Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Wednesday 27th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to add my name to Amendment 55 and pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Bertin for her leadership on these matters. I was also pleased to have worked with my noble friend, together with the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Russell of Liverpool, during the passage of the Domestic Abuse Bill.

The amendment in our names is an extension of our previous work. I shall not repeat and rehearse the reasons why it is important that the definition of serious violence for the purpose of the proposed serious violence prevention duty must include domestic abuse, domestic homicides and sexual offences. For me, it is straightforward, and I make a simple appeal to my noble friend the Minister, who was so instrumental in piloting the Domestic Abuse Bill through Parliament with such professionalism, dedication and patience. There is an opportunity to cement and build on that historic and vital legislation, to build on what was achieved, so that it can be possible for the serious violence strategy to recognise domestic abuse and sexual violence. Can it be possible for a serious violence strategy not to recognise them as forms of serious violence? It would be difficult to understand.

The Domestic Abuse Commissioner, Nicole Jacobs, has said that the Government risk missing an opportunity to make a “historic shift” in the handling of this problem. She went on to suggest that this amendment could deliver a step change, ensuring a focus not only on crisis provision but on early intervention and prevention measures to stop abuse occurring. I totally agree with her.

The Home Office’s draft guidance says that local areas “could” consider violence against women and girls as part of the new duty if they choose to. I am still trying to get my head around “could”. How about “must”? This short and succinct amendment is so important, and I just do not understand who could not support it.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I also support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin. I thank her for putting it so cogently and the noble Lord, Lord Polak, for following up.

The Minister has been nothing but consistent in advocating what the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, described as localism, which is enabling local areas to decide for themselves what they include in their definitions of serious violence. Here I pay tribute—which may surprise some people—to our Home Secretary, because earlier this year, in the wake of the tragic murder of Sarah Everard, she commissioned a study by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, under the leadership of Zoë Billingham, referred to earlier, to look into the circumstances which had allowed the murder of Sarah Everard and so many other women to take place. That report was published three days after Second Reading of this Bill last month.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Monday 25th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 53. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Coaker; to be perfectly honest, he has made my speech for me. I also thank the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Russell, for supporting this amendment.

Basically, everything has been said. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, asked in his passionate speech, why are we still talking about this issue? I know that the Minister listens; however, having spoken to Barnardo’s, and as a former Victims’ Commissioner and a victim of violent crime involving alcohol, I have a passionate desire to ensure that we get this right for children, because we are missing the criminal exploitation of children. I have met many victims of child sexual exploitation; what is the difference between that and child criminal exploitation? We need a multiagency approach—I feel that I am always on repeat in talking about this issue. The language and the proposals are the same, but we have to work together a bit more thoroughly and transparently.

I have attended many summits at No. 10, on sexual exploitation, knife crime—you name it, I have been to most of them over the past 11 years. Today we are still talking about serious violence, which is linked to criminal exploitation, and sadly it especially affects our young children. As the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said, last week a 14 year-old was charged with murder. What kind of society are we living in today?

The violence in question is very serious. Last week, the police in England and Wales reported that between 11 and 17 October, they made just under 1,500 arrests. They seized weapons such as zombie knives, samurai swords and firearms, as well as £1.3 million in cash and drugs, by targeting those involved in organised drug crimes and county lines. Alongside the arrests, 2,500 vulnerable people, including children, were identified as in need of safeguarding. That is within just six days. It is an achievement to get all this together, but it clearly demonstrates that serious violence and criminal exploitation do not adhere to local area boundaries. We spoke in this Chamber about county lines but, once we had highlighted it, the drug lords widened their operations, moving the children across the country.

We have a duty to safeguard these children. Serious violence and child criminal exploitation are child abuse. If we are to stop this spreading, there has to be accountability. We like to talk the talk but, unfortunately, we are not walking the walk when it comes to what these children are put through in their daily lives. I have met 14 and 12 year-olds who are the most vulnerable in our society, absolutely captured by criminality. They do not have the education to say no, and they live in fear because the abusers do not stop at humanity. They like to grab their homes. They bring their families. We have drill videos and cuckooing—there is lots of this different lingo, and it all involves children, who are the drug mules in all of this.

Can you imagine having a child who gets involved in this, and your home then being scrutinised by a big fellow—most of them were—with a huge Samurai sword or a machete down his trousers? He looks quite normal to anyone else. Drill videos contain the lingo that gives messages to gangs. This is not in my script, by the way; this is about people I have met. This is about children who have no way of getting out. They need support on the ground.

That is why I am asking for this amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, put it well when he said that we need accountability. The amendment would ensure that the Secretary of State appoints a board known as the

“National Serious Violence Oversight Board”.

The Secretary of State would chair it and it would be accountable to Parliament; it would not be just window dressing.

The amendment proposes that we monitor delivery of the new serious violence duty across the country. This is not just for individual authorities to deal with; it is cross-country. The board would provide a national picture, identify national trends, see what is and is not working and share learning across the country. As I have said, no one agency can tackle this problem. I hope that the Minister will consider this amendment and see the benefits of establishing this oversight board.

“Ensuring accountability” are the two words that should be important, not “lessons learned”, when the horse has already bolted. A national serious violence oversight board would enable analysis of the national trends and proper scrutiny of what is and is not working. We owe it to these children to give them a better future.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support what my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, has just said. I echo her praise and thanks to another friend, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, an ex-Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe colleague, for his diagnosis—because that is essentially what this probing amendment is about.

It has become extremely fashionable for Her Majesty’s Government to do two things when they feel they are getting into difficult waters. First, they give responses whereby a series of rather large-sounding sums of money are trotted out to show that they care and are doing something about it. Usually, there is no mention of what effect those large sums are having.

The second thing Her Majesty’s Government have developed a particular tic for is developing strategies. As I have said before in this Chamber, when I hear too many strategies coming from various directions, my instinctive reaction is to reach for my tin hat and head for the trenches. By their very nature, strategies are aspirational. They try to understand a problem, and they suggest a solution. They do not guarantee what the outcomes will be, and they rarely have built into them accurate measures and KPIs to actually work out whether the much-vaunted strategy is delivering.

I entirely agree with publishing strategies, not least because in reading them and tearing them apart, you can work out whether they are complete rubbish or complete and utter rubbish or contain a germ of common sense and a direction. To take the example of the report which Her Majesty’s Inspectorate produced only three days after Second Reading of this Bill, what Zoë Billingham produced is a fairly coruscating read. If your Lordships have not read it, I recommend it, but probably not just before bedtime. It takes apart at all these strategies and initiatives, all the money that has been thrown in all sorts of directions in considerable sums over many years, and measures how effective all that effort has been. The report says in very stark terms—Zoë Billingham repeated this on “Woman’s Hour” a few days later in even clearer English—that it is simply not working because it is not joined up. Having a series of local strategies does not result in a national strategy that will deliver.

This probing amendment is designed to ask Her Majesty’s Government to look at the past, the present and the evidence of what has not been achieved, rather than the precious little that has, and not to repeat the mistakes of the past, with wonderful vague promises and aspirations—particularly when we are dealing with issues such as violence against women and girls and the effect on children, when we know we owe it to them to do better. We need proper oversight. There is a difference between a report and a strategy. We need a mechanism that measures and holds the Government and all the different statutory bodies involved to account. That is what the amendment is about, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I have surprised myself, because I did not intend to speak on this group, but I find myself needing to speak in support of the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove. Generally speaking, I am not a great fan of machinery of government changes, new quangos or even of new, multiple statutory duties, but if we are taking the trouble to legislate on something as serious as serious violence, we need to think about transparency, accountability, enforcement and resourcing. Talk is cheap, and legislation is a little more expensive—but the colleagues in that Box do not get paid so much. These principles have been the undercurrent of the debate on this group.

