Domestic Abuse Bill

Debate between Baroness Boycott and Lord Faulkner of Worcester

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

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

I have received one request to speak after the Minister, from the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, the Committee has every reason to be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, because these are all very important announcements; I thank everyone involved, and it is very good to be speaking to this group. This subject is not just close to my heart but has been part of my life. I was very pleased to hear in the Minister’s response how many things are going to be in place to deal with alcoholism, in particular. I very much look forward to Dame Carol Black’s review—I know how brilliant she is—and I also welcome the news about sobriety tags. I just want to make a few points, some of them personal.

The link between alcohol and domestic abuse is well known, and yet, strangely, it is often not at the forefront of the debate. Some 55% of domestic abuse cases involve alcohol or some kind of substance, and women who drink themselves are 15 times more likely to be abused than women who do not. I am not going to repeat the stats; one only has to read the excellent contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Marks, on Monday night to get a good picture of how solid the evidence is. Drunk people, both men and women, are more likely to abuse or be abused than those who are not. Alcohol itself is not the culprit, and it should never be an excuse for behaviour. However, I believe that it is so tightly woven into the problem that it must be treated as part of the recovery process.

I am very glad that, as a result of the Bill, the crime of domestic abuse will be better dealt with and we will have more refuges. I also welcome the commissioner. But if we do not study, understand and treat alcoholism, then we are not doing our job.

Alcoholics, when they are drinking and when they are addicted to alcohol, are really difficult to deal with. Alcohol, as people say, is both cunning, baffling and powerful. I know that, in my life, I have drunk to excess. I do not drink now and I have not done for many years, but alcoholism will be with me for the rest of my life. It is very hard to break that cycle without help, and there are far too few treatment centres in this country. I know—again, from my own experience and that of people I know—that doctors and general hospitals do not like disruptive alcoholics, who are really hard to treat and who take up beds. They sober up and are then sent back into the world, where they start drinking again. People, especially women, keep alcoholism a secret. It is seen still as an issue of shame in this country, which is one reason I have always spoken publicly about it, throughout my life.

If we do not stop the cycle, the same thing happens again. Abuse is a spiral, in much the same way as addiction, and a drunk abuser will seek a victim. A woman who drinks herself and who has, probably as a consequence, the lower self-esteem that goes along with it, will almost inevitably partner up with the kind of bloke who will, ultimately, abuse her. That is what you do when you think you are not worth anything, because you are the person in our society who cannot handle alcohol like everybody else does.

Personally, I cannot think of a more difficult thing—it is almost impossible—than to be a woman with kids who is the victim of domestic abuse and a drinker herself. Yes, the council may find you a refuge, but, when that is over and you have to go back to the world, if you do not have some solid help to get through that addiction, you are going to end up back where you were, and the saga goes on and on.

The need to break this cycle must be a fundamental, core part of the commissioner’s remit. She needs all the expertise to support her and she needs money to enable her to make the right decisions. No one in their wildest miseries or nightmares would want to be addicted to any substance, from a bottle, a needle or a pill—it is a misery you would not wish on anyone. But once there, it takes some time and patience. I have been lucky; I have been able to afford the help I needed, but this should not be an issue of money.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said earlier in this debate, deep cuts have been made to addiction services in this country since 2013-14. It means that the 8.4 million potentially high-risk drinkers—that is an awful lot—and the hundreds with opiate addictions, are not getting the right help. It is an insane situation, because for every addict or alcoholic, it is reckoned that at least five people are swept into the madness and distress. It costs money: to the NHS, to the criminal justice system and to society.

WHO figures suggest that 50% of men who kill their wives are drunk or addicted. Helping people who drink or abuse substances through to the other side—through to a chance, literally, to rejoin the world as a useful member of society—would bring so many great benefits. As the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, spoke so wonderfully about on Monday night, so many children would have their lives transformed. As she said, the Commission on Alcohol Harm heard from children who were terrified to go home for fear of what their parent or parents might do. The Children’s Commissioner estimates that there are more than half a million children living in households where domestic abuse, along with drink and substance abuse, is prevalent.

The alcohol lobby is big and powerful. It has successfully fought demands for minimum pricing in England—though it lost in Scotland—a measure that is known to reduce harmful consumption. This stuff is everywhere. Adverts are well targeted, promising thrills and excitement, and they all too often use sexualised images of women to encourage purchase. This ought to stop. I am the last person who wants to see alcohol sales restricted in any way, but I am convinced that we cannot keep shoving this big problem to one side. Domestic abuse and alcohol are linked, and unless we break the addiction cycle, we will not break the other. We can no longer condemn both the victims and the abusers—who are, in my mind, sometimes also victims—to the shadows.

EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement

Debate between Baroness Boycott and Lord Faulkner of Worcester

Friday 8th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Boycott (CB) [V]]

During the debate on the then European Union (Future Relationship) Bill, the Prime Minister stated:

“I have always said that Brexit is not an end but a beginning, and the responsibility now rests with all of us to make the best use of the powers that we have regained … We are going to begin by fulfilling our manifesto promise to maintain the highest standards of labour and environmental regulation.”—[Official Report, Commons, 30/12/20; col. 520.]


However, this thin deal is estimated by the IFS to leave our economy 2.1% smaller this year, which means less money available to tackle our environmental challenges.

I am very glad that the fight against climate change is classified as an essential element of the agreement. This means that any serious breach can lead to the suspension or termination of all or part of the agreement, which would materially defeat the object and purpose of the Paris Agreement. It is a very high threshold, but it is one that we must rise up to meet. 

However, new analysis by the Green Alliance found that our Government are yet to announce a policy to achieve the 75% of the emissions reductions that we still need to make to achieve our 2030 climate target. Additional policies required include commitments to restore up to 60% of peatlands, raise energy efficiency standards for new homes and mandate car manufacturers to increase production of electric vehicles. There are massive implications for spending, and some reckonings say that we need an extra £22 billion for this. I do not think we can afford not to do it.

Climate change is a world problem, and we are far more likely to tackle it and our nature crisis if we co-operate with our neighbours. As many noble Lords have said, we are still part of Europe. The EU has been a long-time partner, but this new agreement has, sadly, limited some of the mechanisms we have to promote our shared ambitions—so we desperately need to find further ways in which to negotiate and new ways in which to work together. We have the potential to be both dynamic and co-operative, and in the year that we host the COP, we, as leaders, should guarantee that we co-operate with all interested parties.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Desai, is not here, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom.