Rwanda Treaty

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts

Friday 8th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

In answer to the noble Baroness’s first question, I say that the deterrent effect is already working; arrivals this year are down by around 30%, as my right honourable friend the Home Secretary noted the other day. As regards value for money, the point of this is to stop the boats. As I said in answer to my noble friend, hotel accommodation is costing the taxpayer £8 million a day. How is that value for money?

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, I wonder whether the Minister will reflect on what he has just said. The Prime Minister said that the reduction in the numbers crossing by boat was mainly because of the deal with Albania, not the other countries that we are now dealing with. Will he return to my noble friend’s question about numbers? The Rwandan Government have said that the total they can cope with is 200. Put that against the 30,000 to 40,000 who are coming in boats: it is a very small percentage, and will not therefore reduce the amount of money spent here to address the issue. It really is disingenuous to try to tell us and others that it will be all right, and we will not have that expense here because people will go to Rwanda, and we have covered that. It simply is not going to happen that way.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, in answer to the first part of the question, of course the Albanian returns agreement is a factor in this. No one is denying that or trying to claim otherwise. I think the number of Albanians we have sent back to Albania is 5,000 so far this year—I cannot remember the precise detail. As I keep saying from the Dispatch Box, and will have to keep repeating as it is the true answer, the numbers in this scheme are uncapped.

Children Seeking Asylum: Safeguarding

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. Clearly, the statistics he cited are not entirely correct. Let me put on record what they are. The Department for Education collects data annually on the number of looked-after children in England, as well as missing, unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. The Home Office has no power to detain unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in those hotels, and we know that some of them go missing. Many of those who have gone missing are subsequently traced and located, as I have already said. The numbers are as follows. Over 4,600 children have been accommodated in hotels since they were opened in July 2021. Of the 440 missing episodes—the term “episode” is used, as some children go missing and are then located but subsequently go missing again—all have been male save for four who have been female. Two hundred of the children remain missing, and only one of them is female; 88% are Albanian nationals and 13 are under the age of 16. The average length of stay in hotels for UASCs is 18.23 days. I am afraid I cannot give an exact answer to the second part of the noble Lord’s question, on how long it will be until we can phase out the use of hotels. Our hope is to phase them out as soon as we can.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

The people I have spoken to who have been to visit the hotels have come away very anxious about the lack of knowledge or ability of anyone around or outside the hotel in safeguarding; and, as the Minister has just said, they cannot detain children. They know that predators are around, and we know that predators are one step ahead in terms of trafficking and indeed child sex abuse of most of the organisations that are around to safeguard. This is a huge issue. It is a shaming issue, and I hope the Government take it very seriously and work very hard to make sure that trafficking, as we now know it, is not being fuelled by the policy around children unaccompanied in hotels.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I can assure the noble Baroness that the Home Office takes very seriously the safeguarding of the young people who are in the hotels. Their safety and well-being are our primary concern. As I have already said, we have no power to detain them; however, children’s movements in and out hotels are monitored and recorded. They are also accompanied by support workers when attending organised activities and social excursions off site, or where specific vulnerabilities are identified.

When a young person goes missing, the missing persons protocol is followed, led by our directly engaged social workers. We have a protocol called “missing after reasonable steps”, which enables children’s homes and supported accommodation placements to have more ownership over the missing episodes of children in their care. It is a set of forms that helps with safeguarding, planning and prevention prior to a child being reported missing; it also encourages lines of inquiry, as is expected of a person with responsibility for that child. When used correctly, similar protocols in police forces have safely reduced the number of missing episodes from placements by 36%.

