Domestic Abuse Bill (Sixth sitting)

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 10th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

Question (this day) again proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

I was just discussing the issue of a notice being breached on behalf of the victim. I had started to say that in the case of Caroline Flack, who sadly took her own life, there was a notice between her and her partner that they had not breached. In that instance, the partner would be considered the victim in the context we are discussing. That case has highlighted in the public’s mind the fact that when a victim is told not to contact somebody, there will always be pressures, for lots of different reasons, and certainly if the victim shares children with the perpetrator.

In a case where somebody is struggling with their mental health or wishes to reach out, I just want some assurance about how it might play out in court if a breach of these notices occurred on the side of the victim—that is, if a victim breached a notice for pressure reasons, or even for humanitarian reasons. I have seen lots of cases in the family courts, for example, where the fact that orders have not been kept to has been used against victims. I wondered what we might think about breaches of these particular notices from the victim’s point of view.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

The hon. Lady’s question relates to clause 23, but my answer will be given on the basis that we are debating clause 21. Before I answer, I want to clarify that when I said the perpetrator could not make representations, I was thinking of court representations. I suspect that the officer can take representations into account if they arrive at the scene and the perpetrator says something to that officer, or whatever.

In relation to breaches, again, we need to be careful about the language we use. The notice will be between the police, who issue it, and the perpetrator; it does not place any restrictions on the victim. However, with other types of orders, there are of course circumstances in which non-contact orders have been made and the person being protected by that non-contact order contacts the person on whom it is placed.

That must be a matter for the court. As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley has set out, the person being protected may well have had perfectly reasonable grounds for making contact, but that must fall into the arena of the court. I do not think we could interfere with that, because the judge will have to engage in that balancing exercise when considering the orders, as opposed to the notices we are debating at the moment. I am sorry that I cannot provide the hon. Lady with more information than that, but in those circumstances I recommend to the Committee that the clause stand part of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 21 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 22 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 23

Breach of notice

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

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[Victoria Atkins]

One key advantage of the DAPO over other existing orders is that it can be obtained via a range of different application routes. Unlike the current domestic violence protection order, which can only be applied for by police to a magistrates court, or the non-molestation order, which can only be applied for by victims to the family courts, the DAPO provisions allow far greater flexibility in who can apply for an order, and to which court the application may be made.

Clause 25 sets out who can apply for a DAPO: namely, the victim, the police, a relevant third party specified in regulations, or any other person with the leave of the court. The provision for relevant third parties, which is to be set out in the regulations, ensures that such parties would be able to apply for an order directly without first obtaining the leave of the court. We will use the pilot of the orders to assess whether the current provisions for anyone to apply with the leave of the court are sufficient, or whether it would be beneficial to enable local authorities, for example, to make an application without first having to seek leave of the court. If there is a case for expanding the list of persons who can apply for a DAPO as of right, we can provide for that in regulations at a later stage.

Subsections (3) and (4) set out which police force, including the British Transport police and the Ministry of Defence police, should lead on an application for an order in different circumstances. Where a notice has already been given, the application must be made by the police force that gave the notice. Where the police wish to apply for a stand-alone order without a notice having been given, the application should be made by the force for the police area in which the perpetrator resides currently or intends to come into. The purpose of the provision is to make it absolutely clear which police force has responsibility for applying for a DAPO in order to avoid any confusion, duplication of effort or delay in putting protective measures around the victim.

The clause also sets out to which courts applications can be made. Police applications are to be made to a magistrates court, as is the case for domestic violence protection orders, and other applications are to be made to the family court. To ensure that DAPOs are widely accessible in other circumstances where they may be needed, the clause also allows for applications to be made by a victim during the course of certain proceedings in the family and civil courts, as specified at clause 28.

[Jess Phillips]

The clause is very robust and replaces an incredibly confusing picture of which orders one can get where. As somebody who has filled in the paperwork for pretty much all of these orders, I do not think I could explain it right now. It is very complicated, but we have a clear listing of exactly who can do what. What the Minister has said about regulations being laid around relative third parties is an important point. I know that the Joint Committee on the Draft Domestic Abuse Bill and also anyone who works in this building will have potential concerns about the misuse of third parties applying for DAPOs. I cannot imagine many circumstances in which they could be misused, but unfortunately perpetrators are particularly manipulative and can sometimes find ways to do that, so I will be interested to see the regulations on third parties when they are laid and how much that will be in consultation with the victim and, in fact, the perpetrator. We are infringing on people’s rights. Although I want to see those rights inhibited in lots of cases, they are none the less rights that we are here to fight for.

The Minister has outlined the police force area in which the DAPO is filed. This is always a complicated thing, but does she foresee any problems with resource in the police force area? I raise this because of personal experience in having orders in my own cases. I am not very popular in Manchester for some reason. I feel desperately sorry for Greater Manchester police. When coming to take statements from me to look at options around protections for me personally, it takes a whole day out of a police officer’s time to come all the way to Birmingham and sit in my house, sometimes for nine hours.

Is there a plan that could be put in guidance around police force partnerships where there is a big geographical spread? In these cases, most likely people will be close by, but when women go into refuge they can move across the country, often from Birmingham to Wales, for some reason—I do not know why, but it is close and we like the water. I have concerns about victims feeling, “Oh, that’s really far away,” or, “Gosh, I’m bothering the police.” I have certainly felt myself that I am bothering Greater Manchester police and that I might just give up on this because it is such an effort for them to drive there.

Those are not reasonable things, and we cannot mitigate people’s feelings in the law. As the Minister said, we do not try to put people’s feelings into the law, because we would never be able to represent them properly, but I think this has to be considered. The clause is well written and substantive in its detail.

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[Alex Chalk]

Clause 28 makes provision for the court to make a domestic abuse protection order of its own volition during other ongoing proceedings that do not have to be domestic abuse-related. It is an important provision that shows the flexibility of the legislation.

The family court will have the power to do so in cases where both the victim and the alleged abuser are parties to the proceedings, which means that the family court will be able to make an order in other ongoing proceedings where the court becomes aware that an order would be beneficial. For example, if an issue of domestic abuse is raised during ongoing child contact proceedings, the victim would not have to make a separate application to the court to obtain an order. Instead, the court can make an order of its own volition as it sees necessary. That is an important element of flexibility, and indeed robustness, built into the legislation.

In criminal courts—I am conscious that we have expertise here in the form of a former magistrate, which is excellent—as with the current restraining order, the court will be able to make a domestic abuse protection order on either conviction or acquittal. To that extent it is similar to a restraining order, which can also apply in the event of an acquittal. Importantly, however, the DAPO is an improvement on the current restraining order because it can impose positive requirements as well as prohibitions on the perpetrator. All Committee members will recognise that, although we of course want to protect victims first and foremost, we also want to stop further abuse happening, so anything that can be done to ensure that people are rehabilitated and see the error of their ways is a positive thing for society as well as, of course, for the victim.

In the case of a conviction, that will allow the court to, for example, set an order with a longer duration than the sentence passed, to ensure that the victim receives the protection they need beyond the length of their sentence. In the case of an acquittal, it will ensure that the victim still receives protection if the court thinks that is necessary.

The court will also be able to make a DAPO of its own volition during other ongoing civil proceedings where both the victim and the alleged abuser are parties to the proceedings.

We will specify the type of civil proceedings in regulations, but initially we expect it to cover civil proceedings in which issues of domestic abuse are most likely to be raised or revealed in evidence, such as housing-related proceedings.

[Jess Phillips]

I feel that, now Minister Chalk is on his feet, I should have some things to say; I do not want to leave him out.

I cannot say how important the idea that the court can put in place an order on acquittal in these circumstances is to somebody like me, who has watched many cases fall apart over the years. I am always slightly jealous of the Scottish system of not proven, because in too many cases in the area of violence against women and girls, it may well be that the balance of evidence needed cannot be provided either at the magistrates court or at the Crown court in these circumstances, but there is still gross fear among all involved that the fact that it is not proven does not mean that it did not happen.

The idea that, on acquittal, courts could put these orders in place is a huge step forward, ideologically and politically speaking. My concern—I am almost doing myself an injustice on what I am going to say about some of the amendments later—is what the Ministry of Justice foresees as a review mechanism to ensure where this is going, how it is working and how regularly the family courts are dishing out such orders.

If everybody was like Essex police force, I would be jumping for joy. I do not hope for this, but maybe one day somebody will perpetrate a crime against me in Essex and I will see how brilliant the force is at orders, as we heard from the evidence earlier. What worries me is whose responsibility it will be, after a year or two years—even after the pilot scheme—between the Ministry of Justice, the head of the family courts structure and the chief prosecutor at the head of the Crown Prosecution Service, to see how readily these orders are being used in our courts.

I have already said this once today, but often people like me put in annoying questions to people like the Minister, such as, “Can you tell me how many times this has been used in these circumstances?”, and very often the answer that we receive back is, “We do not collect this data nationally”, or, “We do not hold this data in the Department.” I want a sense of how we are going to monitor this, because while I know this just looks like words on paper, to people like me it is deeply, deeply important that the courts could take this role.

