areas where there are gaps in our system.

[Jess Phillips]

Q In the follow-up to the Joint Committee on the previous Bill in a previous Parliament—it looks pretty similar to this Bill in this Parliament, so we will assume it is the one for this Bill—the Government came back and said they felt that, in the wider context of abusive behaviour towards a victim under the age of 16, it would be deemed child abuse and the extra support would come through social services. Is that a picture of our country that you recognise?

Nicole Jacobs: No. Before the lockdown, I started to visit some areas that our chief social worker had told me were particularly outstanding in children’s social care. She would think it is broader than this, but she suggested a handful of places for me to visit. In the places I started to visit, I was, like she thought I might be, quite impressed by the provision of services within social care. I was seeing something that I had never seen before: a point of contact for the abusing parent, for the adult victim and for the child. I had actually not seen that before in 20 years of working, and I have not only worked in west London; I have worked in organisations that are much broader. I was really inspired by that, but I recognised something that I thought was fairly unusual. I think what you said is true.

[Jess Phillips]

Q On the gaps that you alluded to with regard to migrant women, migrant victims and migrant children, and to British children who are the children of migrant victims, you said that the Bill did not currently do enough to help them. Could you please expand on that?

Nicole Jacobs: That is right. Having been there myself, I have experienced the feeling of having someone in my office on a Friday afternoon who has three children, has no recourse to public funds and is too scared to go home, knowing that I could do very little and that I had a long night ahead of me. I understand how that feels.

That is happening every day, all the time, and I do not see anything in this Bill that would address that. I am a firm believer that we should lift the requirement that people have no recourse to public funds. It makes no sense. If you are experiencing domestic abuse, and you are here in our country, then you should have recourse to routes to safety.

Those are the people who actually got to me. I was sitting in an office that was within a broader larger charity, and it was probably lucky that those people got to me. Many migrant women will have fears about the system and about the repercussions of coming forward. They will be highly dependent on word-of-mouth networks and much smaller community-based services.

[Jess Phillips]

Q I wanted to clarify that the women—I am assuming they were largely women—who you talk about that came to you, and the people I am talking about, are here in this country completely legally.

Nicole Jacobs: That is right. They did not have a status that would allow them to have recourse to the funds. It is true that that did not mean they could not come to see me in a community-based service, but it meant my hands were tied and I had very few options. I would hope for a possible night in a hostel somewhere, but I would know that we would be back to square one the next day. That would happen over and over again, until, quite rarely, we would find somewhere more suitable. I might have been ringing around the few refuge spaces that were possibly available. The next witness will give you much more detail about that.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Absolutely. I want to finish by talking about the gap you identified around perpetrator services. The Bill has wide-ranging changes with regard to domestic violence protection orders and other such issues. Is there a particular area of the Bill that you think needs to be more robust about how we manage the postcode lottery of perpetrator services?

Nicole Jacobs: It could potentially be addressed in a statutory duty that was broadened in the clauses about domestic abuse protection orders. I leave that up to you to decide. In my years of experience working in the sector we have had huge changes in terms of innovation. It is an exciting time to think about the broad strategy that we need for perpetrators to help them change and for early intervention, all the way through to much more punitive measures. There are a lot of pilots, a lot of evaluation and practice.

We are in a better place than ever, but I am concerned about the DAPO and the positive requirements on it. You will not be able to place the positive requirement if there is not a service in the area that meets proper standards, as it is fairly unusual to find an area that would have that breadth of services.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Would it be pointless to have a Bill that makes ways for domestic abuse protection orders to exist if, in your local area, there is not a service that would be accredited, by some standard that does not currently exist?

Nicole Jacobs: I have always understood that the DAPO is in the Bill to pave the way, through its two-year piloting. There is no doubt that it will prompt many questions: the implementation, the way we should be working together, the thought we need to give to how victims and survivors are communicated with in courts, and any number of other things.

Because I am an optimistic person, I always thought that while things are not covered off completely—there is a huge gap with the idea of the perpetrator and where all the constant requirements are coming from—the general strategy is for people to learn in the process of the DAPO. I guess my plea is for you to strength the evaluation of that pilot any way you can in the Bill. It needs to be implemented and resourced properly, including the voice of victims, and my other plea would be for the Victims’ Commissioner and I to be included in the learning for the DAPOs.

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

Q I want to comment on a few things that you said in response to Jess’s questions. A lot of the things you are saying about the DAPOs will obviously come into the statutory guidance. It is important to remember that there are things in the Bill, but the statutory guidance will be the backup, and I suspect a lot of your concerns will be addressed by that guidance. When you talk about community-based services, are you talking about the charitable sector—the third sector—or are you talking about local government? In local government, there is an ability to offer a lot of domestic abuse services, but some councils do not choose to. What is your definition of community-based services?