Asylum Seekers: Local Authority Accommodation

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Clearly, different provisions apply in relation to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, and particular care is taken. Obviously, once a child is allocated to a local authority, the obligations of looking after the child become those of the authority. Clearly, these children are provided with everything that an unaccompanied child would need.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, I wonder whether the Minister may come to regret his statement that all is working well with accommodation for asylum seekers and refugees. Too many of the stories, even around Afghan and Ukrainian refugees, give us shame: there are people on the streets, and people in totally inadequate accommodation, with their children not able to access school and now requiring mental health treatment. Much of this is because of the poor quality of the accommodation that is available to them. I do not know what the word is—perhaps “compassion”. A little more compassion, and being more in touch with reality, would mean that, at the end of the day, we at least gave human conditions to the humans who want to come and live here.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I disagree with the noble Baroness that there is any want of compassion. Clearly, the asylum system in this country is struggling with very large numbers of people who have come here. We presently have 107,700 people in asylum support, and 50,800 of them are currently awaiting dispersal and are housed in initial and contingency accommodation. That includes some 373 hotels, and some of them are of a very high standard. I simply do not accept the characterisation that the noble Baroness suggested.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 292H and declare my interest as director of Generation Rent. I also add my voice in support of Amendment 292J in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and others. As my noble friend Lady Blake of Leeds said, it is a criminal offence under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 for a landlord to try to evict a tenant themselves. Local authorities and police officers have a crucial role to play and have the powers to stop illegal eviction and to prosecute offenders. However, the law on illegal evictions is not enforced nearly as much as it should be. Generation Rent research has shown that less than 2% of cases result in a prosecution.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said, there are too many instances where a tenant calls the police for help with an illegal eviction, only to find that the police officer dismisses the issue as a civil matter, despite it clearly being a criminal act. This was highlighted very well in a 2020 report by Safer Renting, a charity which helps tenants enforce their rights. If the Minister has not read it, I urge her to do so. In London in 2018, for example, there were 130 cases of homelessness due to an illegal eviction, but only 14 incidents were recorded by the police.

We need a stronger partnership between the police and local authorities to combat this serious crime. Requiring co-operation and sharing of relevant information by police forces is necessary. This amendment will help secure that co-operation. In addition, more needs to be done to reset police attitudes to illegal evictions, with better training of police officers and call handlers so that they know how to respond correctly when a renter is being illegally evicted. We need better data recording and the publishing of that data on incidents between landlords and tenants. Authorities need the powers that currently exist with regard to enforcing safety standards and licensing to demand documents from parties of interest to cover investigations into illegal evictions. The sentencing guidelines should also be addressed; only two of the 10 fines handed down in 2019 were of more than £1,000. Fines can even be lower than the £355 it costs to make a legal claim for possession through the courts. They are far too low to act as any real deterrent to the crime.

Illegally evicting someone is a grave offence, and it affects the most vulnerable renters. Amendment 292H is a step forward. It will improve enforcement of this crime through ensuring that closer working relationship between the police and local authorities which is necessary for proper enforcement and prosecution.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, I will intervene briefly to support my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, who is a member of the Public Services Committee, which I chair. I am delighted to see other members of the committee in the Chamber this afternoon. We published our report only on Friday and I am sure the Minister will be relieved to know that I will not go through its recommendations in great detail. I am sorry the Chief Whip has gone; I was going to say that I hope we will get an opportunity to do that properly on the Floor of the House in the not- too-distant future.

The amendment, despite its length, is quite simple and straightforward. It arises from our report on vulnerable children, which was published last Friday. The report demonstrates very clearly that the country faces a crisis in the growing number of vulnerable children —or “children in need”, as the Government tend to say. The committee found that, since 2010, money at local level has been moved from early intervention and programmes of prevention to crisis intervention. I do not blame those at local level; they had to bear large cuts because of the austerity programme and, legally, they cannot avoid crisis intervention. If something goes wrong, they have a duty to remove a child from the home, exclude them from school or get them into the criminal justice system if they are in real trouble. We know that, as early support for families is reduced, there is evidence that children are more likely to end up in crisis and require being taken into care or excluded from school, or even ending up in the criminal justice system.

The amendment seeks to protect families and children through a duty on agencies at the local level to provide early intervention to help prevent that crisis and breakdown, and it encourages and puts within that duty collaboration between those local agencies. One of the quite shocking things we heard, given that this has been talked about for so many years, is that one agency would very often not know what was happening with the child or the family if they were directly involved with another agency. We think that that level of co-operation and collaboration at a local level is also essential.

This provision would protect what local agencies feel is necessary in order to have that early intervention, which, if it works well—and we know it can—will prevent necessary crisis intervention later on. In the long term, this would save us money as taxpayers and as a society. That is the problem: we never get to the long term, because since 2010, the money spent on early intervention has been slashed. In my own county of Durham, 66% of the funding they were spending on early intervention has now been switched to crisis intervention. In Sunderland that figure is 81%. We found in our inquiry that this had happened most in the areas of greatest need around the country. For us as a nation, that is unacceptable.

