Domestic Abusers: Reoffending

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

We do need to ensure that the programmes work. I hope I can reassure the noble Baroness that in 2025-26 we in the Home Office are providing an additional £90 million to police and crime commissioners to look at the very issue that she has mentioned, through the domestic abuse and stalking perpetrator intervention fund. This will be not just for when someone is convicted of a domestic violence offence but when they are released, when there may be a need for greater support for the victim to make sure that they do not feel intimidated, stalked or damaged by the relationship that has already caused them damage.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, we have already heard about the centrality of education to make sure that we are making a difference on violence against women and girls. Can my noble friend the Minister say whether in the other place the Department for Education is working closely with our honourable friend Jess Phillips to ensure that more teachers are trained to be clear about the effects of adverse childhood experiences on the young people they see day in and day out?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I can assure my noble friend that the Government’s violence against women and girls strategy is a cross-government strategy. When it is published, it will include contributions from a range of government departments, not least the Department for Education.

Regulated and Other Activities (Mandatory Reporting of Child Sexual Abuse) Bill [HL]

Baroness Blower Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 17th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, on bringing this to the House today. It is a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London.

I want to speak briefly from the perspective of education. I hope and believe that there are no schools that are quite like the ones we heard described from the Benches opposite, but I realise that there are bad actors all over the place. I believe that, in general, child protection and the duty of care is taken seriously by all teachers—certainly by all the teachers I know. It is a significant responsibility. We know there is a great deal of mental ill-health and distress in schools at the moment, but schools are clearly an obvious place to ensure that there is mandatory reporting of child sex abuse.

This implies proper training for all school staff—not just teachers but all staff who work in schools, whether they are in an admin or support capacity. We can never know to whom a child might report something; it could be a school secretary or somebody else. Regrettably, we have heard that often it is reported to no one at all. Such training must be high-quality, and it has to be repeated. We know that there is a high turnover of teachers and other school staff, so this has to be an ongoing programme to make sure that all people in schools understand their responsibilities and the things for which they might need to look out. I add, as the noble Baroness did, that this goes hand in hand with making sure that we have high-quality sex and relationships education, so that children and young people understand what is right and what is not right.

I am pleased that the Bill ensures that there is no penalty if the reporting turns out not to have revealed a case. Head teachers in particular, who hold in their hands the responsibility for a school, will find it difficult to report if they feel that that will have a devastating effect on their school. Equally, they obviously want to make sure that they report properly. Of course, it is not the head teacher, as the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, said, who knows what is going on in a child’s life on a daily basis; it is the individual teacher.

I am pleased to support the Bill. I hope and believe that, even if we do not hear something positive from the Front Bench, we will ensure that mandatory reporting does occur, and occurs in a context of proper training for all those who work in good faith with young people, so that we can move towards a significant reduction in this appalling behaviour by adults. Some 85% of this behaviour goes unreported, as we heard from the noble Baroness. We have to find spaces for people who have been subject to such abuse to be able to bring it forward. I support the Bill.

Asylum Support (Prescribed Period) Bill [HL]

Baroness Blower Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 13th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and to contribute to this Second Reading on such a vital Bill from my noble friend Lady Lister.

I am grateful to the organisations that have sent in briefings, both to extend my own knowledge and to inform my contribution today. I begin with the stark assertion from Barnardo’s that “There is currently a homelessness epidemic amongst newly recognised refugee families in the UK who experience homelessness and destitution as a direct result of the 28 day move on policy for those obliged to move out of asylum hotels, to find new accommodation less than a month after being granted refugee status”. The granting of refugee status should be very good news, but the timeframe puts a great deal of stress on families and individuals. As the Refugee Council says, a successful asylum claim should be “a moment of celebration” but, due to the short move-on time, far too many people end up facing homelessness.

Of course, this is not just damaging for the refugees themselves; it also puts local authority and voluntary sector services under pressure. This is not just about homelessness: in the moving-on period, a refugee has to find work or successfully apply for welfare support. It is not surprising, then, that local authorities support this extension to the moving-on period. A key reason why the 28 days are simply too short is that, having been unable to work pending a decision on their asylum application—let us all hope that we can hear the third cheer from the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, very soon—newly recognised refugees may need to claim universal credit, which has an in-built delay of 35 days between application and first payment. As my noble friend said, it is possible to be awarded an advance payment, but only if the refugee is aware of the possibility of applying; then, of course, money is deducted from further future payments. This could be avoided if the timescales on processes were aligned.

The Government have announced a temporary increase in the move-on period from 28 to 56 days, as we have heard, but questions—some of them put by noble Lords in earlier speeches—remain. What is required is the full statutory extension to 56 days on a permanent basis, as outlined in my noble friend’s Bill. I wish the Bill well and hope that the Government will be able to support it.

Family Reunion Visas: Gaza

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I wonder whether I could interrupt the Question to pay a very brief tribute to Lord Field of Birkenhead. He was a man of the highest integrity, and MP for Birkenhead for many years—but it is his work on modern slavery that I refer to. He was responsible, with my help and that of the noble Lord, Lord Randall, for persuading Prime Minister Theresa May to have the Modern Slavery Act. He was the chairman of a small group, including me, which reviewed the work of that Act. He will go down in history as a great MP—he was only here briefly, unfortunately, through ill health—and a man who did a great deal on modern slavery.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

Can I draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that, in his opening question, my noble friend Lord Dubs specifically used the word “temporary”, and then prayed in aid the notion of “temporary” in supporting the Ukraine arrangements. Can the Minister think about the fact that what was being asked was whether we could find space in our hearts and systems to allow for family reunion from Gaza for those people in such dire straits, on a temporary basis?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I take the noble Baroness’s point—but, as I say, we keep all existing pathways in response to events under review.

