Victims of Domestic Violence and Abuse

Baroness Seccombe Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Seccombe (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Newlove for securing this debate today. One of main reasons for putting my name down was that I wanted to add mine to those congratulating my noble friend on her role as Victims’ Commissioner. She has been outstanding and so impressive in the way she has met the demands before her. It has been a privilege to work with her, and now we can look forward to her bringing more of her special qualities to the House of Lords.

I have spoken of domestic violence, this hidden form of abuse, on previous occasions, and I commend the Government for the measures that have been taken and are ongoing, such as the strategy to end violence against women and girls by 2020. The Government have also started a consultation, which closes in early August, that would enforce the provision of secure accommodation for victims. There is also a strategy to confront domestic abuse within the Armed Forces and defence communities. Some £22 million has been allotted to 63 projects over two years to help those who have suffered this abuse. Many councils are involved in the effort to protect women, as are some charities. In Warwickshire, my son, the police and crime commissioner, awarded a three-year contract to Barnardo’s and an independent charity based in Rugby, RoSA, which supports victims of rape or sexual abuse. They will provide a range of support services, including face-to-face, telephone and online support, to meet the current and emerging needs of victims.

The Government published the draft domestic abuse Bill in January, which was welcomed and endorsed by many outside bodies. Under the proposals, a domestic abuse commissioner will be appointed to drive the response to domestic abuse and hold the Government to account, stand up for victims and monitor the provision of available services. There has been an increase in the number of people reporting cases, which I believe is caused by government action to publicise and not because there are more cases. That government publicity has highlighted these crimes. This has encouraged victims to report to the police and to flee bravely from their home. Such women are often accompanied by their children in seeking refuge, which must include provision of secure housing.

Too many people have their lives torn apart by this awful crime. It is mainly women who suffer abuse, but we should not forget that last year, out of 2 million people, while 1.3 million were women, approximately 650,000 were men. Every case is a tragedy and usually includes children who have witnessed all that goes on behind closed front doors. I want to see victims protected as well as supported. I know that many more measures are included in the draft Bill which I cannot mention today, but we must try to build a society able to stop this horrific crime. Both men and women often feel shame in admitting that they have been abused, and that is intolerable in a modern society. I cannot wait for the draft Bill to be brought before us, agreed and put on the statute book.

International Women’s Day

Baroness Seccombe Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Seccombe (Con)]

My Lords, each year in this debate many noble Lords speak of their experiences and share uplifting stories. They also speak of traumatic situations and practices they have witnessed around the world—and very troubling some of those events are. I thought that this year I would concentrate on the good fortune that we have as women living at this time in this country, and be thankful for the changes that have taken and are taking place.

When I was first married and became involved in politics in the 1950s, life was very different from today. Many married women did not take paid employment, for various reasons; some institutions did not employ married women, and some women felt that, as their income was added to their husband’s, there was no point—he paid tax on it and, as noble Lords can imagine, difficulties often arose. Women were unable to open a building society account or to buy any item on hire purchase without their husband signing the document. I believe that one of the most important emancipations for women has been the implementation of legislation in 1990 for the independent taxation of husband and wife, changing a woman from being a chattel, and in the process often saving many a woman from being chained to an abusive husband.

Women began to take a greater interest and role in public life, and over the years flexed their muscles to improve the lives of women in the workplace. Despite legislation, the gender gap has still not been eliminated and, as we heard from the Minister, it is likely to be a long time before it can be. It can at best be assessed as work in progress.

I am proud that the Conservative Party has had two women Prime Ministers, setting the aspiration for all women candidates. Baroness Young blazed the trail as Leader of this House nearly 40 years ago. I understand that we must set the goal of equal male and female representation in the other place, and we are very slowly getting there. I believe that preferential treatment is not the way forward. There are, however, so many well-qualified women out there who should be elected, and we must continue to promote and assist them. Headway is being made. Women2Win is a brilliant association, and my noble friend Lady Jenkin of Kennington deserves much praise for being an inspiration to us all by always working for others.

Brexit has absorbed our nation and taken some matters of urgency off the agenda for now. We must resolve Brexit and return to normality so that we can deal with our national problems. There is so much to do, but we will get there.

In this debate we have heard of the dire situations of many women across the world who know what real poverty is. They value education for their children and will go to all possible lengths to get them there. I congratulate the Government on giving us a buoyant economy so that this country can spend 0.7% of its GNP funding aid to enable developing countries to grow their economies.

Last year we celebrated the centenary of the first partial emancipation of women, and I am so happy that we were able to ensure that Emmeline Pankhurst remains in her rightful place close to Parliament. Along with her colleagues, she was certainly someone who fought constantly throughout her life for the status of women. She and all of them have been an inspiration. She certainly deserves to have such recognition.

