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Mr Richard Quigley (Isle of Wight West) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of protecting children from domestic abuse.
You will be pleased to know what a marvellous pleasure it is to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I would like to begin where we typically end our debates in Westminster Hall, and that is by thanking all hon. Members present. I am well aware that, on a topic such as this, what often compels people to speak is painful lived experience; so I sincerely thank everyone who has come here today, whether to bravely share their own experience or to represent the children in their constituency who otherwise do not have a voice in this place. It is appreciated and truly important.
This debate unfortunately stems from deep tragedy and systemic failure. As many will know, I have tabled it in honour of the 19 children killed by perpetrators of domestic abuse between 2015 and 2024. Their stories are solemn reminders of the danger of placing an outdated emphasis on parental contact above all else.
I recognise that there have been important strides in recent months, and I want to sincerely commend the work of my Government in repealing the presumption of parental contact in family courts and introducing a new police duty to notify schools of domestic abuse incidents. Those are significant steps forward, but we cannot stop here.
While I have rightly praised this Government, I also want to acknowledge the previous Government for introducing the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. We are here today because, for the first time, children were recognised as victims in their own right in that legislation. That Act was a vital step forward. It diagnosed the problem we face, but it did not provide an adequate cure.
Paragon, which does incredible work in my constituency of Isle of Wight West, told me:
“As children are now being recognised in their own right as victims of domestic abuse, we are seeing an increase in referrals for support. We have had no increase in funding to provide additional capacity to support children and young people and as a result we have a short waitlist in place. Waiting for this crucial support is not ideal.”
This reality is grimly reflected in the national picture. Women’s Aid’s “On Track” data reveals that there are more children than adults living in refuge spaces, but accessing a refuge does not mean that life returns to normal for those children. Further research by Women’s Aid shows that extended stays in refuge often disrupt education, school and routines. Many still face significant barriers to securing a school place after moving, because their mothers often have to cross local authority boundaries to stay safe. For those children, safety often comes at the cost of stability.
I am deeply grateful to have spoken with abuse survivors, including one of my constituents whose experience illustrates why prevention is so vital. As both a child victim and later a victim in her own relationship, she would have benefited enormously from early intervention. She has bravely agreed for me to share her story today. The following words are hers:
“Before I had even started primary school, domestic abuse had already shaped me. When home isn’t safe, fear becomes your earliest teacher. You don’t play freely in the world—you withdraw from it. Trust feels dangerous, friendships feel risky, and when every day is lived in the shadow of survival, confidence has no chance to bloom, nor your dreams any chance to grow. And in the classroom where children would feel free to learn and explore, that same fear follows you. Concentration becomes impossible, achievement feels out of reach, and you fall behind long before anyone realises, you’re not struggling with the work, you’re struggling with the trauma.
And, like so many children, I became part of a cycle that I never chose. After watching my mother suffer abuse, I unknowingly followed the same pattern. My daughter was born into a home where she, too, witnessed fear, control, and harm—things no child should ever see. Left unchecked, domestic abuse doesn’t just scar one generation; it echoes through the next.
What’s even more tragic is that my abuser had once been a child victim himself. He grew up watching violence without the support, education or therapy he so desperately needed. Without intervention, he grew into the only model he had ever known.
The cycle only ends when children are supported—when they are protected, when they learn about healthy relationships, are given tools to recognise abuse, and helped to heal from the trauma they witness. When they are shown that the devastating effects of domestic abuse do not have to be their inheritance.
I count myself lucky to live on the Isle of Wight, where support for my daughter exists—support that can quite literally save children’s futures. But across the country, too many children do not have this help. And without it, they stand little chance of breaking the cycle themselves.”
Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he agree that, given that the concept of parental alienation—largely used by fathers against mothers in cases involving domestic violence in the family courts—does not have a robust, methodologically sound or scientific basis, the use of regulated and unregulated experts on it should be prohibited in the family courts?
Mr Quigley
There is very little I can add, other than to say that I wholeheartedly agree. That is a very important part of this debate, so I thank my hon. Friend sincerely.
That survivor’s story is, heartbreakingly, just one among many that I know will echo across our communities. In the year ending March 2024, an estimated 1.8 million children in England were affected by domestic abuse. Although 70% of affected children have stated that they would seek support for domestic abuse, 61% state that they would not know where to go to find it. The Government’s commitment to halving violence against women and girls is noble, but we must ensure that every child is protected, that court-ordered safeguards are robust, and that trauma support for newly single parents is properly funded. Education and community support must play a central role in breaking the cycle of intergenerational abuse, empowering future generations to prevent harm, protect potential victims and stop abusers before they begin to engage in this behaviour.
I therefore call on the Government to take the following actions: to amend the Children Act 1989 to reflect better the lived experience of children and young people affected by domestic abuse, and to embed our enhanced understanding of abuse, making it clear that coercive control constitutes harm to children; to publish a clear timeline for implementing the family court reforms recommended in the Ministry of Justice harm panel review of 2020; to roll out mandatory multi-agency training on domestic abuse across the family justice system; and to invest in the design and delivery of the violence against women and girls prevention programmes in schools and other educational settings. The political will is there, and I believe that we have the right voices in charge to enact the change that we need and that our children deserve, but we must take decisive action to stop this silent crisis from escalating into a catastrophe. We owe it not only to survivors, but to the women and children who are no longer with us. Their stories cannot be in vain.
Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your leadership, Ms Jardine. I sincerely thank the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) for securing the debate. I had thought that I might need to intervene on him to allow him to catch his breath, but he managed to share some deeply emotional stories very well.
I am here to talk about Sara Sharif, a constituent of mine who was abused, tortured and murdered by those who should have loved her. The safeguarding report was published earlier this month. I will not read it all, but I want to highlight some particular issues to shape the debate, and I hope the Minister will respond to them. The safeguarding report had 15 recommendations, some national and some local. I would like the Minister to confirm that she and her team will read the safeguarding report and act on those recommendations with the urgency they deserve. We need to set a precedent that safeguarding reports with national implications are responded to by the Government as a matter of policy and urgency. That has not happened yet.
