Domestic Abuse

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I warmly congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on raising this very important issue.

I declare a personal interest, not to raise the point that men too can be survivors of domestic abuse—as we have heard, the overwhelming majority of survivors are women—and not to make the point that women are sometimes, albeit very rarely, the perpetrators of abuse, but because I was myself the victim of male violence in a same-sex relationship. It started lovingly but, gradually and almost imperceptibly, the coercive control, the isolation from friends, and the demanding of explanations of where I had been and who I had been with eventually culminated in physical violence.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Donaghy and Lady Newlove, talked about the courage that is required of victims of domestic violence to come forward. I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, who said that 80% of abuse is not reported. I was a police officer and never understood why people who had been assaulted by their partners wanted to go back to them after being patched up in casualty. I did not understand until I was in one of those relationships myself. Until you are in that situation, you do not realise that you can have love without violence, and sometimes you do not even recognise the situation that you are in.

As we have heard, providing accommodation for survivors of domestic abuse can be complex. As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, about two-thirds of women who have to leave the home they share with their abusive partner are often so fearful that they want to go not to the local refuge provided by their local authority but to somewhere where they hope their partner will never find them. As the noble Baroness said, we need to drop the local funding model to ensure that the funding for that is available.

Many local authorities, under financial pressure because of central government funding cuts, seek to outsource the provision of refuges to private companies, which provide only a physical place to stay and no other support. That is not enough. Even then, as the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, said, in 2016-17 60% of referrals to refuges were declined. However, as I said, providing a safe space is just one aspect of the support that survivors need.

Eighteen years after ending the three and a half year relationship with my abusive partner—even after separating, he repeatedly left messages on my voicemail threatening to kill me—I am sure that my mental health and the ability that I have now to be a loving partner are still adversely affected by the trauma I suffered then but for which I received no help. The trauma of being attacked by someone you love and who you believe loves you, of not feeling safe in your own home, are things that you have to experience to truly understand.

Although refuges are important, community-based responses, outreach advocacy, drop-in services, support for women who wish to stay in their own homes, information and advice—for example, for women who feel that something is not quite right, the same feeling I had, not realising that this was unlawful domestic violence—are just as important, if not more so, for more survivors, than for those survivors who require a safe place to go and live. Very often, children and young people are caught up in these unhealthy relationships and they also need support, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, has said.

I regret to say, and I am becoming increasingly frustrated, that it is all too common for the Government to respond to these sorts of issues through legislation as an alternative to appropriate funding. What is needed, as for example in this case, is for both of these things to happen. As the noble Baronesses, Lady Donaghy and Lady Gale, said, these are issues where the funding of people who provide refuges and who provide this emotional counselling support for the survivors of abuse are as important, if not more important. Can the Minister please acknowledge the unique challenges facing those wanting to provide the services for survivors of domestic abuse and give us some hope today that the Government are going to provide long-term, sustainable funding to ensure that support can be provided?