Domestic Abuse Refuge Spaces

Debate between Baroness Thornton and Baroness Scott of Bybrook

Wednesday 21st June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the availability of refuge spaces for domestic abuse survivors.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Scott of Bybrook) (Con)]

My Lords, under this Government, the number of bed spaces has risen. There were 4,344 refuge spaces across England in May 2022, which are the latest figures we have. We are committed to ensuring that victims have access to the support they need within domestic abuse safe accommodation, including refuges. Councils in England have a new duty to provide support within safe accommodation to victims under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, and 36,545 victims received support within safe accommodation in the first year of this duty.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer. As she will understand from her support of and commitment to this issue, it takes huge courage and great risk for a woman to flee domestic violence. Unfortunately, when they have no place to go, those courageous women are left to make a horrific decision between returning home and becoming homeless. I therefore ask the Minister whether the Government have any plans to increase support at a local level to provide the housing promised under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which she mentioned and which we all supported. The research that prompted this Question says that there are thousands of women who have to choose between those two brutal situations.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The noble Baroness brings up a really serious point. It is essential that the number of women who are turned away goes down. We have provided local authorities with funding and support to commission services to meet the needs of these victims. As I said, the number of refuge bed spaces is rising, but those are not the only safe spaces. In fact, only 46% of those supported were in refuges. Some 28% are in sanctuary schemes, in which places where they want to stay in the area they already live in are made safe for them. Some 13% are in safe dispersed accommodation, 5% in specialist accommodation, 1% in second-stage accommodation, and 7% in other safe accommodation. This is about not just refuges but looking after the individual, and giving the individual choice and support through what, as the noble Baroness says, are very difficult times.

People of African Descent in the United Kingdom

Debate between Baroness Thornton and Baroness Scott of Bybrook

Monday 17th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the statement by the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, published on 27 January, in which they said they were “deeply concerned about the human rights situation of people of African descent” in the United Kingdom and which recommended further efforts to address structural, institutional and systemic racism against people of African descent.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Scott of Bybrook) (Con)]

This Government are proud that the United Kingdom is an open, tolerant and welcoming country. I commend to the House our Inclusive Britain strategy, which is a rigorous and comprehensive action plan to tackle negative disparities between people from different ethnic backgrounds. We have published today a report on the excellent progress we have made on delivering Inclusive Britain and how it is improving people’s lives.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister then needs to explain to the House how the United Nations working group came to the conclusions that it did in the statement it published on 27 January and how it found exactly the same situation as it did on its visit in 2012. It identified

“stark and unsustainable inequalities underpinned by systemic racism, judicial bias, and disproportionate and discriminatory policing of people of African descent”

in the UK today. Does the Minister accept the findings of the working group, and what do the Government intend to do about them?

International Women’s Day

Debate between Baroness Thornton and Baroness Scott of Bybrook

Friday 10th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, it has always struck me as a bit of an irony that we open the International Women’s Day debate in this manner, so for once may I say, “I thank noble sisters and brothers for participating in a varied and great International Women’s Day debate”? I join everybody in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Lampard, on her maiden speech. I also thank the Minister for managing to secure a debate in the Chamber this year, instead of in Grand Committee, and for her comprehensive introduction to this debate. Like others, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Gale, mentioned by my noble friend Lady Wilcox, who, for many years from these Benches, ensured that we had debates and questions relating to International Women’s Day and White Ribbon Day. In many ways, I dedicate my speech and thanks to my friend Anita. I also join others in paying tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, whom I have known all my life because she was with my parents, Peter and Jean Thornton, in the Labour League of Youth in Dewsbury and Spen Valley. She was therefore a constant and inspiring presence, for which I am so grateful and which I shall miss.

Like many noble Lords, I have attended several events organised to celebrate International Women’s Day and, as my noble friend Lady Taylor, said, tomorrow I will be joining her to pay tribute to Constance Lytton at Knebworth. It is important to use this annual celebration to remember the women who have gone before and whose endeavour and sacrifice have allowed us to be here and benefit in so many ways. As my noble friend said, Constance Lytton was born and raised in what we might describe as the privileged ruling class but, as a suffragette activist, she was imprisoned four times and was force-fed. Her health was wrecked as a result, and she died before her time. She is one of many women we need to honour. The noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, and my noble friend Lord Monks, mentioned women on whose shoulders we stand. Like my noble friend Lord Griffiths, I have had the experience of seeing “Sylvia” at the Old Vic. I did not know what to expect from a musical about Sylvia Pankhurst. It was a huge shock when this barrage of music hit me. It took me a while to adjust, but it is a magnificent musical which I highly recommend.