Nicole Jacobs: In general, I am talking about the ones that are commissioned for domestic abuse services, usually—although not solely—by the local authority. Sometimes those are outreach workers or independent domestic violence advocates; at one point, I was one of those. All aspects of the local authority are highly dependent on those services—housing officers, social workers, teachers—and a whole breadth of referrals come into those types of services. Just to give you an example, in the area of west London where I worked the year before I took on this role, they had 4,000 referrals of people into those community-based services, so we are talking about quite high volumes of cases. Each worker will be supporting 30 to 40 people at any given time. That is on a rolling basis over the year, so by the end of that year, just that one worker will have probably supported well over 100 people, if not more.

There are a few places where that team will be employed within the local authority, but those are few and far between; the commissioning-out of that service is much more common. I prefer the commissioning-out of the service, because people who experience domestic abuse have such a lot of fears about seeking help because they worry about the consequences. They do not know for definite what the police, particularly, are going to do, or social workers or anyone else, and they really value the independence of that role. It is not that they would never share information: if they have safeguarding concerns, for example, they have a duty to share those, but there is a level of independence that gives them a bit of safe space to think through the complexities of their situation, and it is fairly well evaluated that these are critical services. They are also quite cost-effective. It is incredible what these individual workers will do over the course of the year. If you shifted that into a local authority, they would cost more and the relationship would change, so the case I am making is for us to recognise how critical these services are.

My worry is that if we go ahead with the statutory duty for refuge-based or accommodation-based services, local authorities that are cash-strapped or concerned about budgets will obviously prioritise that duty, and the unintended consequence could be that these community-based services are curtailed or cut. They are not in main budgets, but have to fight year in, year out or in each commissioning cycle, which are relatively short: two years or sometimes three. I worry that because they are not part of a duty, they will be cut or curtailed, when even now they are barely covering the breadth of support that they should. There could be some serious unintended consequences from the implementation of the duty.

If it stays that way, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government should include in the current set-up of the statutory duty for accommodation-based services a firm responsibility to understand what the consequences could be for community-based services. In practice, the pattern is that it is hard to see the expansion in these services that you might think there would be, considering the prevalence rates. I think that surprises many people. It might not surprise you, but it does surprise many people when they realise how these services have to survive on a shoestring with such a lot of cobbling together of funding.

[The Chair]

We will now have Peter Kyle, followed by Virginia Crosbie and Liz Twist. The Ministers have indicated that they want to ask you some questions, but I will try to save them to the end and get the Back Benchers in first.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

Q Thank you, Mr Bone, and thank you, Nicole, for coming in; we all greatly appreciate it. The issue of domestic abuse has had strong advocates in Parliament for a long time, and it has had strong advocates in the Home Office, politically and in the civil service, for a long time. Why is it that you need to act independently of these institutions in order to be effective?

Nicole Jacobs: I have developed my views on that over the past few months. Particularly in the past few months, in the period of covid-19, I have realised how much it helps Government to have an independent voice helping and advising and, at the same time, pushing for better, more effective ways of doing things. That does not mean that I have won every battle. It has not really been a battle; it has been very co-operative.

I have realised in recent months how much domestic abuse is an issue that runs through every Department—every strand of Government—and some of my role helps to bring those strands together. I said at the Prime Minister’s summit recently that I would love to see a cross-Government action plan. I am now seeing—as you will have recognised before—how much Government Departments in themselves work in silos and how much you need some kind of independent body such as mine. I feel that I have been very helpful, if I can say that.

[Peter Kyle]

Q So independence impacts the way you do your job, but presumably it also impacts the way you are perceived by the people for whom you advocate. Abuse victims and survivors need to see you as fully independent from Government and Parliament.

Nicole Jacobs: Of course, yes. I have been struck, in the time that I have been appointed, by how much it means to people to know that there is an independent Domestic Abuse Commissioner. People have said to me, “I have waited for years for this kind of thing.” In fact, I feel like the expectation is so high.

Just before I came here, I had a call from a woman who runs a campaign with hundreds, if not thousands, of people about family courts. She really values the idea that she can call me and talk to me about her worries about the Bill, and know that I can talk to her about that, and that I am not speaking for the Government. Equally, people expect me to co-operate with Government if I can, because they understand that I will have a certain level of access to conversations and influence, and it is important to them to know that is happening.

[Peter Kyle]

Q So if the Home Office was seen to be directive over you, directing your activities, or meddling in the work that you do, would that undermine your credibility in the eyes of victims and survivors?

Nicole Jacobs: Absolutely. First of all, I would not allow that. To some degree, I have to be firm in understanding where the boundaries are. If that was happening, they would probably understand that I would assert that was happening.

[Peter Kyle]

Q But there are certain areas of the Bill where the Home Secretary can direct you. The Home office sets your budget, the Home Office sets the framework that you follow, and the Home Office has the power—or the right—to look at your advice before it is published, and presumably to comment on it. In a productive, functional relationship that is co-operative, which is how you said you want to approach the job, that seems fine. However, should that become dysfunctional at any point, there is the power within the law to be quite assertive over you.

Nicole Jacobs: I suppose I would say to the whole Committee that if there is any way that you feel you could strengthen my independence, I would obviously welcome it, and I think anyone on this Committee should want to welcome that. As you say, it is important to the public and to the Government to know that. It makes the relationship functional. My experience, and the way I have been communicated with by Ministers and civil servants to date, has been entirely within those bounds, which shows me how everyone recognises it has to function—in a healthy, independent state.

[Peter Kyle]

Q That is entirely plausible, because you have here two of the most reasonable Ministers that I could ever imagine. You are very popular. The Joint Committee recommends that you should report to the Cabinet Office, the Home Affairs Committee believes that you should report to Parliament, and the Home Office will not let go of you at any cost, so you are very popular—as an institution and as a commissioner—before you have even been established. Do you have a view on any of those things, or do you believe that it is our business to try to sort that out for you?

Nicole Jacobs: My view of the role is probably more simplistic. Yes, I think it is your responsibility to sort it out. I really believe that. In my view, and with the kinds of rules I play by on this, I will always speak the truth, so far as I understand it, regardless of who I am talking to about it. That is what I have to abide by, and I will expect to be independent. However the logistics are set out, I would really welcome this Committee making sure that they are as independent as possible, without any doubt.

[Peter Kyle]

Q I have one final question—forgive me for hurrying along; we only have a short amount of time to do this—about cross-examination, which is obviously a very important part of the Bill. Do you believe that what is in the Bill achieves the purpose of giving victims and alleged victims of domestic abuse adequate protection against the possibility of continued abuse via direct cross-examination?

Nicole Jacobs: I think it is welcome. I would just take a step back and urge you to consider the kind of evidence that someone would produce in order to allow for that. Most people who are subject to domestic abuse will not always have—there will not be a record in many places, such as with the police, or of a conviction, for that matter, so I would be mindful that you consider how many people could be coming through the court and still be subject to cross-examination if they are not able to “prove” domestic abuse.

I think it points to a larger issue within family courts: because of the way the family courts currently operate, they are not able to understand and differentiate fully the breadth of what has happened, yet they make incredibly life-changing decisions. I would not like someone to make decisions about my children based on very little evidence and a short assessment, but that is what we often ask the family courts to do, in respect of cross-examination or any number of things that will happen. I just worry that we need a much broader ambition for our family courts to really understand exactly the breadth of what is happening, and not confine them to wanting domestic abuse to be proven in a particular way. There are other ways we could find these things out. That would be my higher ambition.

Specifically on the cross-examination, I would like that to be broader. There are studies that show that one in four people responding to the study who were subject to domestic abuse had been cross-examined if they had been in a family court. It is horrific to be cross-examined by someone who you fear, who knows intimate details about you. It puts you in a terrible position, obviously. So I am pleased that this is in the Bill. I think it could be strengthened.

[The Chair]

Thank you. A number of Members have caught my eye, starting with Virginia Crosbie, then Liz Twist, Alex Davies-Jones, Liz Saville Roberts and Mike Wood, and of course the Minister will want to ask questions. I can see what the problem is going to be: we only have less than 15 minutes. Could we bear that in mind and perhaps have brief questions and answers? It is always a problem in these sessions.

Nicole Jacobs: I will be brief, I promise.

[Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)]

Q Thank you for coming in, Nicole. I have two quick questions. You mentioned working with charities, and my question is on collaboration. In terms of working with the third sector, I have Gorwel in my constituency of Ynys Môn, which is a great domestic abuse charity. It has been very helpful in giving me lots of background information and very supportive in the community. How do you as a commissioner see yourself working with the third sector to make sure it has a voice?

Nicole Jacobs: I see it in a lot of different ways, particularly because they are the closest link to the voice of the survivor. Obviously, I want to be influenced directly by people who are subject to domestic abuse, but those services have such a breadth of understanding that my first question is almost always, “What does the frontline service think about this particular thing?” because I know that they will have spotted every advantage and every problem in anything. I would hope that the way I would work with them is quite close—I have been working very closely with them in past months. For example, I have a call every Monday with quite a few of our national helplines and services that represent the sector.

I probably should say the obvious: the idea of the domestic abuse commissioner’s office—not me personally, but the idea of it—will have a massive impact, because it will allow me to go to the local level and help elevate those voices. It will help illustrate more clearly the breadth of funding that needs to go to those services for them to do what they need to do, so that they are not constantly chasing funding deadlines or dealing with shortfalls in their budgets and all those kinds of things. It is also about making sure that they are rightfully where they need to be in strategic conversations at local level, because that has deteriorated quite a bit over time. You have charities that, because they are commissioned by the local authority, are sometimes at a disadvantage when there are challenging discussions to be had. That is because, on the one hand, they are asking for funding and, on the other, they are trying to be a meaningful strategic partner in the whole of the response for an area. I would like to make sure that I have an expectation in areas that would elevate that voice. Those would be my priorities.