However, I have seen too many times that, even the powers that the courts have—certainly the family courts, which no doubt we will come on to tomorrow—are not always used wisely and well, so I want an understanding of how specifically we are going to monitor the use of the courts giving out the orders, which is new in this instance. How are we going to test that it is working and try to improve its use? I would be very interested in even just a basic data gathering each year of how many were done on acquittal, how many were done on conviction and how many were done in family court proceedings where both parties were part of proceedings.

With regard to the family court, and in fact in all these circumstances—whether it is a notice or an order; whether a police officer has to make a decision there on the doorstep or we are talking about orders—how are we going to deal with some of the “he said, she said”? I have seen an awful lot of counter-claims in the family courts. Often somebody will talk about being victimised as part of domestic abuse, and it becomes: “Well, actually, she was domestically abusing me,” or, “He was domestically abusing me.” I wonder whether any thought has been given to how, in giving out DAPOs in a family court, we do not end up with potentially two people, both with an order against each other—or maybe that could happen.

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[Alex Chalk]

This clause concerns matters to be considered before making an order. Similar to the provisions at clause 21 in relation to a notice, clause 30 sets up particular matters, which the court must consider before making a domestic abuse protection order.

First, the court must consider the welfare of any person under the age of 18, whose interests the court considers relevant, in order to ensure that any safeguarding concerns can be appropriately addressed. The person does not have to be personally connected to the perpetrator and could, therefore, for example, be the victim’s child from a previous relationship.

The court must also consider the opinion of the victim as to whether the order should be made. As set out, however, in subsection (3), the court does not have to obtain the victim’s consent in order to make an order. We have already discussed why that is desirable. It enables the court to protect victims who may be coerced into withholding their consent, or who are fearful of the consequences should they appear to be supporting action against the perpetrator.

Where the order includes conditions in relation to premises lived in by the victim, the court must consider the opinion of any other person who lives in the premises and is personally connected to the victim or, if the perpetrator also lives in the premises, to the perpetrator. For example, if the perpetrator has caring responsibilities for a family member, the court would need to consider the family member’s opinion on the making of an order excluding the perpetrator from the premises.

[Jess Phillips]

I wonder whether the Government foresee a child being included in that instance. If it was an elderly relative, that is reasonable. But are we saying here—or perhaps it will be in the much-awaited guidance—that if a child was living in the house, their opinion might be sought?

[Alex Chalk]

Yes, I think it would be and I think that is appropriate. One thing that certainly the criminal law has done over the last 20 years is start to recognise that people under the age of 18 have views that are sometimes worth hearing. In the past, they were almost kept out of court, but now of course we try to facilitate their giving evidence. I would imagine that that would be the case in these circumstances and that a court would want to hear that.

It will be for the court to weigh up the different factors to come to its decision on whether a DAPO is necessary and proportionate in order to protect the victim from domestic abuse or the risk of it.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 30 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 31

Making of orders without notice

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Alex Chalk]

Clause 32 concerns provision that may be made by orders. The Committee will recall that we heard earlier about provision that may be made by notices. This is the twin in respect of orders.

Clause 32 provides courts with the flexibility to impose in respect of a DAPO not only restrictions but positive requirements, depending on what is necessary in each case to protect the victim from all forms of abusive behaviour. Subsections (4) to (6) provide examples of the kinds of conditions that could be imposed by a DAPO, but subsection (3) expressly provides that those are not exhaustive.

It is up to the court carefully to tailor the conditions of the DAPO to meet the needs of the individual victim and take into account the behaviour of the perpetrator. The reason is that circumstances are varied and it is important to ensure that the court considers each case on its merits, and the circumstances as they apply, and ensures that the conditions are tailored accordingly.

[Jess Phillips]

Specifically with regard to what we were discussing earlier in relation to workplaces, does the Minister foresee that that could be one of those issues that could be discussed in the court—that there would be an allowance for the workplace to be included, with leave of the court?

[Alex Chalk]

Absolutely; I do not see why not at all. In fact, when the hon. Lady was making those points in respect of notices, I did fast-forward to clause 32, and it is deliberately broadly cast. Clause 32(2) says:

“The court must, in particular, consider what requirements (if any) may be necessary to protect the person for whose protection the order is made from different kinds of abusive behaviour.”

Subsections (4) to (6) contain examples of the type of provision that may be made under subsection (1), but they do not limit the type of provision that may be so made. That gives an indication of how broadly drafted the clause is, and that is necessary to ensure that the court, be that a bench of magistrates or another court, may take into account all relevant considerations.

[Jess Phillips]

It is very pleasing to hear that—it is reassuring. I urge that the point is made explicitly in the guidance that will go along with all the orders. I wanted that on the public record.