There are huge pressures on local authorities in relation to children, and even more have been flagged up since our report was published only last Friday. The County Councils Network report earlier this week predicted a rise in the number of children requiring care, and yesterday the Home Office said it was going to require more local authorities to accept unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. I approve of that responsibility being shared, but it tells us that the pressures at that heavy end are not going to lessen at this time. The only way to reduce those pressures is by giving families support at the time that will help them to avoid crisis down the line. I know that if a new duty is placed on a local authority, the Government have committed themselves to it and it is in legislation that they will fund—although certainly never as much as the local authority wants—that new responsibility. So, there is money attached to a new duty, and that is one of the reasons why we put this in the way we did.

As a nation, we cannot afford this continuing and escalating crisis in the number of children who are vulnerable and in need. This is spelled out in the amendment, so let us really back what we know can work in terms of early intervention. I ask the Government to signal that they understand what this amendment is about and that they are going to make sure that this sort of thing happens in the future.

[Baroness Wyld (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support Amendment 292J in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong. It has been a real pleasure to serve on that committee with them, and it was brilliantly chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong. I did not agree with everything she said this afternoon, but we always disagree well. I do agree with the terms of the amendment, and I think the arguments were tightly set out. The points around siloed working are critical, and if we do not do this, we will see more of the pretty harrowing examples that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, referred to. I am pleased to give my support to this amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

As safeguarding partners, local authority, police and health leaders already have a statutory duty to collaborate in their child safeguarding functions, which includes working together to identify and respond to the needs of children in their areas. These partners are able to name other authorities, as noble Lords will know, including representatives from the education and criminal justice sectors, as relevant agencies in their arrangements. Where named, these agencies are under a statutory obligation to comply with those arrangements. That duty to collaborate in supporting children at risk of, or affected by, these crimes therefore already exists on a statutory footing. However, we recognise the imperative to give focus to the twin issues that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, raised in his amendment.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

Does the noble Baroness accept that there is a problem with that situation, which happens often at the crisis level and not the early intervention level? It also excludes any organisation, such as a voluntary sector agency, that may be working with a child if they are not one of the three official statutory agencies.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

What I was trying to say was that legislation is in place but, if it is not always followed in practice, it would be very helpful to know about it. However, I accept the final point that the noble Baroness makes.

I turn to the issues that the noble Lord raises in his amendment. If you consider first children impacted by domestic abuse, it is totally unacceptable that some children have to witness abuse carried out in their home by those whom they should trust the most. This Government have demonstrated their absolute resolve to tackle domestic abuse and its impact on children, both in legislation earlier this year—the Domestic Abuse Act—and through the upcoming domestic abuse strategy.

As part of the landmark Domestic Abuse Act, children are recognised as victims of domestic abuse in their own right where they see, hear or experience the effects of domestic abuse. This is an important step which will help ensure that locally commissioned services continue to consider and address the needs of children. Further, the Act created the role of the domestic abuse commissioner in statute to provide public leadership on domestic abuse issues and to oversee and monitor the provision of services for victims, including children. The provisions of the Act came into force on 1 November.

It is really important that young victims receive the right support at the right time—which was precisely the wording that the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, used—to help them cope and recover and to mitigate the long-term impact of their experiences. We are determined to continue to improve the standard of support for victims of crime. This year the Government will provide £150 million to victim support services, which includes an extra £51 million to increase support for rape and domestic abuse victims. That includes support for children and young people.

Through the children affected by domestic abuse fund we have provided £3 million this year for specialist services for children who have been affected by domestic abuse. This funding is enabling a range of therapeutic interventions for children, such as one-to-one or group support. In addition, the Home Office is this year providing £169,000-worth of funding to Operation Encompass, a scheme which connects the police to schools through a specialist support helpline for teachers concerned about children experiencing domestic abuse. The helpline was established during the Covid-19 pandemic, as noble Lords might recall, and we are continuing to fund it this year.

Turning to the matter of child criminal exploitation, the Government are investing in specialist support for under-25s and their families who are affected by county lines exploitation in the three largest exporting force areas—London, the West Midlands and Merseyside. The Government are also funding the Children’s Society’s Prevention Programme, which works to tackle and prevent child criminal exploitation, child sexual abuse and exploitation, and modern-day slavery and human trafficking on a regional and national basis. This has included supporting the #LookCloser public awareness campaign, which focuses on increasing awareness and encouraging reporting of the signs and indicators of child exploitation. We also fund Missing People’s SafeCall service, which is a national confidential helpline for young people, families and carers who are concerned about county lines exploitation.