The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, spoke eloquently on the part of the Delegated Powers Committee, and I did not disagree with a word, save to say that I was once a lawyer in the department advising him, and we are not going to blame the officials. My recollection was that Home Office lawyers were actually terrified of the Delegated Powers Committee; it was sometimes Ministers who were a little more blasé. However, every substantive point the noble Lord made was important. There is no point having guidance if it is not to be published—unless it is guidance to the security agencies. More generally, the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, nailed it, as did my noble friend Lord Coaker. We all care about these issues. I worked on the Crime and Disorder Act when it was a Bill all those years ago, but we have heard the figures.

If it is worth legislating in this area at all, it is worth looking at how the legislation is to be enforced and resourced. That cannot be done in secret and we cannot just have directions from central government to starving local authorities; it must be public, it must be accountable, so I speak in support.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 14th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

This is such a Clapham omnibus of a Bill that to try to make sense of it could lead one to arrive, potentially, at a bewildering range of destinations. My sympathies are with the Minister, who mounted the bus several hours ago, still has a while to go, and, I suspect, has as little idea as most of us do exactly where she will end up.

I shall focus on three particular areas, all of which are pertinent to the Bill and which share a concern to build on and improve the considerable advances we made in recognising and reducing violence against women and girls, which we spent so much useful time on earlier this year in scrutinising the Domestic Abuse Bill. First, working closely with Nicole Jacobs, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, I am pleased to support the amendment that the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, talked about. The noble Lord, Lord Polak, talked about it too, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, will mention it as well.

Given the Government’s commitment to try to do something about the level of violence against women and girls, I find it extraordinary that the idea of individual choice, or local choice, which seems to be a central tenet of faith for quite a lot of people of a Conservative persuasion, will allow local areas to decide for themselves whether they think violence against women and girls is a serious enough issue to be put on a list of crimes that must be taken into account.

To put this into context, I would ask the Minister and her colleagues in another place how comfortable any Minister, or any MP, would feel, trying to look a grieving family in their constituency in the face and explain why, if they had been so fortunate as to live in an adjoining area that did regard violence against women and girls as serious, their mother, daughter or sister might still be alive. I would rather you did that than I, because I would find it very difficult to talk my way out of.

Secondly, during proceedings on the Domestic Abuse Bill, the Government agreed to require all police forces in England and Wales to start trialling, from this autumn, the recording of misogynistic hate crimes. For that we are extremely grateful. But there is still a major anomaly in current hate crime legislation, in that sex is the only protected characteristic not recognised in criminal sentencing. The Law Commission is deliberating on this, but it has already clearly indicated that this would be a desirable change in the law.

By adding sex, or gender, to the list of aggravating factors in sentencing, our courts would be able to recognise how and when individuals are targeted for criminal acts simply because of their identity. To assist with sentencing, the police could be required to record the data necessary for a prosecution, which could aid the detection and prevention of such crimes. This action would equalise sex or gender with the other protected characteristics under the Equality Act, such as those of disabled people, people from minority backgrounds and members of the LGBT+ community.

During the course of the Bill we will suggest two possible courses of action to the Government. The first would be directly legislating to include sex or gender in Section 66 of the Sentencing Act 2020, which would ensure that those factors could be considered as aggravating factors in an offence. As an alternative, we will propose that, if the Government insist that they wish to wait until they can consider the final Law Commission recommendations, we legislate now to guarantee parliamentary time to consider the review in a timely fashion, by requiring the Minister to enact the recommendations of that review via an amendable statutory instrument under the super-affirmative procedure. I, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, would be pleased to sit down with the Minister and explain our reasoning.

Thirdly and lastly, as articulated just now by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, there is the issue of stalking and perpetrator management. Despite the Domestic Abuse Act and strategies for this and that, the metronome of two women dying every week continues week in, week out. We will come back in Committee with a variety of ways in which we feel this can be mitigated.