[Virginia Crosbie]

Q How do you see your role working with the Welsh Government advisers and the other commissioners—the Victims’ Commissioner and the Children’s Commissioner?

Nicole Jacobs: Again, if anything, covid has accelerated my picture of how I would do that. I speak to the Children’s Commissioner often, and to the Victims’ Commissioner several times a week. I speak to the Welsh national advisers usually once a week, but possibly once every two weeks. We have pretty close working relationships because there is such a lot of join-up about, in recent weeks, the response to covid, but, in general, the breadth of whatever is being implemented or thought about or should be happening. They are pretty close working relationships, and I will develop a memorandum of understanding with all those offices in due course.

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

Q I have a few short questions. What is your view on the inclusion of children in the Bill’s definition? Is that desirable?

Nicole Jacobs: Yes, because children are victims of domestic abuse in their own right, so that would seem an obvious thing to want to do.

[Liz Twist]

Q There is a suggestion that that issue would be covered in the guidance. Have you seen the final guidance?

Nicole Jacobs: I have not. I have seen draft guidance. I think it should obviously be in the statutory guidance as well, but there is a strong case that we would want to recognise in the Bill that children are victims of domestic abuse.

[Liz Twist]

Q Finally, on the issue of community-based services, do you think that authorities and organisations will see looking after children in community services as a lesser responsibility if it is not in the definition?

Nicole Jacobs: Yes, I think they would understand that they have a statutory duty on one hand and not on the other. There is already a pattern and practice that is very evident—there is not the commissioning of a whole breadth of services, particularly for children. I do not know why we would think that would improve if we do not make it clear. I think there would be a detrimental effect; I would be afraid of that.

[The Chair]

I will now call Alex Davies-Jones. She is about to make history, because I do not think we have ever had a Member speak from the Public Gallery before. I hope it is okay under these unusual circumstances. I ask the witness not to turn to face the Member, but to speak into the microphone, and if possible to frame your answer so that we can understand the question as well.

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

Q Thank you, Chair. I am never one for being quiet, so I think my voice will carry. I want to ask about the impact of the coronavirus and whether you think that has any implications. What can we learn from the impact of the pandemic that can help the Bill?

Nicole Jacobs: The question was about the impact of the coronavirus and what we might learn in relation to the Bill. I will answer briefly, but I think if it has taught us anything, it is about the prevalence of domestic abuse and the need for services. That goes exactly to our argument on broadening the statutory duty. At national helplines, we have seen increases across the board—for male victims, female victims, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender victims, and people who are concerned about their own behaviour. It shows the need for those services—that is where people go to for help, support and advice—and it strengthens our view about the need for the statutory duty. It has certainly, in my mind, shown the need for cross-governmental and much clearer action, planning and strategy. I will do my part and will make sure I play my role in that too. I would have been able to function more easily in the last weeks if there had been that kind of framework and the expectation on Departments.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Q One of the things I was very glad happened in the Joint Committee was the recognition of the fact that there is different legislation in Wales. There are also different third-sector organisations and a different arrangement with local authorities. There have been initial steps in your work in relation to the Welsh Government. You have been talking about cross-Government working. How do you see that developing in future? We have this divergence between England and Wales, and yet your role is equally important across both countries. How do you ensure that you are getting a voice back from Wales, to influence you at the heart of what you do?

Nicole Jacobs: To date, there has probably been more influence from Wales for me. I mentioned that Monday call. Welsh Women’s Aid sits on that call and an official from the Welsh Government sits on that call every Monday. They influence what comes out of that call, in what is given in the read-out, which goes to a number of stakeholders. It has helped us develop the obvious areas where we will need to work together—for example, thinking about funding through police and crime commissioners most recently and about what the picture is for Wales and what is happening there. I can see more than ever before where the synergies are. What is yet to be formalised in my mind is the areas where there could be more overlap, potentially, in thinking about mapping—things that, with agreement, it would make more sense to do together rather than separately on issues that are devolved. The working relationship is off to a good start, but I can see a real need for further development as well.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Q Is there any formal arrangement between you and the Welsh Government to report back on their strategy as well?

Nicole Jacobs: Not yet, no.

[The Chair]

Thank you. I think Mike Wood has kindly given up his slot because of the time restraints. I have Julie Marson first, then Christine Jardine and then the Minister. It might be an idea to stand up at the back.

[Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)]

Q I am interested in your views on the impact of having a statutory definition of domestic abuse for the first time. Also, can you give your views of your relative powers compared with some of the other existing commissioners, such as the Victims’ Commissioner or the Children’s Commissioner?

Nicole Jacobs: We cannot underestimate the need for that statutory definition; if I think that, for years and years, I have been training to what would have been an agreed cross-departmental definition, that is particularly welcome. That will have some effect, without any doubt, on any number of systems and services.