Through cross-government efforts we are working to identify areas of learning with regard to child criminal exploitation and improving our response to it. The Home Office and the Department for Education are currently testing the effectiveness of how multi-agency safeguarding partnerships respond to serious violence and county lines through a series of deep dives. We have recently received the findings from those reviews and are considering the best way to share the learning and practice with local areas.

In the wider landscape, the noble Lord will be aware that the Government will be consulting on a victims’ Bill. As part of that consultation, we will seek views on the provision of community-based support services for victims, including children. The consultation will carefully look at how local bodies collaborate to support victims and will consider the evidence to determine where legislation could be used more effectively. Therefore, although I am very sympathetic to the aims of the noble Lord’s amendment, I hope that he is sufficiently reassured by the extensive ongoing efforts to tackle these two issues, the existing arrangements in place and, indeed, our plans to consider the duty to collaborate further as part of the victims’ Bill.

Finally, in relation to Amendments 320 and 328, I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Lord, Lord Best, that the time has come—

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Wednesday 17th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

We have covered a spectrum of different types of offending and behaviour. We must not forget that at the point at which—no pun intended—someone is issued with an SVRO, they will have been convicted by the court of a knife or offensive weapons offence. The court will also, I am sure, take into consideration previous patterns of behaviour. If the Sikh who got involved in a fight and had his knife with him had no previous convictions for weapons offending, that would be quite different from a repeat offender. It would be for the court to consider whether to impose the SVRO. I hope that I have made that clear and that it will become clearer to noble Lords by the examples I will provide.

Of course, we will consider, in the light of the Committee, whether we have got all the permutations and combinations right. That is what noble Lords do best—scrutinising legislation, and I have the benefit of some serious legal players around the Chamber.

I now move on to the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, about the disproportionate impact that SVROs might have on some vulnerable groups—primarily women who might be coerced into carrying weapons. I completely empathise with the circumstances in which such women might find themselves. We discussed domestic violence only a few months ago and know the effect that coercive control can have on women. At the heart of what we are doing is committing to preventing offenders of all ages, genders and backgrounds becoming involved in serious violence by developing resilience, supporting positive alternatives and delivering timely interventions.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister. My amendment takes out the part that states that a person “ought to have known” that someone else was carrying, rather than that person carrying. That is the bit that is particularly pernicious in terms of the woman that I was talking about.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 14th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to speak about a specific group who will be affected by some of the Bill’s provisions. I suspect that I would not need to make this speech had the Government accepted the amendment I moved during the passage of the Domestic Abuse Act, which would have introduced mandatory training for all front-line workers in public agencies where an abused woman may turn up. We discussed then the importance of recognising the effects of trauma on the behaviour of women with experience of violence and abuse. Unfortunately, the Bill as currently drafted would exacerbate the problem and drive more women into the criminal justice system, rather than ensuring that they get timely and appropriate support. I am sure that is not what the Minister wants.

For brevity, I want to concentrate on one example of the provisions in the Bill that may be problematic if introduced without the right sort of knowledge and understanding. The serious violence reduction orders would increase the number of women with complex needs being sentenced to prison. I want the Minister to particularly think about those young women who have been groomed and experience serious and often violent sexual exploitation. Changing Lives—an organisation I used to chair—and organisations it has been working with in West Yorkshire in the STAGE project, has many examples of this and the problems that the Bill would therefore bring. Agenda also tells me of young black women who are often exploited in gangs. These are the women who may well be caught with facing two years’ imprisonment for the possibility that they “ought to have known”—as the Bill says—that someone in their company was in possession of drugs or weapons.

I was pleased to hear the Minister say that the diversion of people from prison is a key aim of the Bill. I know that the Ministry of Justice and, I am sure, the Home Office have been looking seriously at how to reduce the number of women going to court and to seek other ways of avoiding custodial sentences. It would be unfortunate if such work was put at risk in this Bill. I am afraid that the issue I raise demonstrates a lack of understanding of what happens in grooming and sexual abuse and exploitation among adults.