We have so much more to do to safeguard the women and girls who rely on us to speak up on their behalf. They are not pulling down statues or assaulting emergency workers; they are in danger of losing their lives. We have a duty of care to them, their families and their children to protect them.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 27th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I too wish to start by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, for her helpful speech from the Dispatch Box this afternoon and for the repeated emails and meetings with some of us to try to progress matters. We recognise that some of the things we would like to see in this Bill are better placed in statutory guidance and I thank the Minister for her reassurance and the offer of showing us that draft statutory guidance to bring these perpetrators to justice. It was also encouraging to hear details about the thresholding document.

Herein lies the problem, which the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, referred to in part. We need to substantially change the culture and practice inside the criminal justice system to tackle these particular perpetrators. We have said repeatedly that the consequence is that these fixated, obsessive, serial and high-risk perpetrators escalate their behaviour—far too often resulting in serious violence and murder. That is why we welcome the changes to the current arrangements for a perpetrator to be considered for MAPPA category 3. The assessment of past patterns of behaviour is vital—something we asked for in the stalking law reforms of 2012—including convictions at a lesser level. I thank the Minister for her words on that.

One of the consequences of an effective risk assessment for these serial and high-risk perpetrators is that MAPPA teams need more resources than they currently receive. It should not be possible for these cases to be disregarded because of resources. I echo the question that the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, asked about how much of the extra perpetrator funding the Minister outlined during the passage of the Bill will be dedicated resource for local MAPPA areas to manage a larger numbers of offenders. This is one of those few times when it will be good to see numbers going up, because it will provide reassurance that these perpetrators are being managed properly. This Bill and these arrangements will fail without those resources—and this Bill must not fail.

The noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, cannot be in her place today, but she specifically asked me to make the following points to your Lordships’ House on her behalf. She joins those of us who signed the amendment on Report in expressing concern that serial and serious high-risk perpetrators of domestic abuse and stalking must be included and therefore on the database.

Can the Minister give the House some assurance that domestic abuse and stalking experts and agencies will be included as a matter of course in the MAPP meetings? Their expertise at a local level will be vital; risk assessments of patterns of past fixated behaviour will not be effective without their input. It is the early identification of these patterns of behaviour that can change the experience of the victim and, with appropriate support, can help the perpetrator too.

The noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, also asks whether the domestic abuse commissioner and the Victims’ Commissioner will have access to MAPPA data— especially, but not only, that relating to those serial and high-risk stalking and domestic abuse perpetrators. It is vital for them to be able to hold those making decisions inside the criminal justice system to account. She makes the point that this is particularly important because, until the victims law the Government have promised comes into force, it will provide powers for the Victims’ Commissioner. Until then, there will be no powers for the Victims’ Commissioner to perform that role. It is vital that both the domestic abuse commissioner and the Victims’ Commissioner have similar powers to hold the Government and agencies to account.

I will end by looking both backwards and towards the future. This month marks the 16th anniversary of the start of the harassment and stalking campaign of which I was the principal target. It took three years before the perpetrator was caught and my many discussions with the police mirrored far too many of the cases we have heard of elsewhere. I swore to myself that no one should have to repeatedly explain incident after incident to the police as if each one were the first—but that is still the case far too often.

During the passage of this Bill we have all spoken of the tragic deaths of far too many women at the hands of stalkers and abusers—currently between two and five per week. This morning on Radio 4’s “Today” programme Zoe Dronfield spoke movingly of her own experience. She discovered, after escaping a violent attack with her life, that her previous partner had stalked and attacked a dozen women before her. This Bill and the arrangements for the statutory guidance the Minister outlined have the capacity to start to change the experience of victims such as Zoe, but only if every single part of the criminal justice system engages with these changes to make them work. That is why the expertise that exists in pockets of good practice in the police and probation needs to be mainstreamed into MAPPA—and the work before MAPPA in call centres, front-line policing and the court system—with effective training throughout to watch for the red signals and pick up on this type of behaviour.

