Domestic Abuse: Victims and Survivors

Lord Patten Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten (Con)]

My Lords, I take a pretty broad view of the phrase “domestic abuse”, for it includes not just men and women battering each other, using emotional abuse or battering children, but sometimes partners jointly abusing the elderly, the frail and confused men and women of some age. I have been interested in this for some while, and I can do no better than unashamedly borrow a phrase from a campaigning outfit called Hourglass: often, people of age are left out of the conversation on domestic abuse.

I hope that the Minister addresses it in his reply. If he cannot find time, understandably, to mention it in his wind-up speech, he may choose to write to us and place a letter in the Library of the House on what exactly the Government propose to do. A considerable number of elderly people have a pretty horrible time domestically.

How to reduce domestic violence is one of the great social challenges of the day; it is going to take time to resolve. The mention of the word “time” causes me to pause over just one word in the title of this excellent debate put forward by my noble friend, on which I congratulate her—“eliminate”. I wish that we could eliminate it, but it is never going to be an easy challenge when people have been violent with each other over generations.

Lastly, we need to take a broad view of how we deal with domestic violence. Of course, legislation, new orders and the panoply of political undertakings are very important, but education as a background is terribly important too. It is nothing like as important as stopping people being beaten up or abused, but I believe that social change is brought about by getting messages across, whether through the use of media or in schools. Schools cannot do everything, but it is very good for schools to address their attention right through to what I have learned to call the “manosphere” and messages being put across online through new mediums, which we have to use in subtle, non-specific and non-harassing ways. I am convinced that educational messages have a limited but very important part to play in the long term.