In no way am I complacent, but I believe that once a year it is right to be grateful for the progress across the world and to be thankful for our own situation in which we take so much for granted. During this next year we will face an exciting future and, I hope, a time when we will all come together and be proud of our country and what we stand for. I hope we will be an example that others, particularly developing nations, will feel they wish to emulate.

Civil Partnership Act 2004 (Amendment) (Sibling Couples) Bill [HL]

Baroness Seccombe Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 20th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Seccombe (Con)]

My Lords, having heard the many eloquent speeches this morning, I feel that I can only offer my support so I will keep my contribution very short. It seems to me that money, or a lack of it, and inequality are always the drivers for change. Over recent years, legislation on civil partnerships has resulted in a significant tax advantage which, as the House heard at the time of the passing of the civil partnerships Bill, brought much joy to those who profited from it.

However, there is one disadvantaged group who have never been able to benefit from that legislation: siblings who have shared for most or all of their lives the home that they jointly own. There may not be many in this group but they are not only disadvantaged; they are a discriminated-against minority who should not be forgotten. I have long thought it wrong that two heterosexual siblings, whether brothers or sisters, who have lived together for many or all their years should end their lives in the fear that the survivor would have to sell the house to pay the inheritance tax demanded, so leaving him or her homeless. As I say, this tax does not have to be paid by same-sex couples until the survivor dies. It is cruel and unacceptable that this relief is not available for heterosexual siblings. Surely this is an anomaly and an inequality, which should be corrected.

I support the Bill wholeheartedly and congratulate my noble friend on his tenacity. I wish him every success with it and I hope that your Lordships will give it a safe passage through this House.

Police and Crime Commissioners

Baroness Seccombe Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Seccombe (Con)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to those offered to the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, but I must begin by declaring a vested interest, as my son is the PCC for Warwickshire. Obviously, I have followed the role of the PCCs and recently attended a session of my local community forum. This took the form of a presentation followed by questions to the PCC together with the safer neighbourhood team. That included the officer, who clearly knew her patch well. She spoke of the problems that she had encountered and how they were working with residents to try to create a better and more crime-free, peaceful area. I was impressed with the scope of the work of the PCC and his team and the subjects included in his four-year plan.

I was particularly pleased to hear that the national association of PCCs meets regularly to share good practice, national issues and good initiatives. Here, I commend the determination of the architect of the police and crime Act, my noble friend Lord Wasserman, who assisted the Minister during the passage of the Bill.

In Warwickshire, I am impressed also with the objective of putting victims at the heart of everything they do, something often forgotten in the past. Living in a rural area, I was glad to see the emphasis on advising farmers and vulnerable people who live in remote areas of the need to safeguard their property and equipment. Warwickshire has developed a Gypsy and Travellers protocol, and all the relevant agencies in the county are signed up to it—a tremendous advance.

The subjects that PCCs cover are many, but engagement with all residents and communities is to my mind the main priority—consulting them and holding the chief constable to account. A good example of this is realising that the biggest concern was officers on the ground. Following consultation, all the extra money raised by the council tax rise will fund a substantial increase in the number in officers. Noble Lords may say, “She would say that, wouldn’t she?”, but as a resident, I am giving my honest appraisal of this comparatively new body which operates on a budget that is less—yes, less—than when funded by the county council. This body continues to develop, learn and flourish. I congratulate it.

Registration of Marriage Bill [HL]

Baroness Seccombe Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 26th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Seccombe (Con)]

My Lords, this will be another brief contribution. I add my congratulations to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans. In 1994 I had the privilege of piloting a marriage Bill through this House. As a result of that legislation, couples were able to choose where a civil marriage could take place, in addition to a register office, and that location had to be a suitable one. It also ended the practice whereby a suitcase was left in a property near the site of the marriage ceremony to prove residency in the appropriate area. Each Bill brings forward legislation to modernise customs and conventions that have existed for centuries. I believe this Bill is a further step in that direction, which I commend.

The Registration of Marriage Bill amends the legal document so the mother’s name will be included as well as the father’s. I am delighted by this inclusion, which, as we have heard across the Chamber, is long overdue. However, I have two very minor questions for the right reverend Prelate. The first concerns ensuring that the certificate given to couples is a secure document that cannot be hacked or interfered with by some clever, computer-literate person. After all, a marriage certificate is a financially valuable document at certain times in our lives, and security is a high priority.

Secondly, I would not wish the cost of marriage to be raised—we all remember that it used to cost seven and sixpence—which always seems to happen if changes occur. This process seems a little more bureaucratic, which is disappointing, and the extra duties required of couples could mean that they decide against marriage. That could result in fewer people entering into matrimony, which I am sure is not what the Church or other authority would wish.

I am a keen advocate of marriage. I was married for 58 years and dearly wish that families could share such happiness as I have been blessed to have. I give wholehearted support to the Bill.

