Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Polak Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 10th March 2021 Lords Chamber

I listened very carefully to the Minister, and it was very helpful when she said that consultation on the victims’ law would be extended to embrace this. Clearly, we could see potential legislation in the future, but it will take time. Local authorities are under huge funding constraints, and I think there is a case for giving ourselves the ability in the Bill to ensure that, if community services are starved of funds as a result of the prioritisation of accommodation-based services, we have immediate levers to step in and deal with it. I hope the Minister will, even at this late hour, consider these amendments sympathetically.

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords, I was pleased to table my amendment in Committee. I welcomed the debate and the overwhelming support from around the House. In particular, I acknowledge the support of the noble Lords, Lord Russell of Liverpool and Lord Rosser, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby.

I am, perhaps, even more pleased that I have not tabled it again on Report. I am grateful to my noble friend and her ministerial colleagues for giving so much of their time to meet and discuss this; for the amendments tabled in the name of my noble friend; and for confirming the Government’s commitment to address issues around community-based services in a letter to me last Thursday.

We all agree that community-based services are vital in supporting the majority of domestic abuse victims who remain at home. Government amendments to ensure that local authorities monitor and report on the impact of their duties under Part 4 on other service provision, are most welcome, as is the Government’s commitment to consult on the provision of community-based domestic abuse services in the upcoming victims law consultation this summer. These have been welcomed not just by me but in a press release, published under the leadership of Barnardo’s, by the domestic abuse commissioner, the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales, domestic abuse campaigner Charlie Webster, Imran Hussain at Action for Children, the End Violence Against Women coalition, the NSPCC and SafeLives. I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on uniting these groups and organisations in welcoming the Government’s commitments. This is an incredibly important step forward in understanding and addressing the provision of community-based domestic abuse services, so that all victims, especially children, will be able to access support, regardless of where they live.

I hope the consultation will take a holistic approach to tackling domestic abuse, carefully considering what is needed to support children and adults, as well as programmes to tackle the behaviour of perpetrators and break the cycle of domestic abuse. I am certain that my noble friend the Minister and her colleagues, working with the professional and deeply impressive domestic abuse commissioner—who I thank for her advice—will place community-based services on the same statutory footing as accommodation-based services. I appeal for her office to be properly and adequately funded.

Again, I thank my noble friend the Minister for her time and for the helpful letter she sent me. I am pleased to support the amendments in her name. I look forward to continuing to work with her and with all noble Lords as this important Bill becomes law.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I shall be extremely brief, not least because of the happy coincidence that the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Polak, have largely said what I was going to say. I thank them. I can now go and have a late lunch.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Polak, I was impressed by the Barnardo’s press release last Thursday, with all the different voices speaking in unison. My own experience of dealing with voluntary organisations over many years is that hell hath no fury like different voluntary organisations in pursuit of similar goals and, in particular, similar pools of funding. Peace seems rather dangerously to have broken out in this case. I hope it will continue.

I thank the Government for listening. It was a bit of a no-brainer with a Bill in which 25% of the accommodation-based services for domestic abuse victims were dealt with but 75% were not. That was an open goal waiting to be filled. I am grateful that the Government have acknowledged this and acted on it.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, I took note of the National Audit Office investigation and report into the state of local authority funding. I have observed a variety of individuals in this House—some of whom I have worked in co-operation with—who, for the best of reasons, ceaselessly plead with the Government to put more and more statutory duties on local authorities in a whole variety of different areas. In a sense, this is dangerous because, in a situation where local authorities are under the strains and stresses that they are, piling even more statutory duties or guidance on them runs the risk of mission failure and initiative fatigue. I am very conscious of this. It requires a joined-up approach from the different parts of Her Majesty’s Government.

The Home Office is doing its bit. The Ministry of Justice is going to do what may not come easily to it and talk more openly with the communities department —and vice versa. It was not terribly helpful that the Secretary of State, while acknowledging the councils’ problems, could not resist the political dig of accusing them of poor management. This is a bit rich coming from a national Administration who have spent the amount of money they have on initiatives such as test and trace, or who have presided over the highest number of deaths per million in the world during the current pandemic. Before one starts throwing political missiles at one’s opponents, it does one a lot of good to look in the mirror and have a degree of humility. None of us gets it right all the time.

When the domestic abuse commissioner comes back with her recommendations, I would plead with the various parts of national government and the local authorities to talk to one another, agree, buy into whatever is recommended, and put in place properly thought-through, long-term plans to deliver on this strategy and to fund it properly.