I hope that the Minister will take away the lessons learned on the home-schooling rules that were highlighted in the safeguarding report. Home-schooling is hugely beneficial for some children, but Sara Sharif’s father used those loopholes to hide the abuse. I hope that the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will ensure that we register all children and that any parent suspected of abusing their child loses their right to home-schooling. People should have a right, but not when there are safeguarding concerns. Lots of amendments have been tabled to the Bill, and I hope that that one is taken forward.
Will the Minister comment on the inadequacies not only of Surrey county council’s children’s services, but of under-pressure children’s services across the country? Vulnerable children are being looked after by overworked social workers who need better training—the safeguarding report says so. We should train and support them better. They wanted to take Sara Sharif away from her family before she was born, but they were convinced otherwise. Can we learn those lessons and empower people to protect our future generation?
Several hon. Members rose—
Christine Jardine (in the Chair)
Order. I am confident that we will get everybody in if speakers can keep themselves to five or six minutes.
Leigh Ingham (Stafford) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) for securing this debate. It is incredibly emotional, and he opened it passionately and well.
There are children in my constituency of Stafford, Eccleshall and the villages, and across our country, whose lives are being shaped, often silently, by domestic abuse. In Stafford borough, one in four women will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime. And across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent, in a three-month period between April and June this year, nearly 500 children needed support from a local domestic abuse service. Yet, despite the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 recognising children as victims in their own right, less than a third of children whose guardian sought help were able to access support. There is legislation, but it is not doing enough or translating to change.
There are ways in which we are fortunate in Stafford. Organisations such as Staffordshire Women’s Aid and the integrated local services supporting victims and their children do extraordinary and often unseen work. Their leadership shows what it takes to make legislation real. I pay special tribute to Charlotte Almond, the exceptional chief executive officer of Staffordshire Women’s Aid. Charlotte has been unwavering in her communications with me, and yesterday she raised the hidden harm that children face through post-separation abuse where perpetrators continue their coercive control through family courts and the children themselves. She told me:
“Every service must see and hear the child as a victim in their own right.”
She is correct.
I acknowledge that the Government have made significant progress. The Ministry of Justice’s commitment to repeal the presumption of parental involvement is a landmark moment. The family courts have long been a site of acute harm for women and children. Ending the assumption that contact with both parents is automatically in a child’s best interests is not just welcome; it is saving lives. This is a huge win for victims and for the frontline organisations that have fought for it. Every one of them deserves incredible respect.
I have been told that our mission to halve violence against women and girls has made waves among those fighting to prevent violence. For the first time in decades, there is a genuine sense of hope in the sector. I was told by an activist that, for the first time in their life, change feels like it is on the horizon. But ambition must become action. All of our agencies—the police, social care, health and education—must look at risk-based assessments and whether they are taking into account the needs of children. We must ensure that every process is child-centred and that the non-abusing parent is supported, not blamed. We must hear children’s voices in every decision that is made.
A constituent of mine, whose identity I will protect, wrote to me recently. She told me of her daughter, a 10-year-old child in clear distress. The child documented her fear and wrote a secret letter begging not to go with a father who frightens her. He tore it up in front of her. Despite repeated reports, evidence and professional concerns, my constituent’s concerns were dismissed by agencies.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The hon. Lady is giving some personal stories, which are always very hard to tell because their seriousness and trauma always lies with us in our hearts. I wish the hon. Lady well as she pursues her case, and I support her.
Leigh Ingham
The hon. Member is correct that these are really emotional subjects. It is happening to too many children across our country, and my constituent says it better than I could:
“This is not just about my family; it highlights a much wider and deeply concerning issue. Too many parents are silenced and disbelieved when trying to protect their children from post-separation abuse. Agencies are quick to label these cases as ‘conflict’ or ‘parental alienation’, rather than recognising patterns of coercive control that continue long after relationships end.”
Until this Government ended the presumption of parental involvement, those abusers could continue to weaponise their children against their own parent, forcing the victim who left them to continue to be held to their abuser’s will. That has to end. I will follow the progress very closely.
Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
The hon. Lady is making an extremely powerful speech. Does she agree that children who have suffered abuse and neglect can exhibit behaviours at school and other social settings that would have them punished or excluded from those settings? Abuse has knock-on effects and a wider impact on the whole of a child’s life.
Leigh Ingham
It is a widely acknowledged fact that if a young person or child experiences abuse, it continues to have a wide range of impacts throughout their life. It is important that this Government have set the direction. The legislation is there, the ambition is there and the sector is ready. We must match ambition with investment, law with implementation, and promises with performance, because children cannot wait. They deserve safety, stability and a childhood free from fear.
Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I thank and congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) on securing this important debate. This is a heartbreaking topic. Tackling and preventing the harms being caused to children in their home demands urgent attention.
When I think about domestic abuse against children, my mind often goes back to the posters we had when I was growing up, and that we may have seen recently in shopping centres and train stations, with two adults arguing and a child crouched in the corner and watching in fear. That image is everywhere when we talk about children and domestic abuse: the child on the sidelines, quietly absorbing the trauma around them.
The reality is far worse than that familiar picture, because children are not just witnesses: 1.8 million children in the UK are experiencing domestic abuse right now. Women’s Aid has found that, in the last 30 years, 67 children have been killed by a parent who was also a perpetrator of domestic abuse, often during contact arrangements. That statistic and the fact it could happen during contact arrangements genuinely stopped me in my tracks. The more recent National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children briefing on child deaths due to abuse or neglect from July of this year estimates that at least one child a week is killed through abuse or neglect. In our country—in any country—that is completely unacceptable.
The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 recognises children as victims in their own right, which was the right move. However, I came across another troubling fact during research for this debate. In 2022, after that legal change, less than a third of survivors who wanted support for their children were able to get it. That demonstrates that changing the law does not automatically cause tangible change. If we do not fund the services or create spaces for children to heal and feel safe, the law is just a line on a page.