The question was about the importance of having the statutory definition. Like I said earlier, I think it should include children. I really welcome the inclusion of economic abuse. We are seeing, particularly with covid—it is coming up time and time again each week—people needing support for economic-related, financial abuses, and that is increasing quite substantially. It is a really important time to recognise that. One of the things we need in order to do that better would be to amend our coercion and control legislation to include post-separation abuse. That is incredibly important to consider and do.

I also think that the definition could include—you will hear about this from others later today—the idea of having a non-discrimination clause. I know there is a lot of detail to that, but, in some ways, that would help reiterate and underscore some of the points we talked about earlier in relation to migrant women. I would welcome that, and it would be positive.

In relation to the powers of my role in comparison with other commissioners, I think I have said before that the Home Office has looked at various commissioners and has done quite a good job of thinking about what set of powers this office should have. They are relatively strong. The duty to respond to recommendations, and the ability to ask for information and have an expectation for co-operation—all those things compare quite well with other commissioners.

[The Chair]

I am sorry to interrupt. I am conscious of the lack of time, so I am going to move on to Christine Jardine.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

Q I will be very brief. I want to follow up on the question on Wales. What sort of a relationship are you developing with Scotland, because much of this is devolved there as well? Do you feel there is a need for a formal relationship with the devolved Authorities?

Nicole Jacobs: I have been to Northern Ireland as well, and I have had conversations particularly with Scottish Women’s Aid. I was quite interested to understand that some of the funding for Scottish Women’s Aid comes as core funding from Government in Scotland, because of the recognition of their expertise and the need to advise Government. I was quite interested to see that that happened. In some ways, Scottish Women’s Aid is quite comparable to the way my role is set out in terms of advice to Government and challenge.

I think I will have quite a good working relationship in both Northern Ireland and in Scotland. I would probably welcome any way that you see fit to strengthen that, because, inevitably, there will be learning and crossover. I have talked to Scottish Women’s Aid about, for example, the research they do with their counterparts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, in terms of Women’s Aid, the research and the potential synergies with my office. I want to join that up and make sure we are not wasting any time or resource.

[The Chair]

I will have to apologise to Members who have not been able to get in. You have been an excellent and very clear witness. There are lots more questions, but I am afraid we are bound by the time limits, so I have to call this session to an end. Thank you very much indeed. We move on to the next session.

Nicole Jacobs: Thank you.

Examination of Witness

Pragna Patel gave evidence.

12:30

[The Chair]

Q We will now hear oral evidence from the Southall Black Sisters. I am very grateful that our witness sat through the first session, so I will not repeat all the information about social distancing and the fact that Members are sitting behind you, as you have heard that. I would be very grateful if you could introduce yourself.

Pragna Patel: My name is Pragna Patel, and I am the director and a founding member of Southall Black Sisters. We were established in 1979 to meet the needs of black and minority ethnic women, certainly in our local area of west London. Although we are based in west London, we now have a national reach.

Most of the women who come to us have been subject to all kinds of gender-related violence and, related to that, issues of homelessness, poverty, trauma, mental illness and, of course, difficulties with immigration matters. We exist as an advice, advocacy and campaigning centre, and have been at the forefront of many campaigns to highlight the needs and experiences of black and minority women in the UK.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Hello, Pragna. Thank you for coming in today in these slightly strange circumstances.

For a number of years, this Bill has been getting to the point where we are sitting here today. Organisations like yours, Southall Black Sisters, are run for and by migrant women and black and minority ethnic women. Could you estimate how many hours you have spent trying to help build the Bill, working with the Government and advocating in meetings in this House? How many hours do you think you have spent asking for things to be in this Bill for migrant women and victims of domestic abuse?

Pragna Patel: During the course of the Bill, I would say hundreds. It has become a core element of our work. The reason why we have put so much time and resources into the Bill is that, like many, we see it as a landmark Bill—a once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity Bill—to try to get things right for abused women. For us, it is vital that it includes protection measures not for some women but for all women, and particularly the women we work with.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Could you briefly, in one line, set out what exactly you—not just you, but organisations like yours and lots of more generic organisations—have been asking to be put in the Bill?

Pragna Patel: There are lots of aspects of it that I could talk about, but the key thing is the inclusion of protection for migrant women, who represent some of the most marginalised, vulnerable, forgotten women in our society. If covid-19 has taught us anything, it is that there are glaring inequalities in our society. If we want to create a new normal, we have to seize opportunities like this to combat the inequalities that are being shored up, which lead to problems in the long run. We have seen that in relation to the exclusion from the Bill of protection for migrant women.

[Jess Phillips]

Q So after all those hours of work and, I believe, two reviews—please correct me if I am wrong—on migrant women, with one completed and one not completed, do you see any of your work written on the face of the Bill in front of us?

