Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Newlove Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 5th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Newlove (Con) [V]]

My Lords, there have been many eloquent speeches this afternoon, and I, like others in your Lordships’ House, welcome the Government’s introduction of this Bill. However, I am disappointed that, with so many people listed to speak on such an important Bill, the time for our speeches has been shortened and we are not allowed a second day to inform the House in more detail. That being said, the Bill will provide much-needed support for victims of domestic abuse and will, I hope, contribute to a step change in attitudes in our country that makes domestic abuse unacceptable.

As the former Victims’ Commissioner, I have spent many years and hours listening to what the victims of domestic abuse have had to endure. I pay tribute to each and every one of them for letting me into something so personal and yet so horrific. I also pay tribute to the many charities and campaigning organisations that support and care for victims of domestic violence. Like many in this House, I have been approached by them, and by victims and survivors themselves, to ask for further improvements to the Bill.

There is one area on which I intend to table an amendment when the Bill moves into Committee—that is, on non-fatal strangulation or suffocation. I have discussed this issue with the current Victims’ Commissioner, Dame Vera Baird, and the designate domestic abuse commissioner, Nicole Jacobs, and we are all of the view that it would be an unforgivable missed opportunity if the Bill did not address this issue.

Currently, non-fatal strangulation—I include within this suffocation—does not get picked up adequately by the police. As attacks of this kind leave few or no marks, they are seen as less serious than other violence, yet this is a terrifying crime, and many victims testify that they genuinely felt as if their head was about to explode and that they were about to die during such a violent assault.

Victims of non-fatal strangulation are seven times more likely than other domestic abuse victims to go on to be killed. I will speak in more depth in Committee, but, for the Domestic Abuse Bill to be a landmark piece of legislation, it must address the important issue of non-fatal strangulation. More than half the victims of recurrent domestic abuse experience strangulation. It is estimated that 20,000 women per year—or 55 women every day—who have been assessed as high risk and suffer physical abuse have experienced strangulation or attempted strangulation.

Statistics show how strangulation and suffocation are highly gendered crimes. This is understandable, given the need to physically overpower a victim in order to commit these offences. Strangulation and asphyxiation are the second most common method of killing in female homicides, after stabbing. A woman or girl is violently killed in this way every 10 days. We must remember that these are not just statistics; in each case, it is a daughter or maybe a sister or mother who has been killed. Whether it is a Helen, an Aisha or a Zoe, it is someone whose violent end haunts their family and friends for ever.

Creating a stand-alone offence presents a unique opportunity for the Government to turn the tide on this shockingly high number of victims. Importantly for this Bill, strangulations and suffocations, both fatal and non-fatal, are concentrated within domestic abuse. Victims who survive strangulation do not just survive and get on with their lives.

I recognise that time is against me. To make this a stand-out Bill, and to make it what it should be, we need to change the law, as the lives of many people depend on us making this change.