[Alex Chalk]

It may be in the guidance but, I respectfully suggest, does not necessarily need to be in it. When a court comes to consider what it will or will not do, it may look at this measure and say, “Are we precluded from banning him from her workplace? If the answer to that is no, we will go ahead and do it, regardless of what is in the guidance.” It may be that it will be in there anyway, but I am confident that, as the Bill is set out, it is drafted sufficiently widely—deliberately so—for the courts to see their way to do justice and impose protections as they see fit.

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[Alex Chalk]

May I gently push back on that? I understand the hon. Gentleman’s observations about the need to ensure that one modernises and so on, but if we think for a second about the sorts of conditions that the court is likely to impose, those will be along the lines of conditions routinely imposed in respect of bail, for example—not to contact an individual, not to go within a certain a postcode, not to go to a school, not to visit the home or not to contact relatives directly or indirectly.

I am confident that the courts will be well able to impose those conditions without requiring any particular leap of imagination. They will welcome and embrace these powers, which are deliberately drawn widely, so that the courts may apply their everyday experience of the world to understanding what is required to do justice and to provide protection in an individual case.

On the issue of keeping an eye on this, there are data and statistics, which will be published in due course. It will be open to hon. Members, the domestic abuse commissioner and the Victims’ Commissioner to keep a close weather eye on that. I know that the hon. Member for Hove will do precisely that.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 32 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 33

Further provision about requirements that may be imposed by orders

[Jess Phillips]

I beg to move amendment 51, in clause 33, page 21, line 3, leave out subsection (2) and insert—

“(2) A domestic abuse protection order that imposes a requirement to do something on a person (“P”) must—

(a) specify the person who is to be responsible for supervising compliance with that requirement; and

(b) meet the standard published by the Home Secretary for domestic abuse behaviour interventions, if the requirement is to attend an intervention specifically designed to address the use of abusive behaviour.”

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 26—Publish statutory standards—

“It is the duty of the Home Secretary to consult on and publish statutory standards in furtherance of section 33(2)(b) within 12 months of royal assent to this act, and to review these standards at least once every 3 years.”

This new clause is contingent upon Amendment 51 and seeks to ensure that all interventions designed to address abusive behaviour, that are imposed by DAPOs, are of a quality assured standard, as made clear under published statutory standards.

New clause 27—A strategic plan for perpetrators of domestic abuse—

“Within one year of the passing of this Act, the Government must lay before Parliament a comprehensive perpetrator strategy for domestic abuse to improve the identification and assessment of perpetrators, increase the number of rehabilitation programmes, and increase specialist work to tackle abusive attitudes and behaviour.”

[Jess Phillips]

The amendment is not dissimilar to new clause 26, so I shall speak to them together, before moving on to new clause 27.

This part of the Bill is specifically about further provisions, beyond those that the Minister has just outlined for us—about where people can and cannot go. This is about positive actions that can be taken in the court. Of course, that is not new to the Bill. This is a new Bill, and a new clause in it, but for many years the court has had the option to make positive requirements in such cases as those we are discussing and many others, so it is no surprise to see this in the Bill.

The new Bill establishes domestic abuse prevention orders that enable judges to require perpetrators to attend behaviour change interventions as part of their sentence. Again, they exist already. It is estimated that a need for 15,200 extra places on behaviour change and drug or alcohol programmes could spring out of the possible requirement to take positive action. I do not stand in criticism—I am looking forward to 15,200 extra people going through behaviour change courses—but there are currently no proposals to ensure that such interventions meet any sort of minimum standard.

I feel as though my hon. Friend the Member for Hove and I have been constantly asking the Minister about how we will review things and how we will know how they are going. Currently, there is no minimum standard for positive actions ordered by the court. At worst, poorly run programmes can increase the risk to victims. I know the Government would not want to put themselves in a position where a programme that they have funded would ever harm a victim. At best, a poor programme is a waste of money. We can all agree that there is no room for waste in the field of domestic abuse, with services up and down the country already strapped for cash. With the necessary quality assurance amendments, however, the Bill could mark a new era in which perpetrators are held to account and given genuine chances to change.

In a sort of change theory moment, the fact that I just stood in the House of Commons and said my last sentence proves that people can change, because I did not have any time and/or respect for behaviour change programmes when I worked in domestic abuse services, largely because of some of the experiences that I am referring to and the need for such programmes to be quality assured. I saw waste, and what I saw very rarely ended up being rooted in the safety of the victim. Provision is at best patchy; there have been years of problems with evidence-based programmes for perpetrators, and it seems patchy even in areas that one might think would be compelled to deliver them, such as probation.