The consequences of this Bill could be very damaging. Could the Minister therefore find the time to discuss with me and some of the organisations working with these women what the consequences of the Bill could be? I have just given one example of those orders, but there are other aspects in the Bill that the Minister and the Government need to think about. Maybe with a civilised discussion we could avoid some of those real problems and not put these women at even greater risk of entering custody, which would not help them at all—nor would it lead to protecting the community more effectively.

Napier Barracks Asylum Accommodation

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

The key phrase used by the noble Lord is “continental Europe”. These people are coming from safe countries; Europe is a safe set of states. We believe that the inadmissibility rules are consistent with the refugee convention. They have not been dreamt up by us recently, but are long standing. We are currently in discussions with other countries on sending people back who should not have applied for asylum, coming from a safe country.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a sorry tale, which, more than anything else, has exposed that the Government either did not know or were avoiding telling Parliament what was happening. Part of the next phase is the opening of a detention centre—I think that is what it is being called—in Medomsley, County Durham. The site is beautiful, but has a very sorry history from when it was a detention centre and then the Hassockfield youth offending facility. There are still outstanding cases of alleged abuse relating to Medomsley. It is a very strange place to put people from very different cultures with probably very different language needs from those in the local community. How will the Government ensure that the system, which already looks fairly broken, does not become even more broken by there being insufficient people with language or cultural knowledge to work there, and ensure that we fulfil our international obligations, as we ought to?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, any accommodation, be it detention or reception accommodation, will be scoped and checked to make sure that it meets service standards. I understand the point that the noble Baroness makes about that particular detention centre because the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham brought it to my attention. We are currently scoping through various options for detention, but if someone has no legal right to be here and we cannot effect their removal, we unfortunately have to place them in detention, but the detention estate has declined somewhat over the last few years.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts

Report stage & Lords Hansard
Monday 8th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I strongly support Amendments 7, 8, 9, 78 and 90. We have heard the very informed opinions of my brethren, including the ladies, about the dangers that exist at the beginning of life, including the time that a child is in utero, from the effects of domestic abuse surrounding them.

It is very important to remember that the idea of putting something in guidance depends on whether it is already included in the statute. Guidance cannot extend the scope of the statute and I think that these amendments are really concerned with the legal necessity of having these beginning-of-life children in the statute. Therefore, I support them very strongly because I think it is generally assumed that they need to be looked after and that looking after them involves a degree of involvement that is essential for success.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am going to be very disciplined in this Bill—some people may say that that is a bit unusual for me—and speak only to those things that are not part of the criminal justice system. I am concerned that overall the Bill has been dominated by the criminal justice system, and most of the women I have worked with for many years want problems to be sorted before it is necessary to go to court, because things really have failed once it gets that far. That is why I was really pleased to support the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, in these amendments, because they are about early intervention and, in terms of domestic abuse, about how we prevent it and how we break that cycle.

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Moved by

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top]

15: After Clause 16, insert the following new Clause—
“Duties of public authorities in relation to training
(1) Subject to subsection (3), all public authorities specified in section 15(3) must report to the Commissioner such statistics on enquiries or training as the Commissioner deems necessary.(2) If the Commissioner has published guidance on training or reporting under section 7(2)(d), the training or reporting provided by public authorities to their staff must meet standards specified in such guidance, so far as such standards apply to the public authority.(3) The Commissioner must produce an annual report, in accordance with section 14(2)(b).”

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is my pleasure to move this amendment which relates to the training of all front-line workers. We took away the comments and ideas from the Minister in Committee and have brought back a much more modest amendment. It removes the public duty but does lay out a process whereby the commissioner is involved in assessing the training, according to the guidance the Government have published and will, I hope, improve. It also establishes that the commissioner should produce a report each year.

--- Later in debate ---

In conclusion, I strongly support the aims of both these amendments, but, for the reasons I have set out, it would not be appropriate to include them in the Bill. As I have explained, Amendment 44 undermines the constitutional separation of powers between the Executive and the judiciary, while Amendment 15 significantly overlaps with, and therefore adds little to, the provisions already made elsewhere in Part 2 and Clause 73 of the Bill. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, will be happy to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to everyone who has taken part and, given the hour, I will be very brief indeed. Therefore, I will not go through each speech.