I was disappointed not to hear anything about funding for tackling domestic child abuse and violence against women and girls in the Budget this week. It is important that the Government back up their intentions and ambitions to tackle this with real resources and funding.
I thank organisations such as the NSPCC and the Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre, which work across Kirklees and West Yorkshire. My office often refers families to them, whether for counselling, for children recovering from abuse or for support when navigating domestic abuse cases. However, it is disheartening that we rely so heavily on charities to do the work that should be backed by proper Government strategy and funding.
This year, the proportion of organisations providing children’s domestic abuse services without dedicated funding has doubled from 15.7% to 31.4%. That tells us everything about the state of the system. It is truly worrying after hearing last year about the Government’s commitment to halving violence against women and girls. Many of the women who come to my office with cases of domestic violence would have fled to a refuge with their children due to abuse from a partner.
These issues of violence against women and girls, and protecting children from domestic abuse, go hand in hand. Yet when the number of organisations supporting children without any dedicated funding has doubled, it is hard to believe that those commitments are being matched by action. If anything, it shows that children are still an afterthought in a system that claims to protect them. Therefore, will the Minister please confirm what specific extra funding, resources and procedural changes the Government are planning or have allocated to this space?
We were told by the Department for Education that, by the end of 2025, there would be a road map for a child protection authority—a recommendation that the Government received from the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse—but we have heard very little since. The commitments are there and the reports all show the urgent need for long-term systemic change, yet we are not seeing that change actually happening. Will the Minister confirm when the road map for a child protection authority can be expected?
Children deserve better than posters of fear and a system that waits until harm has already been done; they deserve to be protected, to recover and to grow up feeling safe and loved. Right now, too many are falling through the cracks, and we owe it to them to fix that.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Jardine. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) on securing this important debate and on his powerful opening speech.
For far too long, our understanding of the impact of domestic abuse on children failed to recognise the reality. Children do not simply witness domestic abuse, they experience it, they suffer it and they are profoundly affected by it. Living in a home in which domestic abuse is taking place is traumatising for children. It makes them feel frightened, insecure, sad and alone. It undermines the essential security that the home environment should provide. It affects children’s understanding of relationships and what is normal, and children often take on a completely misplaced sense of responsibility for what is happening or for protecting other members of the family.
These issues are, sadly, very widespread. One in seven children and young people will have an experience of domestic abuse at some point during their childhood. The Office for National Statistics records that, in 32% of domestic abuse cases, there was at least one child under the age of 16 living in the household.
The Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s recent report, “Victims in Their Own Right? Babies, children and young people’s experiences of domestic abuse”, is a sobering read. The commissioner listened extensively to children and young people affected by domestic abuse. They told her it is important that they are listened to, that they are taught how to recognise domestic abuse and that they receive proper support to recover from it.
They also told the commissioner about some of the barriers they experience in getting support, including failing to recognise that abuse is taking place and the influence of other family members. They also cited unwanted contact arrangements as a barrier. I therefore welcome the Government’s recent decision to end the presumption of contact, and I pay tribute to Claire Throssell, who has campaigned so hard in the name of her sons, Jack and Paul, to see this change in the law.
Claire’s case is utterly heartbreaking. The Education Committee was privileged to hear from her directly earlier this year during our inquiry into children’s social care. Jack and Paul’s father was abusive to Claire. It was one of the reasons—which they clearly expressed—that they did not want contact with him. They were murdered by their father on a contact visit mandated by the court. Jack and Paul were not listened to, and Claire was not listened to when she clearly warned of the danger—the tragedy of Jack and Paul’s deaths was the consequence.
The removal of the presumption of contact in cases of domestic abuse is a landmark moment in the protection of children from domestic abuse. It recognises that children are victims of domestic abuse in their own right, and that domestic abuse occurring in the home is also a significant risk factor for children. Women’s Aid reports that, over the past 30 years, 67 children have been killed by a parent who was also a perpetrator of domestic abuse in circumstances related to child contact arrangements, including Jack and Paul. As my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West pointed out, 19 of those children were murdered between 2015 and 2024.
Apsana Begum
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important, following the removal of the presumption of contact, to now launch an expedited parliamentary audit to assess evidence of forced child removals? It something that Right to Equality and the Survivor Family Network have pulled together evidence around and are advocating for.
Helen Hayes
My hon. Friend raises an important issue. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to that in her remarks.
We have a children’s social care system, and the tragic case of Sara Sharif—which the hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster) spoke very powerfully about—is an important case in point where the arrangements that should be in place to protect children, decide the right outcome for them and provide an environment in which they can be safe too often fail to do that. That speaks to the need for reform. The removal of the presumption of contact puts children’s experiences, their voices and safety, back at the heart of contact decisions, where they should always have been.
I want to turn to the question of support for children who have experienced domestic abuse. Research by Women’s Aid found that 70% of children said that they would seek help in a situation of domestic abuse, but that 61% did not know where to go to find any help. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner also found that fewer than a third of victims and survivors of abuse who wanted support for their own children were able to get it—so more than two thirds were unable to access that support. Setting that against the very significant funding pressures experienced by both domestic abuse support services and children’s social care, it is clear that access to support is not currently adequate.
I am particularly concerned to read Women’s Aid’s findings from its 2025 annual audit that the proportion of organisations running children and young people’s domestic abuse services in the community without dedicated funding doubled from 15.7% to 31.4% this year. There are always costs to failing to meet the needs of children. The costs of children not being able to access support to recover from domestic abuse are seen in ongoing harm to victims and also in additional need for health services, because people who have experienced domestic abuse as children have higher mental and physical health needs, especially if they are not supported.
I welcome the Government’s commitment to ensure that the views of child victims of domestic abuse are considered when developing policy and designing services, but it is important that that translates into changes that increase awareness of abuse among children, make it easier to disclose abuse and seek help, and which make support more readily available so that children can recover.