I have seen instances of one local authority in the area where I worked putting out a tender for perpetrator programmes. It was quite a generous tender at the time—we are talking about seven years ago—because there was not much money going around. It was around £100,000 for a small local authority area—not Birmingham, because we would need millions—to offer services to around 100 perpetrators and to set up a programme to do that. During the tendering process, I saw the amount of the money that was to go to the specialist sector. The commissioners recognise—better than in most areas—that we should not be commissioning perpetrator services without the relative support being provided to victims. That has definitely happened, because, as we heard yesterday, good people and good local authorities working in the borough spoke up and said, “Hang on a minute. You can’t commission these services for perpetrators if you don’t also put in place support for the victims.”

I see the Minister nodding. It is now long agreed that that is the right way to handle this issue. However, just as an aside on what I would call patriarchal commissioning, there was £100,000 to deal with the perpetrators on the programme, and £18,000 to deal with the victims and their children. There is a balance between how much we value each thing in the system. I saw more than an unfair commissioning round, which I have been part of millions of times. Many providers who never had expertise in work with victims or perpetrators of domestic abuse saw on the council website that there was £100,000 being offered to people who could work with perpetrators, and, say, the local housing association would suddenly say “We know loads about perpetrators. We will set up a perpetrator programme.” Seven years ago when everything was being cut we used to say “diversify or die”, so if there was £100,000 they would say “We will do that.” Smaller organisations would say “We can go on Google and write a perpetrator programme.” I kid you not. That is the kind of thing that would go on.

The commissioners in our local authorities, with the best will in the world, who were in this instance doing lots of things right, were not experts in what a good quality-assured perpetrator programme might be—not at all. In the commissioning round we were commissioned, as the only violence against women and girls organisation in the area, to do the victim support work. A host of different people suddenly wanted a chat with us, to get our expertise in the commissioning round. Commissioning can make someone very popular. Never has my organisation been more popular than when probation was privatised. Every company from all over the country wanted a chat about our expert services.

A wide variety of agencies said they could handle perpetrators. In that instance the right thing happened—and fair play to the commissioners. The contract went to probation in the end, and before it could be realised probation withdrew on the grounds that it could not deliver the programme safely on behalf of the victims, because of the contract arrangements. In the end the programme did not happen. I point that out only because in that local authority area there were organisations such as the one I worked for, which punched well above its weight in lobbying and working with local authorities in the area. Also there was a decent head of what was then the community interest company in probation services, who did the right thing. However, anyone else who had been given the contract would probably just have delivered it along lines. It would have been monitored by a local authority provider commissioner with no idea about change management with offenders. With the greatest respect to local authorities, what do their commissioners know about that?

I used to go and speak to all the judges about female offenders and say, “Send them on our programmes.” I foresee a situation in which a judge, rightly looking around, thinks, “I’ve got this leaflet; I can do a positive thing. I am going to send this person”—and we have no idea, and the court has no understanding, whether where the person is being sent is any good. There is nothing in the Bill to provide quality assurance of those positive requirements.

Quality assurance provisions would be written into law only to apply to the DAPOs, but the expectation is that they would set a benchmark for all behaviour interventions commissioned by public bodies, raising, for example, the standard of work in probation. The probation service that I mentioned withdrew from the work in question out of morality and good sense, but a report from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of probation on the provision of domestic abuse rehabilitation activities demonstrates how urgently that is needed:

“Some responsible officers were delivering the domestic abuse RAR”—

the rehabilitation activity requirement—

“on a one-to-one basis, borrowing resources from colleagues, browsing the internet for resources or devising their own one-to-one interventions. There was no system in place to make sure that interventions were evidence-based and delivered safely and effectively”.

Perhaps my seven-years-ago story speaks to what was found in that probation report. The Minister spoke earlier about something else that had progressed over five years. I think that in the area I have been discussing, we have progressed vastly. The reason why I say that is that my opinion of perpetrator programmes has followed the evidence—I can change, proving that change is possible. I followed the science, as the Government like to say at the moment. The evidence base is now strong where previously it was not, so it presents an opportunity.

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[Victoria Atkins]

On coronavirus, we have been in constant contact with charities and the police locally to understand how DVPOs are working. Where there have been problems, as in the hon. Lady’s point about homelessness, we have sent out guidance repeatedly to local authorities to say that they must include perpetrators in their rehousing programmes, precisely so that DVPOs can be enforced.

[Jess Phillips]

It will be a very thin silver lining to what has been an enormous cloud over our country. The Minister is absolutely right: we have been learning some things in this period. Because of the availability of resource in our police forces as a result of the reduction in other areas of crime, this will in some regards be a high point—a gold standard—in terms of how we act in domestic violence cases. If there was certainty in a police force area, built in partnership with a local authority, that there would absolutely be a place for a perpetrator to stay, I can almost guarantee that the police would be much more active in the DVPO area, because that is what we have seen during the coronavirus crisis.

