Domestic Abuse Bill

Debate between Baroness Uddin and Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames

Report stage
Wednesday 10th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I support this amendment, eloquently and powerfully detailed by the noble Baronesses, Lady Bertin and Lady Hamwee. I agree that confidentiality must be inherent in safe- guarding women survivors, many of whom may have endured prolonged periods of violence prior to reaching the safety of a refuge.

I have worked with refuges and inside a refuge. I know how hard it is to ensure the safety of not just one individual but of a number of women and their families. There may be instances where refuge addresses are revealed by residents being followed by a perpetrator, or, in fact, survivors may reveal the address if they return to perpetrators for the countless, complex reason debated on many occasions in this Chamber. Regardless, our statutory institutions, including the courts, must uphold the essential principle of safeguarding, not just for the sake of one survivor but for all those who reside in refuges and for the staff responsible for protecting all survivors in such refuges.

It is critical that we acknowledge this, and I look forward to the Minister being persuaded, much more eloquently than I could ever do, by the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin. I thank the noble Baroness for moving this amendment and I wholeheartedly support her.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I supported this amendment in principle in Committee. I expressed one or two drafting reservations, one of which was about the point that not all refuges may have office addresses, but that has been amply answered by the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin. This amendment is extremely difficult to resist with any sense of logic or safeguarding at all. The noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, has argued the case for it and I shall be extremely brief.

The point is that everybody has stressed the importance and value of confidentiality for refuge addresses. That flows from the very nature of a refuge: it is where women go—it is generally women—to avoid the consequences and a repetition of domestic abuse. Breach of that confidence leads to perpetrators discovering where their victims have gone. Discovering the whereabouts of their victims offers them a chance of harassing those victims further—of committing further abuse—so revealing a refuge address destroys the very concept that it is a refuge. It raises the risk of changing a refuge into a target. That is what this amendment is designed to avoid and I support it.