Pragna Patel: I cannot tell you how disappointing and frustrating it is for us to feel that our voices continue to be unheard. It is not my voice, but the voice of those who remain invisible, that I am trying to amplify here. It does not signal confidence that, in the governing structures of this society and in the criminal and civil justice systems, there will be protection afforded to all women who need to engage with statutory, legal and voluntary services to obtain protection and justice. The women I work with are some of the women who suffer the most disproportionately from violence and abuse, who face some of the most prolonged and extreme forms of harm, and who have the least ability to exit from abuse and protect themselves. That is why it is so important that people here today take account of the need to make this Bill the best that it can be, in terms of protecting those who cannot protect themselves. The litmus test of this Bill has to be: are we protecting those who are the most marginalised and the most vulnerable?

[Jess Phillips]

Q Just so that people can hear this, if a victim comes forward who is working in, let us say, a hospital and has no recourse to public funds, would she be able to easily access a refuge bed for her and her children in any local authority area?

Pragna Patel: No way. There is no way. No recourse to public funds prohibits abused women who are subject to it from accessing any kind of support. They basically cannot access the welfare safety net.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Have you ever met any women in that circumstance who have children—let us discount single victims at this point—and who have been told that they would have their children removed from them? Obviously, local authorities have a duty to provide, under section 17 of the Children Act, for every child who comes forward. Have you ever seen circumstances in which women have been told that their children will be removed because the women have been victims of domestic abuse?

Pragna Patel: All the time. One of the areas of work for us has been working with our local authorities to try to encourage them, support them and challenge them to support women and children, because they have safeguarding duties to the children at least, even if women have no recourse to public funds. We are finding that there are two problems to this. The first is that many of these women have insecure immigration status. Immigration and Home Office enforcement officers are now embedded in many social services, which increases the level of fear that women have in even getting out, reporting abuse and seeking help, because they are afraid that data will be shared with the Home Office and that, instead of being offered help, they will be subject to possible deportation. That is the first problem we are facing.

The second problem we face is that, for all sorts of reasons, the local authority response is one of deterrence. It may be because they are cash-strapped; it may be for other reasons. It means that when women go and report domestic violence, particularly if they have no recourse to public funds and have children, there are three or four common responses that we are always met with. One: “We do not have a duty to accommodate you, but we can pay for your return ticket to your country of origin—this is without assessing needs and risks. Two: “We have a duty to your child but not you, and therefore we will accommodate the child and not you.” Three: “The child has not been the subject of abuse, and therefore the child can remain with the abuser.” That way, the safeguarding duties are discharged. Reconciliation and mediation meetings, offering immigration advice when they are not experienced enough to do so, having immigration officers in the building speaking to those women, which drives up their levels of fear, encouraging women to return to their country of origin or sometimes encouraging women to go and obtain asylum even though that is not appropriate, are some of the most common responses that we have received from local authorities, not just in London, but also outside.

We are in the middle of producing research to bring together the evidence around local authority responses. What I would say is that over three months last year—October to December—we had occasion to seek legal advice in 18 cases involving local authority responses, because they were not fulfilling the statutory duty in relation to section 17 of the Children Act and the need to safeguard children.

[Jess Phillips]

Q This is my final question. If it was written into the Bill that victims of domestic abuse who have no recourse to public funds, regardless of their status, were able to access welfare, security and support from any agency, would that save people’s lives?

Pragna Patel: There is no question that introducing such a measure would provide almost certainty, in terms of protection and safety and providing life-saving services and access to justice for many women.

I really want to emphasise the context of this. We have seen with the covid-19 crisis that inequalities that have always existed have been exposed and exacerbated. We have also seen, in relation to what is going on in the US, the racial uprisings, which are also a reflection of historical and glaring inequalities—in both cases, in relation to the protected characteristics of race, age, class, sex and so on. When I say that migrant women are excluded from the Bill, I am also talking about discrimination and inequality.

We have an opportunity to redress that balance and to ensure that those who need protection and justice can get it, regardless of their status, regardless of their background. That is what the Istanbul convention that the Bill is seeking to ratify—it is a step towards that ratification—is hoping to do. If we really mean that, if we really want to change and to combat inequalities and create a new normal, introducing measures that will support the most vulnerable and the most invisible—those who are most likely to be subject to the hostile immigration environment—is critical. I encourage the Committee to really think about the opportunity we have got to signal a new normal.

[The Chair]

I am going to call the Minister next, and then I will go to Peter Kyle and then Mike Wood.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Good morning. You agree that the Government need clear data and evidence in order to create meaningful and effective policies to help those incredibly vulnerable women.

Pragna Patel: Absolutely. Of course I do. I think the evidence has been gathered, and it is there; that is my difference with the view that we need to collect more data and evidence. Over the duration of this Bill, there have been various roundtables, ministerial meetings, submissions to the Home Office, internal reviews, submissions to the last call for evidence. In all these ways, evidence has been submitted to show how migrant women, particularly those with no recourse to public funds and on non-spousal visas, are being left behind and left devoid of protection. There is a lot of evidence out there, and it is gathered. Government themselves have funded us, through the tampon tax, to provide that evidence.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q That was my next question: we have asked you to help us with this evidence, haven’t we? We have given you £250,000 through the tampon tax fund and a further £1 million to build on that work. Against that background, could you please help us by telling us how many victims you have helped through the tampon tax fund?