Finally, it is important that we focus on not only what happens when abuse occurs, but how we reduce incidents of abuse in the first place. The Education Committee has emphasised the need to improve early intervention by strengthening and increasing funding for the Families First partnership. We welcome the announcement of increased funding this week. I also welcome the Government’s commitment to improve how children learn about healthy relationships at school through relationships, sex and health education and the commitment to tackle misogyny in schools. That requires tackling the pernicious information that young people are accessing online and equipping them with the skills and values to challenge such information among their peers. I hope that the Minister can set out today some further information on how those commitments will be implemented.
Tackling this issue and ensuring that every child grows up knowing how to keep themselves safe and with a good understanding of what makes for a healthy relationship, along with the ability to spot when that is not happening around them, and the ability to access help and support when they need it is a vital part of creating a country where every child can thrive.
Christine Jardine (in the Chair)
I remind Members that if we are going to get everyone in, please keep to five minutes.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. Many thanks to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) for leading this debate on a difficult subject.
Sometimes debates like these are a realisation of the sad reality of life across the United Kingdom. I will try to give a quick Northern Ireland perspective. I am always shocked to read the stats and facts about the situation back home. We all have family and friends, and we can sometimes be quite sheltered from the real issues for so many families across the nation. How do we improve that?
It is always important to tell the story of the situation back home. In 2024, more than 5,000 children in Northern Ireland were referred to social services on the grounds of domestic abuse concerns. The Department of Health concludes that neglect and physical abuse remain the main reasons for registration on the child protection list. They account for 84% of all registrations—that is almost 4,400 young children.
Children who experience physical abuse are at a significantly higher risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and developmental delays. Data from the Police Service of Northern Ireland refers to some 30,000 domestic abuse incidents in the year to March 2025. That is a shocking figure, but many of us suspect that it is only the tip of the iceberg and that there are many more. Women’s Aid, which does a fantastic service back home in providing support for victims of domestic abuse, concludes that in 90% of domestic abuse incidents, children are in the same or an adjacent room when violence happens.
I have spoken to a social worker, and I want to tell hon. Members some of what they said. First, I thank social workers for all they do in supporting young children and taking on the incredibly heavy role that they have; I imagine that in most cases what they have to hear is not easy to listen to. The social worker stated that the mental health impact is huge, from depression to anxiety, self-harm and substance abuse. It is not always immediate: it can progress from a childhood to adolescence and into the young adult stage. In some cases, there is a reflection: children will see the role models in their life display certain behaviours, and they almost replicate them, because this is what they deem to be normal. This can be physical, verbal, emotional and, unfortunately, sexual abuse. That is not in any way to say that all children who witness abuse will turn into abusers—I am not saying that—but children who witness it are socialised into thinking that it is normal and okay, and that that is how adults behave. Many traits and challenging behaviours in young children may come from trauma that children witness over the years. This is a clear example of how violence in a household can be very confusing for them.
The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum), who is no longer in her place, commented on the issue of parental alienation, which is a form of domestic abuse that is not often talked about but has a direct impact on the development of a child. It occurs when a child is systematically manipulated, pressured or influenced by one parent into rejecting or fearing the other parent without legitimate justification, leading to a breakdown in the relationship between the child and the parent. I am keen to hear the Minister’s thoughts on the issue, and on how legislation can be strengthened to ensure that parents are not unnecessarily alienated from their children through the manipulation of another parent.
It is imperative that we protect children. This issue genuinely saddens me, as it saddens everybody in this House. We all have personal stories of those we know and have met over the years. We all want children to have the support they need. It is a sad and unfortunate reality that we will probably never be able to protect every child, although we would love to, from the devastation of this world. I know that the Minister, who is a sympathetic and compassionate lady, will answer our questions.
What can we do? We can talk about this issue and normalise the conversation. We can provide support and properly fund our social services, who go above and beyond to protect children. What they do is sometimes forgotten. It should not be. They are the backbone, and their work should not go unnoticed.
Jess Asato (Lowestoft) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) on securing this important debate.
Domestic abuse does not just claim adult lives; it devastates children. Lybah, a child survivor of domestic abuse and a SafeLives changemaker, said:
“As a child I felt like I was often overlooked and was never really acknowledged as a victim of DA. Rather than helping me process what happened to me I was told by services to write down my thoughts and feelings and draw a picture of what a ‘happy family’ should look like.”
Some 71% of adult survivors are unable to access specialist support for their children, according to the Domestic Abuse Commissioner. That is why the work of Foundations in finding what works to support child victims—including piloting Bounce Back 4 Kids, a therapeutic programme supporting child recovery—is so important. Every year, around 200 children in the UK are bereaved by domestic homicide. Shockingly, we still do not know the actual number, because it is not officially recorded. Those children are the hidden victims behind the headlines.
Survivor Debrah prevented her father from murdering her mother by hitting him on the head with a poker. He told her that she “had better kill him” or he would kill her as well. A week and a half later, he succeeded in killing her mother. From prison, her father was able to block Debrah from living with her mother’s sister, instead sending her either to his own family or to live with a grandparent who had previously molested her. Her siblings were forced by social workers to visit him in prison. After just 14 months, her father was released and her younger siblings were made to live with him. They were beaten and starved and, within a year, he attempted to kill a new girlfriend. Debrah is one of the many children behind the shocking headlines we see far too often. I pay tribute to the tireless work of the Joanna Simpson Foundation and Children Heard and Seen, which I was honoured to host in Parliament recently, and do so much to support many of these children and the adults they become.
Many of these children face a double loss: one parent to bereavement and one parent to prison. They do so while carrying the stigma of their parent’s actions and the deeply conflicting emotions that come with it. Professionals working with these children often struggle with the language to explain what has happened. They were simply not trained to approach this subject. As there is no statutory mechanism to identify and support children when a parent goes to prison, schools frequently have no idea what a child is living through. Under current UK law, a parent convicted of killing their partner can retain parental responsibility, allowing them to influence important decisions about their children’s lives, causing deep distress for the families and caregivers who are supporting the children left behind.