There should be five elements of a perpetrator strategy. We need criminal justice systems and other public and voluntary services, such as housing, health and education. We need training, and clever and tough working, to hold perpetrators to account. We need proven interventions and behaviour change programmes for all perpetrators available everywhere, and we need education to prevent and raise awareness of abusive behaviours. We need regulation to end poorly run programmes, some of which are actually dangerous. And we need ongoing research to ensure that we know what stops abuse, particularly within groups that are currently under-served by these kinds of preventive interventions, such as LGBT groups.

Essentially, money is needed. A sustainable and predictable source of funding would save millions in policing, justice and health costs—perhaps even billions, given the Home Office costings on the cost of domestic abuse. Leadership is ultimately needed to make it happen. It is pleasing to see that the domestic abuse commissioner is taking a proactive stance on this. She will need backing from Ministers in all Departments to look beyond their important response to victims to the other side of the coin: the people causing the harm.

[The Chair]

I will call Nickie Aiken in a second, but I am aware that there will be a Division at about 4.36 pm. I am afraid that if a Division is called and the Committee is still sitting, I will have to suspend for at least 45 minutes. Members might want to bear that in mind.

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[Alex Chalk]

It is important to note that clause 66 contains important provisions that allow for exactly what we want to achieve.

Turning to new clause 27 on the perpetrator strategy, I reassure the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley that we have heard the call to action for a perpetrator strategy. We commend the work of the Drive partnership of Respect, SafeLifes and Social Finance, who have done so much to change the narrative and to shift the focus from, “Why doesn’t she leave?”, to, “Why doesn’t he stop?”.

I want to be absolutely clear that we fully recognise the need for increased focus on perpetrators and are ambitious in our aim to transform the response to those who have caused this appalling harm, but to have an increased focus on tackling perpetrators, we do not need to make inflexible provision in the Bill for a one-off strategy. We have made clear our commitment to this work through our allocation of £10 million in this year’s Budget for preventive work with perpetrators. Over the past three years, we have funded a range of innovative approaches to working with perpetrators and we are beginning to build a solid evidence base on what works through some of the programmes I have mentioned: Drive, a whole-system approach to tackling domestic abuse, and “Make a Change”.

We have undertaken work to improve the response to the perpetrators through the criminal justice system. As was set out in the consultation response published alongside the draft Bill, we are taking action to improve the identification and risk assessment of perpetrators. The College of Policing has published key principles for police on the management of serial and dangerous domestic abuse perpetrators, and we are expanding the range of interventions available to offenders serving community sentences.

We recognise the concerns; that is why we want to ensure that we develop and properly test a whole-system approach, in particular through the piloting of DAPOs. It might well prove counterproductive to develop a new strategy without awaiting the learning from those pilots. I hope that, in the light of our intention to work towards that fully comprehensive package of perpetrator programmes and our wider programme of work to confront and change perpetrator behaviours, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley will see her way to withdrawing the amendment.

[Jess Phillips]

I recognise what the Minister says about the fact that perpetrator programmes are used elsewhere. Very often in children’s services, I have seen people sent on perpetrator programmes that, I am afraid to say, are useless. If only everything was as perfect as it is in Westminster.

[Nickie Aiken]

If only.

[Jess Phillips]

I apologise if I did not cover all the boroughs in London. I did not come up with the amendments all by myself; the specialist sector is working with us to ask for these things, and the reality is that, as sometimes happens in this place, we will say how something is on the ground and we will be told that that is not the case. We will be told, “Actually, no; it’s going to be fine because we are going to have a whole-system approach.”

What the Minister says about a whole-system approach is needed wherever perpetrator programmes are issued, rather than just in DAPOs. I could not agree with him more on that point. I shall allow him as many interventions as he likes, and I will speak for as long as it takes for him to get the answer. If he is saying to me that, at the other end of this very notable approach and funding that the Home Office and the Government are putting in place, we will end up with an accredited system that stops the bad practice and the poor commissioning of services, of course I will withdraw the amendment.

Is the Minister saying that we will work towards a standard that will have to be met and that will be compelled—not dissimilar to the standard that we will hopefully come on to tomorrow, where we compel local authorities with a duty? There, I believe, we will be writing a set of standards that the local authority in its commissioning process has to live by, so that it cannot just say, “We’re doing any old domestic abuse services.” There has long been talk at MHCLG about having standards to go with any duty. Is the Minister telling me that we will end up with an accreditation system, which is essentially what I seek?