Pragna Patel: We produced the findings, which we have also let you have. That is an evaluation of the tampon tax funding for no-recourse women.

[Victoria Atkins]

How many victims?

Pragna Patel: There are a number of tampon tax funds, but altogether between them, from 2017 to date, we have probably helped in the region of 500 women.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Is it fair to say that a high proportion of those 500 women were eligible for support under the destitute domestic violence concession?

Pragna Patel: No. We would say that half were and half were not.

[Victoria Atkins]

So 250 of the 500 were eligible, but 250 were not—

Pragna Patel: Were not eligible.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Of the 250 who were not eligible, how many of the cases were complex and would have needed more than three months under the DDVC arrangements, and how many times have you asked for the DDVC time limit to be extended?

Pragna Patel: We have asked several times for the time limit to be extended, in recognition of the fact that women who are on non-spousal visas have complex immigration histories, and the evaluation findings suggest that we need a longer period of time to support them in order for them to resolve those immigration difficulties. Up to six months or so would be an average.

[Victoria Atkins]

Fair enough, but of the 250—

Pragna Patel: Half of them at least, because our evidence shows that about two thirds of the women who come to us and our partner agencies in relation to the no-recourse fund that we provide are women who do not have spousal visas, and therefore need at least three months, if not longer—up to six months, or sometimes a little more—to resolve their immigration matters.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Fair enough. How many of the 250 women who were not eligible under DDVC could have sought help from other sources of Government support, including, for example, the national referral mechanism, having been trafficked and—

Pragna Patel: Not many would have sought help through the national referral mechanism, because trafficked women only represented a small proportion of the women who came to us for help.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q I appreciate that incredibly vulnerable victims of human trafficking living in abusive households may not know that the NRM exists, but of course, the role of charities is to signpost them to that system where they get support.

Pragna Patel: Not many of them were what we would classify as trafficked victims. Many of them were women who were in abusive marriages and relationships, whose relationship or marriage broke down due to domestic abuse. It is not an accurate reflection to say that many of those women could have been referred to the national referral mechanism.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am not saying that; I am just asking for your findings.

Pragna Patel: Perhaps a handful.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q The reason I am asking these questions is to understand the evidence base we have at the moment. We are very grateful for the work you have done, but at the moment, the evidence base consists of a few hundred cases. They are compelling, complex cases, but to create a national policy, would you not agree that we need more evidence to ensure that the policies we are creating will help those women most in need? For example, the three-month DDVC extension may not help some of the women who you have just described.

Pragna Patel: No, we are talking about a six-month period in which the evaluation findings suggest that many of the women could be helped to resolve their immigration matters or be well on their way, and helped to deal with the barriers they need to overcome in order to stand on their own two feet. In terms of the evidence you need, the evidence we have provided is exactly the evidence that you will get if you do another pilot project.

[Victoria Atkins]

Let’s not speculate about the pilot project—

[The Chair]

Minister, I must apologise, but I can see what will happen if I do not stop you—I will not get the other Back-Bench Members in. This always happens. I apologise to the witness. We could do a two-hour session, but we only have half an hour, so—

[Victoria Atkins]

Q Am I allowed one more question? Do you welcome the pilot project, and the money that we are investing in trying to help?

Pragna Patel: We are worried that the pilot project will delay matters and will delay the needed protection measures, and that it may be followed up by yet more pilot projects. We are worried that the pilot project has been allocated £1.5 million, whereas the tampon tax that we currently have has allocated £1.9 million. It is only helping 130 women over two years, so we cannot see how the £1.5 million that you have allocated for a pilot project will support many women or will garner the kind of evidence that you will need and that is not already available to you now.

[The Chair]

Thank you. I am going to change the order slightly, because Mr Wood kindly gave up his slot last time. Mike, I will come to you now, if that is okay.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Q I shall be brief, because time is short. Turning specifically to the Bill, what benefits do you see the domestic abuse commissioner being able to deliver for migrant women who are victims of domestic abuse?

Pragna Patel: What benefits in the Bill so far?

[Mike Wood]

What benefits of the role of the domestic abuse commissioner, as it has been set out in the framework document, do you see being available for migrant victims of domestic abuse?

Pragna Patel: The first thing about the role of the domestic abuse commissioner is that it allows someone independent of Government to amplify the voices of migrant women, and also the BME women’s sector, and to help ensure that the kind of demands that we are making are included in any agenda in relation to statutory guidance, on further reforms in law and in relation to the kind of joined-up thinking that the Government need to be doing in order to meet the needs of more women.

