Domestic Abuse Bill

Debate between Christine Jardine and Carolyn Harris

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Carolyn Harris]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and later I will talk about a scheme that helps in that situation.

The protection and provision of support for children who experience domestic abuse—I am repeating myself. I have already read that bit, so we will scrap that, thank you very much. [Laughter.] That is the Welsh in me; never ashamed to say when we are wrong.

As well as ensuring access to support services, the Bill needs to legislate for those children and ensure protected places in all NHS waiting lists, as well as priority access to school places when they are forced to move to a new area to escape domestic abuse. There is already good practice in our communities that has been established to cater for the needs of children experiencing domestic abuse.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that we need to protect those survivors of domestic abuse not just when they are children but throughout their lives? We need some means of following them and taking a holistic approach, because domestic abuse affects their mental and general health as they grow.

[Carolyn Harris]

It certainly does and I think we all recognise, as I said previously, that experience and learned behaviour can cause perpetrators of the future.