This International Women’s Day, 8 March 2023, the United Nations wished us to celebrate the theme “DigitALL” on using innovation and technology for gender equality. Many speeches have referred to this and been inspired by it, like that of my noble friend Lord Watson.

I wish to mark and celebrate women all over the world who are leading their communities through crisis. We must support women taking extraordinary action, such as keeping their families safe in the face of famine or conflict and delivering life-saving responses to the climate crisis. Those of us privileged to live in a safe and wealthy country need to recognise that the climate crisis, conflicts, forced displacement and the global hunger crisis are disrupting girls’—indeed, children’s and young people’s—access to education on an unprecedented scale. I believe that the recently published Illegal Migration Bill is a sad and shameful moment for this country. Support for families, women and girls across the country will only be badly affected by it.

I loved the support and exposition that my noble friend Lord Sahota gave, because this is a critical time for women and girls. The year 2022 saw devastating rollbacks of women’s rights in Afghanistan, as referred to by many noble Lords; a violent crackdown against women’s uprisings in Iran; the catastrophic consequences of the hunger crisis on women and girls in east Africa; and the curtailment of women’s abortion access in several countries, including the USA. These issues were also mentioned by my noble friend Lady Armstrong. I look forward to hearing the answers to the questions that my noble friend Lady Donaghy raised.

The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, was quite right to say that in the UK we have good news on reproductive rights. That was achieved with cross-party support from the noble Baronesses, Lady Watkins and Lady Sugg, and many others in this House. However, there is much to do across the world and in the UK. As my noble friend Lady Anderson showed us, there is much that we have to be grateful for here and must pay attention to elsewhere.

Turning to the domestic women and equalities agenda in the UK, I particularly enjoyed the contributions from my noble friends Lord Stansgate and Lord Browne. It reminded me of how proud I am that my niece, who is doing a master’s in astrophysics—I think—at Manchester University, spent last summer at the CERN hadron collider. The whole family was bursting with pride at this; of course we were.

Labour is proud to be the party of women’s equality. I am proud to have been part of the team which put the Equality Act on the statute book in 2010, and to have been party to the other initiatives which came before. I have to say that I am puzzled by our delegation to the United Nations women’s assembly in New York being led by a male Minister. As much as I respect the noble Lord—of course I do—I would have thought that one of the noble Baronesses in front of me would have been a good person to lead that delegation. I am not sure what message that sends to the rest of the world about the priority that the UK is giving—

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

May I just intervene to say that I would have gone, but the LUR Bill came in in place?

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

Maybe the noble Lord could have substituted for the noble Baroness doing that then.

Notwithstanding the best gloss that the Minister gave to the Government’s work in this area, the facts are that for the last 10 years, we have seen many women pushed into poverty and the exacerbation of the motherhood penalty, if we can call it that. Women make up the majority of single parents, disabled people and low-paid, part-time and insecure workers, leaving them brutally exposed to the cost of living crisis. The next Labour Government will put women at the heart of our economic recovery, with a new deal for working people to transform their working lives. We will end the injustice that sees mothers and grandmothers forced out of paid work by soaring childcare costs. We have a plan for women’s health, which includes bringing down record high waiting lists for gynaecological care in our NHS.

Something that has not yet been mentioned is the fact that, compared to men, women are disproportionately affected by dementia emotionally, professionally and physically across their life course. Dementia has been the leading cause of death for women since 2011, and 60% of those living with dementia are women. Not only is dementia more prevalent in women; they are also more likely to be unpaid carers for loved ones affected by this condition. This disproportionate impact is not okay and it really needs to be addressed.

We will take the menopause seriously and require large employers to submit menopause action plans alongside their annual gender pay gap reports. We will bear down on the gender pay gap, which, at the current rate of progress, will be eradicated only in 2044. I heard what my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti had to say; we clearly need to have further discussions.