Women: Board Membership

Baroness Seccombe Excerpts

Monday 10th March 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Seccombe]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they are making towards their target of 25% of the membership of FTSE 100 company boards being women by 2015.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, women now account for 20.4% of board members in FTSE 100 companies. That is the figure from January 2014, which is up from 12.5% in February 2011. Although the figures are going in the right direction, we need to keep up progress to reach the 25% target. We need 50 new female directors to be appointed to FTSE 100 companies in order to reach the 2015 target.

[Baroness Seccombe (Con)]

My Lords, that is most encouraging news, but there is still a way to go to reach that 25%. Does my noble friend agree that independent and individual mentoring has helped to achieve this success? I am sure that we all know women who should have been appointed in the past but were always passed over.

[Baroness Northover]

I thank my noble friend for her encouraging comments. I am sure that mentoring has indeed helped, and I think that transparency and pressure have helped as well.

Women: Contribution to Economic Life

Baroness Seccombe Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Seccombe (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government on making it possible for this annual debate to be in government time in this important centenary year of the start of the First Great War. This is the year we begin a four-year commemoration which will highlight many of its shocking and horrific events. I hope noble Lords will forgive me as I take a moment to look at what this meant for women and how it altered the status of women for ever.

My earliest memory of my family and other families is of the sheer number of women in the world. Of course, in my family I had my mother, my very special mentor and most loyal supporter, but there were many more women who were either widowed or unmarried. I think that most families had maiden aunts and maiden great aunts; I certainly had two. The 1914 war left a generation of young women who never married, who were sometimes referred to by the appalling term “surplus women”. The scale of the war meant that the number of young men had been decimated and as a result there were just not enough chaps to go round.

These were the times when very little paid work was available for women and voluntary work was only for the rich. Single women often had to take on roles in domestic service just to get by. My mother, for example, had gained secretarial qualifications, but just as she thought that she would be able to put them to use in 1918, her father told her there was no way that she should even contemplate finding paid employment as all available jobs should be offered only to the returning troops. In many instances, contracts of employment during World War One had been based on collective agreements between trade unions and employers that decreed that women would be employed only for the duration of the war.

Marriage for my mother later meant, of course, that there was no possibility, either within the tax system or social convention, of being employed. For single women, the outlook was bleak. Some remained at their childhood home and ended their lives as unpaid carers to elderly parents. Others took on roles as housekeepers or companions to elderly, usually difficult, ladies, whose demands were inflexible and harsh but at least that provided a roof over their heads. It was not a time to be a surplus woman.

My father went through the First World War spending most of the years in the trenches or in a military hospital. He entered the war as a fit young man, and five or so years later emerged described as C3—the lowest grade of fitness—having had three bouts of rheumatic fever. He went on to serve in Ireland, but was forced to leave because his employers refused to hold his position any longer. The Army insisted on a form of medical treatment before discharge but, as he was under such pressure from his employers, he felt unable to accept it. The result was that when he died from heart-related disease, I was 10 years old, my brother was 15 and my mother was not entitled to any form of pension for his military service. It was certainly no time to be a widow.

My father never spoke of the horrors and tragedies he witnessed, so my mother was not able to pass on to us any of his experiences or the awful conditions in which the troops who survived had lived. As regiments were wiped out, together with his bouts of illness, he went from regiment to regiment. I can only be grateful that he survived to have a happy, but short, marriage and to give me a few years of love and real affection.

The war as it progressed opened unthought-of opportunities for many women. Between 1914 and 1918, an estimated 2 million women replaced men in employment, an increase in the proportion of women in total employment from 24% in July 1914 to 37% by November 1918. These women kept the home front firing by providing weapons from munitions factories and food through working the land. It was not easy, but these women enjoyed the sense of freedom and independence that this gave them.

When the armistice eventually came, many of these women did not relish a return to the home. This emancipation of women during the war had given them the impetus to start fighting for real equality. Women started truly to educate themselves, seeking more independence from husbands, fathers and families. Indeed in 1918, after much campaigning and violence by such doughty fighters as Emmeline Pankhurst, the vote was awarded to women over the age of 30 who owned property and this, thankfully, was extended 10 years later to universal suffrage.

It is hard to believe that, in spite of opportunities for women during the 1914-18 war, only two, outside domestic service, were employed in the House of Lords by 1918, and they were in the Library. Believe it or not, the number had increased to only five by the end of the Second World War in 1945, which can hardly be thought of as progress. Today the figure stands at 224 women out of a total of 587 employees.

What changes we have seen in the opportunities for women since the unsatisfying and inhibiting lives they led in 1914. Happily, we are living in an age when if they have the expertise, the determination and, best of all, a supportive family, women can hope to achieve much of their dreams. Families are as important today as they were in 1914, and long may they continue to be so. Of course there is much to do, but I am thankful that I am alive today and not in those dark, miserable days which left not only an untapped, precious resource for this country, but many women unfulfilled and depressed. We should not forget.