Jade’s law was meant to change that, and was passed by Parliament in May 2024, but it has still not been implemented. I urge the Government to fast-track this, as families like that of Kennedi Westcarr-Sabaroche are still facing challenges from convicted murderers who continue to exert coercive control over their children from prison. Furthermore, the support they and their carers receive is patchy, short-term and inconsistent. Carers, often grandparents or extended family, are left to navigate grief, financial strain and complex legal processes with little help. Jodie Edith, the grieving mother of Kennedi Westcarr-Sabaroche, said:
“In April 2024, our world went dark after receiving the knock at the door that no parent could ever imagine, telling me that my beloved daughter Kennedi had been killed by her partner of nine years, leaving a child behind. With limited emotional trauma-informed support from counselling services for me, the caregiver, and my grandchild, it left us unable to grieve.”
That is why I hope the Government, in their VAWG strategy, will consider creating a dedicated, specialist national service providing wraparound support for children bereaved by domestic homicide and their carers, alongside a guarantee for every bereaved child to have an independent advocate to ensure their voice is heard in all decisions about their care and future. We also need specialist training for all professionals in contact with these children. Finally, we need to introduce a statutory duty to commission specialist services for child victims of domestic abuse. I proposed that in a debate on the Victims and Courts Bill, and I hope the Government will look at it again as the Bill moves to the House of Lords. I will finish with the words of child survivor Roann Court, who said:
“I watched my mum being brutally killed when I was 15, and the support was virtually non-existent for me and my family, which has had a lasting impact for us all. Children need support—we are as much victims as our parent who is killed.”
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I thank the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) for securing this timely and poignant debate, highlighting that children in their own right are victims of domestic abuse, and sharing some powerful words from his constituents. That is never easy to do, and I commend him for that. Children should be growing up in a safe and loving home, free from violence and fear, and that is not the case for so many. The hon. Member shared a really powerful phrase—domestic abuse does not affect one generation; it echoes through the next. By the end of my speech today, the police will have recorded 11 more instances of domestic abuse. Every 40 seconds, a call is made to the authorities reporting a domestic abuse incident, but analysis shows that only one in five victims of domestic abuse will actually make a report.
The Office for National Statistics estimates that there were nearly 4 million victims in the year ending March 2025; 800,000 cases were recorded in that year. Of those 800,000 cases, only 41,000 offenders were actually convicted. Behind those shocking statistics are women and men who are living in fear, and children, scared for their parent and often for themselves and their siblings. As the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) said, these are often our nation’s hidden children.
Failure to protect children should be at the forefront of our minds as policymakers. That is why I absolutely share the Government’s ambition to halve violence against women and girls throughout the duration of this Parliament, thus protecting more children from harm.
The Liberal Democrat campaign, led by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde), who grew up in a household experiencing domestic abuse, led to the Government introducing a domestic abuse identifier at sentencing. I thank the Government for working so constructively with my hon. Friend to see that realised in the Sentencing Bill. It will allow the Government to track the data more efficiently and to understand how many domestic abuse perpetrators are currently serving a custodial sentence. It will allow the Government to exclude those abusers from any future early release schemes, and it will show whether the Government’s reducing reoffending programmes are leading to a reduction in reoffending rates of domestic abuse.
We Liberal Democrats have also called for an expansion of the high-quality perpetrator programmes within prison settings to prevent repeated harm. That is not the end of our ambition to better protect victims of domestic abuse. I hope that the collaborative relationship to tackle the issue continues across the House, because there is so much more that can be done.
The system to protect victims and their children is currently disjointed. Often, the gaps in provision are filled by the incredible voluntary sector and charitable organisations. In my constituency of Chichester, organisations such as My Sisters’ House, Paragon and Safe in Sussex, as well as Lifecentre, provide exceptional support to those who have suffered at the hands of domestic abusers.
The reality of increased costs associated with running those organisations, alongside an increasing number of cases, means that those organisations recognise that they could be supporting so many more victims. As the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West alluded to, with more families coming forward and children being rightly identified as victims of domestic abuse, the numbers are rising.
We need sustainable funding for support services for survivors, including multi-year settlements, so that organisations can plan for longer term programmes, rather than waiting to find out if they can continue to support victims in their area every year.
Mr Forster
Surrey is further advanced than Sussex in local government reorganisation. Something I am experiencing in my constituency that I fear my hon. Friend will soon see in hers is that charities such as Woking’s Your Sanctuary women’s refuge are really nervous about LGR. We do not yet have multi-year settlements, and it is almost impossible to even get a one-year settlement out of an authority that does not yet exist or is about to wound up. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Minister needs to take that point away and ensure that LGR does not hurt the funding that supports women and girls?
Jess Brown-Fuller
My hon. Friend makes a really important point about local government reorganisation. Voluntary and charitable sector organisations rely on local authority funding and Government funding—they rely on multiple streams of income. I plead with the Minister to make sure that the Government funding, at least, is secured beyond one year, so that these organisations have the reassurance during LGR that they will be able to maintain their provision in some sense.
We also need a statutory definition of honour-based abuse, and better training for police, social care and education professionals. In every police force, we need specialist violence against women and girls taskforces, and every force should undergo training via Naturewatch on the links between domestic abuse and the abuse of animals. Perpetrators of domestic abuse identify the special bond people build with their pets and can use that to exert control over partners or children. Across the country, we have seen cases where warning signs were missed, reports were ignored and opportunities to intervene were tragically lost. The programme run by Naturewatch has been taken up by police forces across the country, including the Metropolitan police and Sussex police, but we should encourage every force to take it on, as there is a direct link between the treatment of animals and domestic abuse. We must set up support services so that they are in the ideal position to listen to a child crying out for help, no matter how hard it is to hear them.