Police: Joe Anderson

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I absolutely hear what my noble friend has to say on the subject and I will, of course, take that comment back to the department.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that, notwithstanding the fact that he cannot comment on an individual case or its complexity, it does a disservice to the police service to be seen to be taking quite so long over this case?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Again, I would prefer not to pass judgment on the quality of the investigation that the Merseyside police have done, as the noble Baroness is asking me to do. I really do not know what the complexity of this case is. I do not know why it has taken so long to resolve. I would assume that there are very strong operational reasons, given the obviously high-profile nature of the people involved.

Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2023

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2023 Lords Chamber

In the meantime, I urge my noble friend on the Front Bench to be honest and clear about these two wholly different categories, and recognise that, even though fees are appropriate for both, they are absolutely distinct and the Home Office should stop trying to muddle us about them.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, it is, for the most part, a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, in what he had to say. We can understand why some people might find this rather difficult to follow. It was beautifully explained by the noble Lord but, none the less, has a measure of complexity.

I have little to add to the extremely competent, wide-ranging and interesting speech made by my noble friend Lady Lister. However, by way of support and amplification, I add that, when I was working with the National Union of Teachers, I came across cases—I would not say many but certainly more than several—of young people who genuinely believed themselves to be British and were astounded to find that their way to higher education was barred by the fact that their parents had not taken steps to secure their position. Frankly, it was devastating for these young people, as it was for their teachers and for those of us who attempted to work with them. In the briefings—for which I am extremely grateful—there is the case of one such young person, Arthur, whose parents equally had made no steps in the direction of securing his position. He then became an adult and simply does not have the resources to be able to secure his own position.

I conclude by saying that the 20% increase, so far above the cost of processing, looks a lot like what we might in other circumstances call profiteering. Last week, we all heard with horror—certainly, I did—that the increases in retail prices of baby formula, way above the costs incurred, were genuinely felt to be completely unacceptable. This seems to be a somewhat parallel case. As my noble friend said, making the poor poorer in respect of things to which they are entitled, possibly sending them into destitution, seems a wholly unacceptable thing for the Government of this country to do. Is it possible to reconsider this position so that the proposed changes are instead limited to only the actual processing costs? Will the Home Office consider developing policies to minimise the regulatory and economic burden of fees on businesses, as explained by my noble friend Lady Lister?

Windrush Generation

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Absolutely. Over 21,400 people have applied to the scheme in the UK; so far, as of the third quarter of 2023, 16,700 individuals have been issued with documentation confirming their status or British citizenship. That includes over 8,500 individuals who have been granted citizenship. As I mentioned—I hope this reassures my noble friend—the engagement with the Windrush compensation scheme also talks about documentation and the documentation scheme. People attend these events and they have been engaging extremely extensively around the country.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, given the suffering of the victims of the Windrush generation but also their incredible contribution to British society, does the noble Lord agree with me that this should feature prominently and deeply in the school curriculum—the national curriculum—and should be taught alongside the need for anti-racist understanding?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I would certainly agree that it is incumbent on all of us to learn the lessons of history and to make sure they are widely understood. I am not going to speculate as to what ought to be in the national curriculum, however.

Refugees and Asylum Seekers: Safe Routes

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

Some months ago, in a debate on the situation in Sudan, I asked the relevant Minister what consideration had been given to opening a safe and legal route from Sudan, given the situation in that country. Has any further consideration has been given to the situation in Sudan, and whether we can expect to see a safe and legal route anytime soon?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, there have been a number of petitions and general requests to look at very specific safe and legal routes. As I understand it at the moment, there are no plans to adopt any for any specific countries, but I am sure they are being kept under review.

Police Uplift Programme

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

That I cannot answer but, as I said, in the national picture, the fact is that we have more officers identifying as ethnic minorities than ever before.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, as the Minister said, it is not just about hitting a target; it is also about public trust. How concerned is he about the media reports around police recruitment of unsuitable so-called rogue candidates being given jobs, precisely to meet government targets? The police inspectorate has said explicitly that hundreds of people have joined the police in the past three years who simply should not have. If the Minister recognises this, what is he going to do to address it?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I hope that I have gone into reasonable detail about the standards of vetting that are required and expected. I also point out that there were 10 applicants for every job, which implies—or should imply, at least—that there is a reasonable pool from which to choose and, I hope, get the right people. That is of course not a guarantee that there will not be a few bad apples in this particular barrel, but I sincerely hope that there are not—but perhaps I might be surprised if there are not as well.

Rape: Operation Soteria

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

As the noble Baroness will be aware, that is part of the terms of reference of the review into dismissals that was announced last week, as I talked about at the Dispatch Box. It will deliver its results in four months. I have to tell the noble Baroness to wait until then.

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, following on from a question that several noble Lords have asked, could the Minister give us further assurance in this House about the importance of victims’ voices being heard, and that they are heard to be satisfied with what is being done by the police force investigating the crimes against them? If there is an issue with the quality of data, can he advise the House that, when we are looking at that, we will look at what the victims are saying?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Absolutely—I can give that assurance. I am also going to go on to one of the reasons why it was a little difficult in the past to prosecute some of these cases; it was to do with the attrition of victims from the process. In the year ending June 2022, 62% of adult rape offences ended up not being supported for further police action because the victim withdrew. There were a number of complicated reasons for that but, obviously, it is necessary to collect the data which supports that.