I thank the Minister for the work that she has done and her recognition of the importance of training and supporting front-line staff. Of course, I would have liked to have seen this more prominently on the face of the Bill, but I accept that she is committed to this, and I will hold her to continuing to pursue the issue through guidance and through support for the commissioner. My noble friend Lord Hunt and I both emphasised the issue of resource for the commissioner to do that effectively.

The only other issue was that raised by my noble friend Lord Hunt: the basic importance of supporting and training staff. That is one of the most important aspects of how we deal with domestic abuse. As Members across the House and, indeed, the Minister said, our knowledge and understanding of this, given the pandemic and what we have learned from that, should be even greater now. We know that those staff themselves need support and training to deal with the real trauma that they go through when dealing with people who are exhibiting these sorts of problems in front of them.

I will not push the amendment further tonight, but I will keep an eye on it once the Bill is through. I will continue to discuss it with the commissioner and continue to bring it back to the House to make sure that the House and the Government have delivered on the commitments that have been given to train and support front-line workers to ask the right questions, so that they then know the right way to guide and direct people who really need that support.

Amendment 15 withdrawn.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 27th January 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top]

53: After Clause 16, insert the following new Clause—
“Duties of public authorities in relation to training
(1) Subject to subsection (3), all public authorities specified in section 15(3) must, in consultation with the Commissioner—(a) train those staff who provide a service to people who suffer or may suffer domestic abuse to make enquiries about domestic abuse,(b) ensure that such enquiries are made, and(c) report to the Commissioner such statistics on enquiries or training as the Commissioner deems necessary.(2) If the Commissioner has published guidance on training or reporting under section 7(2)(d), the training or reporting provided by public authorities to their staff must meet standards specified in such guidance, so far as such standards apply to the public authority.(3) The Commissioner must produce an annual report, in accordance with section 14(2)(b).(4) Nothing in this section prevents the Commissioner from specifying that the staff of any public authority should receive additional training or make enhanced or targeted enquiries.”

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, Amendment 53 seeks to amend the Bill to put a statutory duty on public services to ensure front-line staff in those services are making inquiries about domestic abuse. It looks to further support this duty with appropriate training and funding so that staff are equipped to ask the question, and to ensure services are available and ready to support survivors when they do disclose. The amendment also seeks to accompany the duty with robust data collection and good training standards. The campaign to include this in the Bill has been led by Agenda and supported by over 20 other charities, trade unions, practitioners and leading experts. I thank them for their work and their commitment.

The impact of abuse on survivors means that they are likely to come into contact with a whole range of public services. While four out of five victims never call the police, many visit their GP because of the abuse they are suffering. Some turn up at the housing department, some at DWP. For some it is the police; for others it will be the health service. Wherever it is, it is important that the abuse and its consequences are recognised and that appropriate support is offered.

Unfortunately, research by Agenda and the National Commission on Domestic Abuse and Multiple Disadvantage in the report Breaking Down the Barriers found that too often public services fail to pick up domestic abuse and therefore fail to respond appropriately. Routine inquiry, whereby practitioners routinely ask patients about experiences of abuse, is already recommended by NICE guidelines in services including mental health, drug and alcohol treatment, and maternity services—but it often does not happen.

I say to your Lordships, ask friends who are pregnant about their experience. I did, and got a variety of answers. Some had not been asked at all; one was asked in front of her partner; and others were asked in what they described as a tick-box exercise, where it was clear that the person asking was embarrassed and did not want a difficult answer. A third of mental health trusts that responded to a freedom of information request from Agenda did not even have a policy on routine inquiry, despite the NICE guidelines. When they had a policy, it was often applied inconsistently, with one trust saying that it asked only 3% of patients about experience of domestic abuse.

The Joint Committee on the Bill urged the Government to consider how to ensure greater consistency of approach and training for front-line staff. The Government’s response was that routine inquiry was already taking place in maternity and mental health services. However, as we now know, tragically, it is not. Some 38% of women with mental health problems have experienced domestic abuse. Many of them have not had that taken into account in the response that they get in treatment. We need to go further than health services. All our public services, from jobcentres to GPs, should be asking about abuse, so that they can then offer appropriate support.