We will tackle the misogyny, harassment and abuse faced by too many women. The Refuge briefing that we all received asks us to speak up on gender-based violence, and that is indeed what we need to do. There has been unanimity on this issue across the House. I am fairly certain that successive Women and Equalities Ministers in this House have taken and are taking these matters very seriously and are championing them across government. However, there is an epidemic of violence and misogynistic abuse to tackle.

That leads me on to childcare. My noble friend Lady Twycross outlined Labour’s proposals. I just want to raise one issue, which came up in the Coram Family and Childcare report that many of us saw yesterday. It reported on the experience of a critical care nurse with more than 17 years’ experience who worked through the pandemic until she was 27 weeks pregnant. She said that work is part of who she is, and:

“It is important to feel like I’m doing something worthwhile, and I don’t want to give that up.”


However, she

“has had to cut her hours to one day a week, and says she will have to change career in the long-term, because of how the cost of childcare eats into her earnings.”

We cannot afford to lose highly trained, highly skilled women from our NHS. My honourable friend Bridget Phillipson said in a speech yesterday that we will reform the childcare system and that it will be her “first priority” when we enter government. She said:

“Labour’s missions must be central to breaking down the barriers to opportunity in this country. To break down those barriers, our Mission commits to reforming the childcare system: that will be my first priority.”


Labour is proud to be the party of equality, especially women’s equality. Previous Labour Governments have always encouraged and empowered women; the next will match that record and more.

Domestic Abuse Victims: Housing Benefit

Debate between Baroness Thornton and Baroness Scott of Bybrook

Monday 12th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure that housing benefit for domestic abuse victims living in exempt accommodation is only paid to providers that have recognised expertise and who meet the standards in Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Scott of Bybrook) (Con)]

The Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill would introduce national standards for all supported housing, including domestic abuse safe accommodation, as well as locally led licensing schemes. This new system will drive out unscrupulous and poor providers who are exploiting vulnerable people. We will work with supported housing providers, including specialist providers of safe accommodation for those fleeing domestic abuse, using already defined standards for all of those in safe accommodation. The detail of the licensing regime will be developed through consultation and in regulations.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer. In a report in October, the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee said that the exempt accommodation is a “complete mess”. Given this, I think the Minister needs to inform the House of situations where some women who are abuse survivors have had to run away, for the second time, from the housing that they were allocated, because the safe accommodation was as threatening and violent as the home they had just left, and sometimes even return to the violent home. It is therefore important that there is some timescale on this, because it is clearly an urgent matter.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The noble Baroness is correct: we cannot accept this. I am not sure that they flee from allocated housing; often, it is from rogue landlords. We are dealing with that in a number of ways, including through the supported housing improvement programme and the measures in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. Those measures license those houses within local authority control, which are the ones that are normally allocated. Through this and the supported housing Bill, the Government are sending out a clear message to rogue landlords in the sector that we will not tolerate that poor-quality support and the exploitation of very vulnerable people.

Female Offender Strategy

Debate between Baroness Thornton and Baroness Scott of Bybrook

Monday 21st June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I agree with the noble and learned Baroness. The new probation service, which is a unified service nationally and starts at the end of this week, is the way that we can look much more seriously at in-community sentences for the offenders to whom she refers.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, the recent reports of women in prison, particularly in the last year, send a message of despair and cruelty, of which this country should be ashamed. For example, in women’s prisons there has been a big increase in self-harm during the pandemic. There is a marked difference between the sexes: 3,557 incidents for every 1,000 women prisoners in a 12-month period, compared with 595 for the same number of male prisoners. Does the Minister believe that the misery and inappropriateness of incarcerating so many women will be alleviated by spending £100 million on 500 more prison places, or does she believe that that investment might be better spent keeping women out of prison and supporting vital community services, which are receiving a paltry £2 million, when they are released?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, we need to do both. We recognise that the level of self-harm in the women’s estate is too high and we are determined to reduce it. Part of doing that will be to update the women’s estate. But we also want, through the new probation service, to increase the amount of community services, working with the voluntary sector to stop women going into the system and, when they are there, to support them not to reoffend.