We in the Liberal Democrats are also extremely concerned by the chronic underfunding of children’s social care. After a decade of cuts to local authority budgets under Conservative Governments, many councils have been forced to scale back their early intervention services. I have been told by those working in the sector that they feel like they are firefighting every day, rather than spending the time they so desperately want to spend with the families they could prevent from entering crisis. Instead, they are dealing with mounting caseloads, burnout and an inability to resource their departments properly. This is short-sighted and dangerous. Tragically, too often, the consequences are felt too late.
The report into the heartbreaking case of Sara Sharif is a damning indictment of Surrey county council’s failure to protect a young girl from her abusers. My hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr Forster) made a passionate plea for the recommendations of the safeguarding review to be explored by the Government so that lessons can be learned nationally. Early support does prevent crises from escalating, it protects children who witness domestic abuse in their household, and it identifies risks at the earliest opportunity.
The Liberal Democrats have long called for greater integration between health and social care, with far more involvement from local authorities in the planning, commissioning and delivery of services. This must include education settings, which play a vital role in identifying situations where abuse may be present. We need to ensure that training and support for teachers is readily available, so that they can spot the signs and call for help. Teachers have an increasingly challenging role in our complex environment: they are not only teachers but, quite often, caregivers and social workers. They may be the only lifeline that a child has, so they need to be able to spot the signs of domestic abuse, be they misbehaviour, withdrawal or a failure to engage in the classroom. In addition, as the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) mentioned, it is so important to have education campaigns so that children understand and can spot the signs of what is not a happy household, and understand what is normal and what is not, and what they should and should not put up with.
Another vital part of the picture is the family court system, which plays a key role in protecting children from situations where domestic abuse is present while also considering the importance of keeping families together. It is a desperately difficult job, yet there have been a number of situations where the system has failed and, frankly, we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg. I thank the Government for their recent steps, including removing parental responsibility from those convicted of the most serious sexual offences, as was mentioned by the hon. Members for Stafford (Leigh Ingham) and for Dulwich and West Norwood. Campaigners fought hard for that change, and it is welcome. Could we also consider removing parental responsibility from those on bail, to ensure that individuals capable of committing horrendous abuse are kept away from their children as early as possible?
With that in mind, what are the Government doing to integrate health and social care services across the country to ensure that as much protection as possible is provided for vulnerable children and families? What are the Government doing to raise awareness of the warning signs of a child living in a household with domestic abuse? When will we see further legislation to deal with the rising issues in our family court system? Will the Government consider specific measures to keep those on bail on charges of offences against children away from their children? The Liberal Democrats stand ready to work with Members in all parts of the House to ensure that every child is protected, every survivor is heard and every perpetrator is held to account.
Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)
It is a privilege to speak on behalf of the Opposition in this debate on such an important issue, and I join others in congratulating the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) on securing it.
This is an area in which Parliament must work with clarity, evidence and determination. The stakes are high. Almost all of us will work with constituents who have children affected by domestic abuse, and sadly many of us will have family or friends who have been affected. One in five children in the UK experiences domestic abuse, and almost four in five children living in homes with domestic abuse are directly harmed by the perpetrator, on top of the harm of witnessing the abuse. According to the National Centre for Domestic Violence, more than 105,000 children live in homes assessed as high risk. Those figures should focus minds across all parties.
As the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West said, the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 was introduced by the previous Government. I had the pleasure of serving on the Bill Committee for that genuinely groundbreaking legislation, which transformed the legal framework for tackling domestic abuse. The Act established a new statutory definition of domestic abuse in England and Wales, which recognises that abusive behaviour is not limited to physical violence but also includes emotional, controlling, coercive and economic abuse. As has been said, under section 3, children under 18 are explicitly recognised as victims if they see, hear, or experience the effects of, abuse against a related adult—for example, by witnessing abuse between their parents. Although abuse by or against children under 16 is treated under child protection law rather than domestic abuse laws, 16 to 18-year-olds may fall under both frameworks.
The statutory definition was designed to ensure that domestic abuse is understood across all statutory agencies, as well as by the public, as unacceptable. It also provides operational clarity for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service in identifying and flagging domestic abuse cases, supported by Home Office statutory guidance.
The Conservative Government commissioned the independent review of children’s social care, the report of which was published in May 2022 and highlighted gaps in support for children affected by domestic abuse. I am pleased that, building on that, this Government have rolled out the Families First partnership programme, which integrates family help and multi-agency child protection teams. The teams include social workers, family support workers and domestic abuse specialists, promoting early intervention and tailored support.
The family courts are of course critical in safeguarding children where domestic abuse is involved, and the Conservative Government took several steps to address long-standing concerns. The 2020 report “Assessing Risk of Harm to Children and Parents in Private Law Children Cases” identified systemic failures, including a pro-contact culture, siloed working, adversarial processes and insufficient recognition of abuse. Of course we all want parents to be able to see their children, but we do not want children to be used as weapons in relationship breakdowns. The welfare of children has to come first; that must be the priority.
In response to that report, barring orders were introduced under section 91A of the Children Act 1989 to prevent abusive parents from repeatedly returning to court. Pathfinder courts, piloted from March 2022, promote a much more investigative, child-focused approach, improving multi-agency collaboration, prioritising children’s voices and reducing conflict. I understand that the presumption of parental involvement is under review and is set to be repealed to ensure that child safety takes precedence. We obviously understand the reasons for that decision.
The tragic case of Sara Sharif, which hon. Members have referred to, demonstrates the consequence of the disconnect between law and practice. Despite children being recognised as victims in their own right, the review shows how gaps in co-ordination, oversight and early intervention can still leave a child without the protection that they need. The recent child safeguarding practice review into that murder exposed a series of systemic failings. The findings underline issues that were not isolated to one local authority, but reinforce the need for wider action.
A child cruelty register was first proposed by the Opposition during the Commons Committee stage of the Sentencing Bill. I thank the shadow Solicitor General, my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and Malling (Helen Grant), for championing this issue so consistently and effectively. Although the amendment did not pass in the Commons, the concerns that it highlighted remain pressing, so the proposal must be examined again during the Bill’s Committee stage in the other place.