There are examples of good practice, which show that the approach suggested in the amendment would work. The IRIS programme in primary care, a training and support programme to improve service-level response to disclosure of abuse, found in its research that the number of referrals to domestic violence agencies made by clinicians in practices where IRIS was in place was six times higher than in those not involved in the programme. It has also been evaluated that there are social costings of £37 per woman registered in a GP practice. So we know that there is training that works and makes a real difference. We know that too from the SafeLives training programme that is delivered to police forces, because it produces much better practice and outcomes in those forces that take up the training.

I have not put in the amendment the precise nature of the training, which is probably a matter for guidance. However, most people agree that it should be some form of trauma-informed practice. I have talked to organisations such as Changing Lives and Fulfilling Lives, which ensure that all their staff have trauma-informed training. There are two main consequences of this. They know how to deal with people who come before them, mainly women, who have experienced the trauma of domestic abuse. They know how to give them the feeling of a safe space, how to help them disclose, and so on.

They also deliver training to other organisations, so Fulfilling Lives, with some of their experts by experience who have been through the training, then offer it to the DWP in Newcastle. DWP managers have told me just how valuable this is. We know that this sort of training works, and the Government have recognised it in making sure that it is offered to veterans who suffer from PTSD. It needs to be recognised in those who have experienced domestic abuse. Appropriate training also helps front-line workers deal with the trauma of colleagues who have their own experience of domestic abuse or deal with those experiencing trauma. We have learned a lot about that during the pandemic.

This amendment would give public services a real opportunity to rethink training and development for their workforce, and offer meaningful support to the victims of domestic abuse. I think it is really necessary, and I sure that the Government know this, but are worried about it being overburdensome. I do not believe it would be. It would be enormously helpful to public services and front-line workers, because they would be much more confident about how they are dealing with people. I hope that the Government see how to adopt this, and I beg to move.

[Baroness Crawley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the wisdom and experience of my noble friend Lady Armstrong and to be in the company of my noble friend Lord Hunt in adding my name and support to this amendment. What brings us together is the need for this most welcome Domestic Abuse Bill to place a statutory duty on public authorities to ensure that front-line staff make trained inquiries into domestic abuse, backed, as my noble friend said, by sufficient funding to make it a reality.

The Government said that routine inquiry is already in place in maternity and mental health services, and that all staff working in the NHS must undertake at least level 1 safeguarding training, which includes domestic abuse. While I acknowledge that much guidance is out there and that many levels of training and training commissioning exist, the problem is that there is no trained, routine and consistent inquiry into domestic abuse for front-line workers across public authorities.

Since best-value performance indicators were dropped several years ago, local authorities—often the local trainers and commissioners—have no way of measuring their performance in training and commissioning compared with other local authorities. Often, the first contact in a trauma is the most important. Their interaction with an abused person decides the trust and confidence that that person has in that service, be it the police, housing, mental health, the NHS or social care. I know that local authority trainers, in particular, would welcome greater consistency, accountability and scrutiny.

The alliance organisation Agenda has worked tirelessly on this aspect of help for victims of abuse. It has found that, despite NICE guidance, trained practitioners are not routinely asking patients about domestic abuse. One mental health trust asked only 3% of patients, when it was meant to be asking everyone. The Government are aware of these continuing inconsistencies, as is seen in the shift in their wording in the draft statutory guidance published in July 2020—from routine inquiry on domestic abuse “already takes place” to “should be taking place”.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

My Lords, I have received no requests to speak after the Minister, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, to conclude the debate on her amendment.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am really grateful to everyone who has contributed and been so positive about the importance of really good trained inquiry from whichever front-line worker a woman or victim is likely to turn up in front of. I will not mention everyone individually, but I need to answer a couple of things.

My noble friend Lord Hunt spoke very eloquently about the importance of employing people with lived experience in many of the services that work directly with those who have been abused—this is very important. I work with organisations that do this. However, he is also right that, if you are going to do it, you have an additional responsibility to make sure that they are well trained and supported. This amendment would help to make sure that that happened.

I was delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, contributed to the debate. When I was doing the commission, I met a number of women from the black, Asian and minority-ethnic communities and, of course, women with disabilities as well as some of the organisations that worked with them specifically. Too often, they met people who simply did not have the specialism or capacity to support them.

It is really important to understand the distinct and often disproportionate ways in which some minoritised women experience abuse, as well as knowing the right referral pathways. Training must involve the expertise of service providers, run by and for minoritised communities. These are really important things that I encourage the Government to think and talk to a wide group about. I certainly look forward to working with the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, on this agenda.