[Alex Chalk]

The whole point of the approach we are taking is to seek standardisation across the piece. Words like “accreditation” can mean all sorts of things, but certainly it is the case that our absolute aim is to draw on the best practice that we have referred to and combine it with the experience we glean from the pilots to work out what we think is best practice, to clarify what that best practice is and to do everything we can to promulgate that best practice. One can use words like “accreditation” or “standardisation”, but we want to use the mechanisms within the Bill—pilot and guidance—to do precisely what the hon. Lady is aiming for. We recognise that clarity, consistency and credibility are the hallmarks of an effective order, and that is precisely what we want to achieve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

I welcome what the Minister says. I suppose the reality is that if that does not happen, I have no recourse beyond changing this Bill. Actually, I can just stand in this building and say, “Things aren’t working and we don’t have good perpetrator systems,” but it will largely fall on deaf ears. It might not—we cannot know which ears it will fall on—but, largely, when people come and say that things are not working in whatever we are talking about, it is very hard.

I have a Bill in front of me, and I can attempt to compel this to happen. However, on this occasion—because I would never describe the Minister as having deaf ears, and I am quite confident in my own ability to keep on raising the issue until the right thing happens—I accept and welcome what the Minister has outlined, and I look forward to working on it with him, the commissioner and the sector. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 33 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 34

Further provision about electronic monitoring requirements

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Alex Chalk]

Clause 34 sets out the circumstances in which a court can impose electronic monitoring requirements on a person as part of an order, and the nature of such requirements. The clause specifies that the electronic monitoring requirements may not be imposed if the person is not present at the hearing. The clause also specifies that, if there is a person other than the perpetrator who will need to co-operate with the monitoring requirements in order for them to be practicable, they will need to give their consent before the requirements can be imposed. That may include, for example, the occupier of the premises where the perpetrator lives. The court must also have been notified by the Secretary of State that electronic monitoring requirements are available in the area, and it must be satisfied that the provision can be made under the arrangements available. Any order that imposes electronic monitoring requirements must also specify the person who will be responsible for their monitoring.

Where electronic monitoring requirements are imposed, the person must submit to being fitted with the necessary apparatus and to the installation of any associated equipment, and they must co-operate with any inspection or repair that is required. They must not interfere with the apparatus, and they must keep it in working order—for example, by keeping it charged. I trust that the Committee will agree that proper procedures should be in place when a decision is made by the court that electronic monitoring is required.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 34 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 35 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 36

Breach of order

Domestic Abuse Bill

Jess Phillips Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 28th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

I want to thank everybody who has spoken in this debate. In a rare moment, I agreed with almost all of it. I think I will have a chat with the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) another time; we like our little chats. I want to pay a special tribute to the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Sara Britcliffe), who appears on the call list as a virtual maiden, which I just think is an absolutely brilliant thing to be called. Her speech was full of heart—it is very odd that I cannot look at her—but from one bloody difficult woman to another, I am sure she will have an impact in this place.

I want to thank Ministers and the officials of the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, who have always been co-operative. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris); I have worn leopard print in her honour today. She was my predecessor, and she acted with characteristic tenacity in the brief. Ministers will know how often I have fought for this Bill to progress. However, there is still such a long way for it to go for it to be truly groundbreaking. It wants to be that groundbreaking, and we have to allow it to be that.

Covid-19 has laid bare the lack of protection for women and girls from violence. The lockdown has allowed the public to imagine what it would be like if their home, a supposed place of safety, contained the danger they feared most. The Bill is of course about the long term, but we cannot ignore the crisis facing millions of people in this country today—a crisis that is threatening our precious domestic abuse sector. To all those working with victims of violence and abuse and with victims of coercion, both adult and children, I pay tribute. They deserve access to extra, emergency, ring-fenced funding, as laid out by my hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary, and they deserve it now.

So far, the sector has not received a single penny. Not from the £2 million that was announced, or from the proposed £750 million. That money was needed weeks ago. That issue was highlighted today by the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, and I could not agree more that the Minister must listen to the domestic abuse commissioner and the Victims’ Commissioner on this issue. We need a ring-fenced fund, and we need it now.

I pay tribute to the Mother of the House, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), and the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) for their dogged campaign to end the rough sex defence and post-mortem abuse. I have heard some of the worst cases, and it never stops being alarming to listen to stories such as those we have heard today. They have my full support, and from this House I hope that the hon. Gentleman will pass on our love to Natalie’s family.

I praise my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) for her nominatively determined wallpaper background, and for her effort to continue the campaign of our friend, Gloria De Piero, to end the asset grabbing of attempted murderers. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) was as moving this time as she was last time, and I repeat the praise to the new hon. Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher). It helps so much for people watching these debates when people like them speak out.