The case of Tony Hudgell is a clear example of why such a mechanism continues to require serious consideration. Tony was just 41 days old when he was so severely abused by his birth parents that both his legs were later required to be amputated. His abusers received sentences of 10 years, of which they will serve eight. Once their licence period ends, there will be no ongoing monitoring or reporting requirements, despite the seriousness of their offence.
We need a register to require individuals convicted of specified child cruelty offences, as well as those within the domestic abuse framework, to provide information to the police. That would allow that information to be retained and used to manage ongoing risk after the end of the formal sentence. It would operate in a similar way to the sex offenders register, and would ensure that offenders cannot evade oversight by changing identity, relocating or avoiding engagement with services. Evidence from police and practitioners shows that those who commit serious abuse often move across local authority boundaries or deliberately avoid contact with health and social care. A targeted, proportionate register could help to close a clear loophole in the system, and could increase our ability to protect and safeguard children’s welfare.
We support reforms that are practical, evidence-based and focused squarely on preventing harm. The priority must be to ensure that children are visible to the systems designed to protect them and that professionals have the tools, information and statutory backing they need to intervene early and effectively. We therefore support improved information-sharing duties with clear accountability. We support enhanced multi-agency working, including consistent national standards, and we argue for the introduction of a child cruelty register.
The Government recently announced that police and crime commissioner roles in England and Wales will be scrapped. That raises important questions about how continuity of support for victims, including children affected by domestic abuse, will be delivered during and after the transition. We would be grateful if the Government could confirm what measures they will put in place to ensure that the abolition of PCCs does not disrupt or weaken the support available to child victims of domestic abuse, and that existing services can continue to work seamlessly throughout the period of change. We must ensure that no child can disappear from view, and that known risks are managed effectively across agencies.
Protecting children from domestic abuse requires consistent professional curiosity, coherent information sharing and reliable oversight mechanisms. The cases of Sara Sharif and Tony Hudgell illustrate different aspects of system failure—failure that Parliament has a duty to address. I look forward to working across the House to strengthen the measures that will be brought before us and ensure that our child protection system meets the standards that the public expect and that our children deserve.
The Minister for Courts and Legal Services (Sarah Sackman)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) on securing a debate on this important subject. I thank all Members who contributed to this wide-ranging and incredibly sensitive and important debate; their contributions were outstanding. I also thank my hon. Friend’s constituent for sharing her story, which takes courage, and all those who shared personal stories.
I want to make absolutely clear how seriously I take the matters that have been raised today. Every child deserves to grow up in a home filled with love and safety, yet, as we have heard, for too many children a home that is meant to be a place of sanctuary can become a place of fear. It is the Government’s mission to protect children, support victims and ensure that abusers are held accountable. The Ministry of Justice is working with partners across Government to strengthen protections for children from domestic abuse. Many of today’s questions and interventions touch on the need for not just cross-Government working, but working across multiple agencies and interaction between central and local government. It is critical that the whole system works together in the endeavour of stamping out domestic abuse and protecting children.
I hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West says about our laws, reflecting the experience of children and young people who have suffered domestic abuse. He is, of course, right that we must ensure that those children, who are among the most vulnerable in society, are properly served and protected by the law. Other Members, including the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood), have mentioned the importance of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021; I pay tribute to the previous Government for that legislation, which already recognises the profound impact that domestic abuse can have on children.
Section 3 of that Act makes clear that where a child sees, hears or experiences the effects of domestic abuse perpetrated by or against a parent or relative, that child will also be treated as a victim of domestic abuse themselves. That is vital, because it makes it easier for children to access support such as mental health services. Looking more widely, the statutory guidance recently published by the Home Office on coercive and controlling behaviour clarifies that controlling or coercive behaviour has a significant impact on children and young people in relation to parental or other family member relationships. Taken together, those measures provide a clear recognition that abuse, even when it is not directed at them, can have a severe impact on a child. That is critical in underpinning the Government’s response to these crimes.
I want to take up the point raised by the hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster), who is a tireless champion on these issues. The murder of Sara Sharif is remembered with profound sadness. Although Sara’s father and stepmother are rightly serving life sentences for their appalling crimes, it is clear that the Government’s response to that tragedy cannot stop there. The local child safeguarding practice review into the case by Surrey Safeguarding Children Partnership is an important part of that process. The hon. Gentleman will understand the importance of considering the findings of that review with care and delicacy.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education has already begun to set out the detailed steps the Government are taking to strengthen safeguarding and to keep children safe. The hon. Member for Woking will know that some of those measures are making progress in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, such as obligations on local authorities to set up registers of children who are not educated in school and to consider the home environment when considering whether children should be permitted to be educated at home. I assure him and colleagues that we will continue to look at the recommendations of the review and identify ways to improve child protection in this country to mitigate the risk of such a tragic murder happening again, and I thank him for his tireless work in that regard.
Turning to the reform of the family justice system, my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West rightly brings to our attention the many vulnerable children in the family court system who have been harmed or are at risk of being harmed by domestic abuse. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Stafford (Leigh Ingham) and for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), who raised important points on family courts. As others have said, family judges and family courts have a very difficult job to do and for the most part do that job well—but no child should miss out on the chance of a safe and stable childhood because the system is too slow or complicated, or does not provide the right help at the right time. The Government are acting to make sure that when families struggle, the services around them respond with compassion, speed and fairness.
At the heart of our family justice strategy is putting children first. That means making sure that their voices are centred and their safety is protected, and that decisions are focused on giving them the best possible chance to grow up in a stable and supportive home. I am pleased to hear others welcome the Government’s announcement on the repeal of the presumption of parental involvement; I recognise that many Members and the people they represent have been campaigning for that for a very long time.
I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood in paying tribute to the incredibly brave work, for some 11 years now, of Claire Throssell to vindicate the legacy of her sons Jack and Paul, who were murdered. Claire’s story is a heartbreaking reminder of what is at stake when the system fails children. Her courage and tireless campaigning demonstrate the need for the family courts to protect children from abuse. It has been an honour getting to know Claire, and I hope that this change in our law will mark a culture change in our family courts.