My noble friend Lord Rooker raised the issue of costs. Agenda has estimated that this would cost about £3.6 million. The Minister also mentioned the duty being a burden, and, as a previous Local Government Minister, I know all about that and want to address it. I would like to work with her officials to go through what some organisations have been doing to deliver this training in a way that enhances their organisation as well as ensuring really good support for the women and other victims who come in front of their front-line workers. I believe that there is merit for the public service rather than it being a burden in relation to doing things in the way that we have talked about this evening.

I hear what the Minister says, and I would love to work with her and her officials to find a way forward because I am afraid that, at the moment, there is plenty of guidance but no means of making sure that it is always translated into action. This is where we need to understand how we make sure that this happens for every victim of abuse who presents to a public authority. As such, there is work to be done, and, in the light of that, I am happy to withdraw my amendment today, with the idea that we will do some more work and perhaps come back later with another amendment on Report.

Amendment 53 withdrawn.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 25th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

Following the informative speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, on these amendments I will be very brief. I simply would like an assurance from the Minister that all age groups will be included in this legislation, and that it will provide support and provision not only for pregnant women and the unborn child but for children of all ages whose trauma began in utero.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, for her introduction to the amendment and reaffirm that there is no intention to set the unborn child ahead of the rights of the mother or of women. If anyone takes the wrong intention, I assure your Lordships that we will address this in any future amendment so that no confusion is possible.

The amendment essentially arises from programmes from which we have learned a great deal about intervention at the earliest stages to ensure that children have every opportunity to grow normally and prosper physically and emotionally, and that families are effectively supported to do just that. We know of several things that should lead us to want to ensure that this is addressed in the Bill. Around 30% of domestic abuse begins during pregnancy. Some 40% to 60% of women experiencing domestic abuse are abused during pregnancy. The single best predictor of children becoming either perpetrators or victims of domestic abuse later in life is whether they grow up in a home where there is domestic violence. That data comes from UNICEF.

When I was Minister at the Cabinet Office in 2006-07 I introduced an evidence-based programme from America called the Nurse-Family Partnership, which we renamed the Family Nurse Partnership Programme. We used health visitors in this country to work intensively with newly pregnant first-time mothers during their pregnancy, and then for the first two years of the child’s life. The nurse would visit the family at home, and early in the programme would show the young woman she was working with a picture of a brain of a normal child aged two and one of a child the same age who lacked stimulation and had been neglected. At that same age, the brains are profoundly different in shape and size. This graphically illustrated, and allowed the nurse to talk with the young woman about, the fact that the pregnancy and early months have such a profound effect on the baby’s development, growth and, of course, emotional development.

Mothers need support to offer what is necessary. The outcomes for this programme, which was been trialled for 20 years in the US, show that when the child is six years old they are remarkably better in a whole range of ways for the child, mother and—if there is a father—the father too. We know that real programmes like this work and there is very good research evidence backing this up.

The programme that the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, mentioned, For Baby’s Sake, also works with families who are vulnerable and tackles issues at the very earliest opportunity. The research from its work shows that almost all fathers who are involved in the programme and are part of such vulnerable families have been subject to domestic abuse in childhood. The intervention uses trauma-informed work to better support parents in those early days and months and during pregnancy. The birth of a new baby is, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, said, the time of greatest optimism from parents about the future of the child. It is therefore the optimum period for intervention. Evidence shows that without appropriate support and intervention at this stage, that optimism disappears after three to four months. Effective intervention works, and it is the best way of breaking that cycle of violence. Surely, that is what our ambition ought to be.

In the commission that I chaired, in the report Breaking Down the Barriers, we were able to show that a key reason for women not looking for help when they and their children experience domestic abuse was the fear of losing their children. This early intervention would open up the promise of support, rather than separation from the children. It would very much be welcomed by women who are fearful. We have the chance here to make a real difference, to intervene in a way that gives potential perpetrators a better way of coping with family life and makes sure that babies are not subject to domestic violence and all that we know follows from that.

This amendment will not be sufficient on its own, but it will be a significant step on the way to transforming this country’s experience of domestic abuse. It will transform the opportunities of families to break from violence being seen as the answer to their problems. I hope the Government will take this opportunity to work with us to show their real determination and ours to make that difference.