In a strange moment today my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen), a firebrand union activist, joined forces with a Conservative ex-Prime Minister to call for better workplace measures and rights for workers. I am sure Ministers will be delighted to join in that union with them.

There is much to cheerlead in this Bill. I welcome proposals for a dedicated commissioner, not just in theory but in practice, and Nicole Jacobs is already breathing life into that position. I also welcome the long fought for statutory duty to ensure future sustainable accommodation-based services. I shall not retire just yet, even though we might have got that, but it is a change I have championed since I worked in refuge, let alone since I have been in this place. Finally, being able to stand here after four years and say that no perpetrator will be able to cross-examine a victim is a welcome relief.

As the Bill progresses, however, I do not want to give the impression that there are not areas that will be contentious. There are currently huge gaps in what the Bill proposes. Members across the House, including the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft), and, movingly, the hon. Member for Bolsover all highlighted gaps in the Bill regarding children. The Bill cannot simply be words written on goatskin in some attic in Parliament that Ministers lean on to prove how much they are doing.

For every part of the Bill I will ask how it would have helped or hindered the victims and their children whose hands I have held over the years. Which of those victims have we forgotten? The only qualification for access to support, housing, refuge, social security, and police protection for victims of domestic abuse in this country should be this: are you human? The issue of migrant women’s access to support was raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), my hon. Friends the Members for Brent Central (Dawn Butler), for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare), and for Ilford South (Sam Tarry), and by no means only by Labour Members. Across the House, the issue of no recourse to public funds was raised again and again. We cannot pass a Bill that discriminates against migrant women, or that has a blind spot about the effect of domestic abuse on the children who live with it. Currently, the Bill would not change the lives of those groups for the better.

The past few weeks have shown that we are a community. How can it be that there are care workers, NHS workers and key workers serving the public right now in this crisis who would not be equally protected if they needed to escape abuse? Surely it is about all of us, or it is about none of us. Let the new Bill reflect that.

I am troubled that in this area the Home Office is currently in the middle of a review into migrant women. The gaps are already well known. The right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) spoke about how migrant women were an issue raised in the report by the Joint Committee, and they remain an issue today. Yesterday, a report by the Home Affairs Committee stated that migrant women are still an issue. This is not something new that we do not know about, or that needs to wait for a review. We need to act now. How can this House or the other place possibly scrutinise and seek to change the Bill without the outcome of this review or the Family Justice Board review? Surely the Minister can see that this seems back to front and that, actually, political will says that she can act today.

The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) made eloquent cases for the priority housing need, and I hope that Ministers heard their calls, because I am certain that they will only get louder as we head to Committee.

Although we welcome the statutory duty on housing support, 70% of known victims of domestic abuse accessing support do not receive it in a refuge setting. The vast majority of support for domestic abuse victims and their children happens in the community, and the Bill is currently not addressing those needs. These are the women whose names I read out each year. The high-risk women on that list are served by our community services and our independent domestic violence advisers. The domestic violence protection orders regime proposed in the Bill, which seeks to place more of the burden on the perpetrator rather than the victim, is incredibly welcome. However, there must be an agreed set of standards in this area and a proper Government strategy on how we manage perpetrators. It has been done in a wild west fashion in the past, and that needs to change. Without that, these orders will, at best, not change people’s lives, and, at worst, place them in further danger.

The Lord Chancellor and my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), who we could actually hear when she thought we could not, mentioned Claire Throssell, and I am grateful that they did. I have to ask: what does this Bill offer to Claire Throssell and the mothers of the other 19 children murdered by known violent perpetrators following decisions in the family court? For three years, Claire has told her story to us policy makers, yet I do not see the loss of Jack and Paul reflected back at me in this Bill. I hope that I will. Many Members spoke ably about their experience of the family courts, but, alone, the changes to cross-examination are not enough to make it better. They would not have saved Jack and Paul.

My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North did a great job of giving voice to victims. I ask the Minister to ensure that, during the Bill Committee evidence sessions, we can hear the voices of victims such as Claire Throssell. I ask her to assure me that that will be the case.

Standing at the Dispatch Box in this Chamber, making my closing speech to a handful of people and a few more on computer screens, I am reminded more than ever that the decisions that we make in this room have huge consequences on the lives of the British public. Sometimes the decisions that we make here determine who lives and who dies. This is one of those moments. I hope that Ministers will work with us to make this Bill everything that it can be. This is the first major legislative Bill of a post-covid-19 world. Let it help all those who need it. Let it reflect who we want to be.