Of course, achieving that culture change is not just about the presumption, and it is important to recognise the centrality of the welfare checklist in the Children’s Act 1989. That looks at the wishes and feelings of the child concerned, the impact on the child of any changes in circumstances, how capable each parent is of meeting the child’s needs, and any harm the child has suffered or is at risk of suffering, which could include any harm from witnessing domestic abuse.
As well as those changes in the law, we are not stopping at that announcement. As a Government, we have chosen to continue to build on the excellent results of the pathfinder model in private law children’s proceedings to improve the experiences and outcomes for all survivors of domestic abuse, including children. That work built on the findings of the harm panel report, and the feedback we have had from practitioners, and particularly from children and parents, is that they feel better heard and supported under this new approach. Alongside that, referrals to independent domestic violence advisers for a risk assessment, and better join-up between the court and local authorities and police, give the court a clearer assessment of the risk to children when they are making decisions.
Pathfinder courts are already operating across Wales, Dorset, Birmingham, West Yorkshire, Wolverhampton, Stoke-on-Trent and Worcester, and we want to go further. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West will be delighted to hear that pathfinder courts will commence on the Isle of Wight in January 2026, and we hope that that will make a real difference.
I want to pick up on the points made by the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) and my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) in relation to Jade’s law and parental responsibility. We are working with partners across the criminal and family justice system to implement Jade’s law, which would provide for the automatic restriction of the exercise of parental responsibility in cases where one parent has killed the other. We are currently working through the details of implementation with a wide range of family justice stakeholders. The mechanism is novel and it is important that we take the time to get it right.
Hon. Members will know that we are going further as part of the Victims and Courts Bill. That Bill includes two critical measures: first, we will restrict the exercise of parental responsibility for offenders sentenced to four or more years’ imprisonment for serious sexual abuse against a child, and secondly, we will ensure that, where a perpetrator is sentenced for rape and that crime has led to the birth of a child, they will have their parental responsibility for that child restricted from the moment they are sentenced. I appreciate that that does not go as far as the hon. Member for Chichester urged, but these are novel pieces of law, and we need to see how they operate before going further. I feel assured that, taken together, the measures will protect thousands of children, ensuring that perpetrators who have committed some of the most serious crimes cannot continue to insert themselves into children’s lives and seek to exercise their parental responsibility from prison.
A number of hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed), asked about spending on domestic abuse specialist services. I echo the comments made by hon. Members about the importance of charitable and third sector services in that regard. We know the sterling work that those services do, and that they fill a gap all too often left by shortcomings in state support. I pay tribute to them, but it is not right that they work in an environment where they have to pick up so many of the pieces, so investment in specialist services and in child protection is important.
The Department for Education is rolling out the Families First partnership programme—which will be important—with an investment of £541 million in ’25-26. It will give families and children access to better local support services to enable earlier intervention, which we know is so important to enable families to stay together, where it is safe to do so. The Department for Education is also developing post-qualifying standards and social work induction to further strengthen early career support. That will help improve the quality of practice, and the retention of children and families social workers. We expect that domestic abuse, including coercive and controlling behaviour, will feature prominently in the new programme. That work is coupled across Government with a £5.3 million investment by the Home Office into community-based support for children affected by domestic abuse.
I reassure hon. Members that the announced abolition of PCCs will not disrupt the provision of those community-based services. The structure may change, but the support and the investment in that support will not. In response to the specific point raised by the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley, I note that the Government are committed to consulting on the establishment of a child protection authority before the end of this year.
Finally, I note the point raised by the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire about the campaign by the shadow Solicitor General, the hon. Member for Maidstone and Malling (Helen Grant)—which she makes on behalf of her constituent and Tony Hudgell—for a child risk register. The Government have heard that case loud and clear; while we were not able to support a specific amendment in the Commons, we are considering it with great care because we recognise that there is a gap there.
All of us, as I have heard this afternoon, share a deep commitment to safeguarding children and ensuring that they are fully protected and supported. That is why we will continue to work with partners across Government, with frontline agencies, with the courts and with third sector groups to protect children affected by the scourge of domestic abuse. I hope my remarks have reassured my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West, and all hon. Members who have made such thoughtful and sensitive contributions to the debate, that we have a legislative framework in place that recognises the impact that domestic abuse has on children, and that Departments across Government are taking action to make sure that the right support, help and protection is in place for them. We need to keep doing that, and I know that everybody here will continue to hold us to account, and to push us to go further and do better.
I reaffirm the Government’s commitment to protect children, support victims and ensure that abusers are held accountable. Quite simply, all children deserve to grow up free from fear and abuse. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West again for securing a debate on such an important subject.
Mr Quigley
I sincerely thank the Minister for her response, for the steps that have already been taken by this Government to protect children from domestic abuse, and for the commencement of the Pathfinder programme in 2026 on the Isle of Wight. I also thank all hon. Members for their contributions.
As Women’s Aid reminds us, children do not just passively witness abuse; they absorb it. It becomes a weight that they carry every day, following them into school, into their friendships and, most damagingly, into adulthood. One survivor told me that, as a child, their Friday afternoons at school were not spent counting down to the weekend, like other kids; instead, they were silently begging the clock to slow down, dreading the moment they would have to go home and hoping that Monday would come back round quickly.
Some 50% of young people who access our child and adolescent mental health services say that they have witnessed domestic abuse. There is a clear moral and economic case to get this issue right. Women’s Aid estimates that support from specialist domestic abuse services can save the NHS well over £150,000 per survivor, which includes the cost of visits to A&E, hospital treatment and appointments with GPs and other professionals. Protecting children from domestic abuse is about not just safeguarding their present, but securing their future. Every child deserves a home that feels safe, not one that they fear to return to. Let us make sure that no child is left silently begging the clock to slow down.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the matter of protecting children from domestic abuse.