The benefit of the role of the domestic abuse commissioner, so far as I can see, will be particularly powerful when it can influence Government Departments to work across government to try to deal with some of the barriers and obstacles that migrant women particularly face, because those barriers are intersectional. They relate to the ways in which the Home Office, the criminal justice system, the family courts and the third sector can all work together and better to provide the support and protection needed.

[Mike Wood]

Q On the statutory definition, do you think that the definition within the legislation is the right one?

Pragna Patel: I think the statutory definition is definitely a step forward. It is a very important definition. I wish it was gendered, because the social reality of domestic abuse is that it disproportionately affects women and girls. As the Bill is intended to mirror the Istanbul convention, it would have made sense to have been a violence against women and girls Bill.

That is not to say that I do not think that other groups face violence, but this is about gender inequality. Domestic abuse is a reflection of the cause and consequence of gender inequality, so it makes more sense to me to include a gendered understanding of domestic abuse for a number of reasons, including for the gathering of evidence to inform future policy and the need to ensure that support and prevention measures are targeted particularly at young girls, so that they can better understand abuse, recognise abuse and negotiate abuse.

The broad categories of abuse that are set out in the definition are very useful, but it would be important to show that there are also specific forms of abuse that are not included, including forced marriage, honour-based violence, female genital mutilation and other forms of cultural harm that straddle these broad categories. They straddle physical violence, sexual violence, emotional abuse and also financial abuse.

I think it can be strengthened. I think the statutory guidance and the explanation of the definition could spell out some of these things better.

[Peter Kyle]

Q Reading your evidence last night, one can sense the weariness of the frequency with which you have had to feed information in for a very long time. This is a fresh opportunity. I am sorry if it feels repetitive to you. There are many of us who are trying to do justice by some of the work and experience you have had.

In your written evidence and in your verbal evidence today you say that the pilot will cover support for about 130 to about 150 women. How many women will be left out from that? How many people are we talking about in general, in total?

Pragna Patel: I wish I could tell you that. I wish I could tell you how many women there are who are subject to abuse in this country and who are subject to no recourse to public funds. Those figures just do not exist, and that is part of the problem. That is part of the problem of why this issue is so invisible.

Some of the ways in which we have tried to gauge is by looking at how many women, for example, have received the DDVC. I think the figure in 2019 was, if I am not mistaken, that about 1,200 were entitled to the DDVC. If we then look at Women’s Aid statistics and the statistics that Southall Black Sisters have gathered over the years, which suggest that two-thirds of the women who come to us are not entitled to the DDVC, we get a figure of 3,000-odd women. That is the best estimate I can give you. It probably could be more because of under-reporting, so we are talking about possibly low thousands. That is why it is not beyond our ability to ensure that those women receive the support they need.

There is enough evidence. We do not need another pilot project to assess needs. Those needs have been assessed by my organisation and others over the years. The Home Office internal review has not been published. We would like to see that published. We would like to see what the equality outcome of that has been. That would also help us in terms of understanding where the gaps in the evidence are.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

Q A few moments ago you said that you wanted a gendered definition of domestic abuse. I completely understand that everybody acknowledges that the overwhelming number of victims of domestic abuse are women and that is tragic. Are you not worried that, in doing that, we would actually overlook and possibly leave behind some male sufferers of domestic abuse?

Pragna Patel: I think it is possible to provide a gendered analysis of domestic abuse while also recognising that there are circumstances in which men also face abuse. I do not think that the two need be mutually exclusive. I think it is possible for us to draft the Bill in such a way—the way in which we talk about the fact that it applies to many groups in society but the overwhelming victims are women—that it should not necessarily do what you fear might happen. The disadvantage of not making it gendered—I have seen this in our local area and the way in which statistics are gathered and skewed. Let me give you an example, if I may.

When a woman reports domestic abuse and the police turn up at the door, the perpetrator usually makes a counter-allegation and says, “Well, actually, it was her abusing me.” The police feel that they cannot judge who is the victim and who is the perpetrator. What they have done—we have seen this in a number of our cases—is that they either label both as perpetrators or both as victims. There have been circumstances when the victim herself has been labelled the perpetrator and arrested and charged. What that then means is that the statistics gathered locally are skewed, because it suggests that more men are victims of domestic abuse than they are. In all these cases where women have been categorised as perpetrators, by the time they have got to court those charges have been dropped, because the context has been interrogated and it has been seen that they were the victims.

What I am saying is that that then skews the statistics. It then skews the policies that are needed to deal with abuse and skews policies that are needed to deal particularly with prevention and who the target audiences should be. It is dangerous not to reflect what is a social—and a global—reality and what is recognised in other UN laws, in international human rights law, under the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and in the Istanbul convention itself: that domestic abuse is gendered. It does not mean, therefore, that we cannot accept that abuse also occurs towards men and make sure that there are also protective measures to deal with that.

[The Chair]

I am afraid we have run out of time. Thank you for being an excellent witness.

13:00

The Chair adjourned the Committee without Question put (Standing Order No. 88).

Adjourned till this day at Two o’clock.