Economy: Culture and the Arts

Baroness Seccombe Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Seccombe]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft on initiating this debate and I hope that she and other noble Lords will forgive me for concentrating on a small segment of culture and arts—tourism and the contribution it makes to the economy.

I am more than fortunate to live in Stratford-upon-Avon. It is a town of historic interest and a much-valued part of our heritage. I often marvel at the range of languages one hears daily on the streets and the support for the annual celebration of William Shakespeare’s birthday is remarkable. People come from all over the world carrying flowers with banners displaying their home country. The lengthy and special procession proceeds through the town with the town band playing and the flags of all the countries flying. It is a glimpse of just one day in the year when we can celebrate all that our legendary poet has bequeathed us.

In this country we are indeed fortunate to have so many important sites that attract thousands to our shores but unless these properties are cared for and promoted to their full potential the country misses golden opportunities to increase both the cultural and financial benefit. I pay tribute to Governments over the years who having realised the opportunities have given generous support in sponsorship. The National Trust has also played a major role by restoring and caring for the fabric of properties of differing types, from the grand houses to the comparatively humble dwellings of the past.

In Stratford we are blessed among our treasures with fine theatres, and the redevelopment of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre has been an inspiration. The town thrives on the success of visitors. Some 6,300 people are employed locally in the tourist industry with an additional 1,700 indirect jobs. That generates £335 million annually for the local economy. No wonder that tourism is the fastest growing industry in the land.

It is essential that tourism, as with any other industry, is nurtured and enhanced to ensure that visitors do not only come once but return. This is even more important in financially challenging times when industries have to stand on their own feet and not look to Government for continuous financial support. I was therefore delighted to read that local businesses supported by the adjoining local authorities have launched a campaign called Shakespeare’s England. The aim is to maximise business opportunities in the area. It is particularly apt to launch this now as next year we will be celebrating the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth.

We are so fortunate to have many historic venues including Warwick Castle and other grand houses set in the wonder of the beautiful countryside with its wealth of leafy lanes. I do not wish to sound like a travel advertisement but it seems to me that genuine enthusiasm and attention to making the most of our heritage is fundamentally important for the wealth of the country.

Successful tourism can be achieved only by offering events for every taste—some may not appeal to me but I am glad they exist as I hope they will appeal to others and no doubt if they do not they will soon disappear from the calendar. I hope that we will concentrate on offering visitors worthwhile and memorable projects that can be a source of great pleasure to many people.

I have referred only to one county but I am confident that there is frantic activity countrywide. Unquestionably, people around the world are hungry to learn about the past. They want to know what made people tick and how they lived, and they want further information about our history and the effect that events of former times have on our lives today. We all share that interest and so I believe each of us has a duty to understand the worst and preserve the best of the past. We see so much beauty around us but we should never take it all for granted. I feel very privileged to be able to share these gifts with visitors as I know it makes such good sense and enriches the lives of everyone.

Crown Prosecution Service

Baroness Seccombe Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I completely disagree with the noble Lord. As he is aware, we are trying to introduce efficiencies to the way in which charges are brought. First and foremost the lesser charges are with the police because it is much easier and quicker for them to deal with them. The serious cases will be with the CPS. As to the noble Lord’s second point, he knows exactly where we stand on that.

[Baroness Seccombe]

My Lords, in 2010, 20 per cent of the abandoned cases came about because the CPS failed to review the cases before they came to trial. This obviously caused great distress for victims but was also very wasteful. Can my noble friend say what is being done to put that right?

[Baroness Verma]

My noble friend raises an extremely poignant point. Police charging of some offences will clearly cut out that time-wasting and it will also help do away with the duplication of case preparation. The need for the police and the CPS to co-operate and work together from a very early stage is crucial as it will ensure that victims, who are at the heart of this, can feel assured that achieving justice is not weighted against them.

Socioeconomic Equality Duty

Baroness Seccombe Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I assure the noble Baroness that the public sector equality duty will do that: the obligation is there in an enforceable Act. It will ensure that local authorities will have to be accountable and able to show what they have put in place to ensure that there is equality for people with disabilities, and for people of different genders, races and religions. It is all there and enforceable. This little clause was a consideration, but not enforceable.

[Baroness Seccombe]

My Lords, having listened to the Minister outlining the good work that is going on, it saddens me deeply to see noble Lords opposite criticising the abolition of a small clause which, as my noble friend has just said, would not have been enforceable but would have caused utter confusion for local authorities, which would not have known how to interpret it. Surely that is something we can do without.

[Baroness Verma]

I absolutely agree with my noble friend. We know that local authorities are already under great pressure and therefore they do not need another box-ticking exercise. They can consider doing it but are not obliged to do so.