I want Parliament to hear of reductions in attacks and murders, of an increase in the number of offenders successfully managed by MAPPA, and a world where victims can start to live their lives no longer in fear—knowing that they can turn to the police and others for help. This Bill is the start of a very long journey to be continued in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill and the domestic violence and violence against women and girls strategies. We will watch with interest and, in fulfilling our duty, we will return to challenge and scrutinise how these important changes are being effected. At the end of the day, lives depend on the Government and everyone in the police and criminal justice system getting it right.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, at the last stage of the Bill I started by saying it felt dangerously like

“déjà vu all over again”.—[Official Report, 21/4/21; col. 1935.]

I am very pleased to announce this afternoon that it does not feel like déjà vu any longer. I think we are in mortal danger of actually moving forward—for which I thank the Minister very warmly.

It is perhaps no coincidence that this group of amendments, which in many ways is at the heart of the Bill, is coming right at the very end of it. The reason for that is that it is probably the most difficult part of the Bill to deal with. Almost all the excellent work done in both Houses up until this point has been dealing with some of the effects and after-effects of domestic abuse. What we are talking about in this group is trying to identify the causes and early signs of domestic abuse: in other words, trying to stop it happening rather more efficiently and effectively than we have done in the past.

To the Government’s credit—and this is not easy to admit—they have admitted that the current system is not working well. You just have to look at the weekly litany of deaths and some of the stories behind them to realise that it is not working. But it still takes a certain amount of courage to admit that one has not got it right and that one needs to change—so I am very grateful for that.

Although I have played an insignificant part, I am also extremely grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall and Lady Brinton, the latter of whom is an expert on stalking, for putting forward such compelling arguments for stalking to be included that the Government have acceded to the strength of their arguments. I am extremely grateful for that.

I am also grateful that new statutory guidance will be forthcoming. But at this point I want to issue a very strong health warning. I apologise to the Minister, who heard me go on a bit about this earlier this morning. For any new guidance to be effective, it must be created and then applied in a fundamentally different way from the way it has been done in the past. Part of that is that it needs different voices and experiences around the table. The individuals responsible for MAPPA at a national level and in the 42 different MAPPA areas all around the country—effectively, each police force—are largely the same group of people from the same organisations that have been responsible for trying to make the MAPPA system work over all these years.

However, part of the Government’s recognition of the complexity behind the causes of domestic abuse—in particular the addition of stalking—means that there is a compelling need to bring these new experiences and knowledge to the table. They have to become an integral part of MAPPA. They must have the same power of voice and vote around the table. Part of what needs to happen is for MAPPA to evolve and develop a different way of looking at all this. It needs to develop a new language, and new forms of assessment and forecasting, and to do so in a dynamic way, not looking at things every six months or every two years. It has admitted that part of the reason why the statutory guidance is now online rather than printed is that it has probably already been out of date by the time it has been printed. Putting it online means that it can be updated constantly; I genuinely welcome that.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, said, I managed, by googling away, to find the job description for the new head of MAPPA, who Her Majesty’s Government are currently seeking. Some of your Lordships may have seen a slip of paper in the past couple of weeks, before the election of the Lord Speaker, where, after 30 or so years of being a head-hunter, I put pen to paper—actually finger to iPad—and wrote a brief description of some of the attributes I thought were important in the role, as well as, very importantly, some of the deliverables. The glaring omission in the job specification for the head of MAPPA is any definition of relevant experience. There is nothing whatever to indicate what type of prior experience and knowledge would qualify the candidates to be on that shortlist. I put it to the Minister that whoever becomes the next head of MAPPA must have a breadth of knowledge, an openness of mind, and an ability to manage and argue compellingly for change of a different order of magnitude from what has been required before. That will be absolutely fundamental.

I finish my rant by again thanking the Minister very much indeed. We have made considerable progress. I look forward to not forgetting about the rear-view mirror —as a dedicated cyclist I know that would be extremely dangerous; indeed I have rear-view mirrors on both of my bicycles. I congratulate the Government on the progress they have made, but I ask them to take what I have said seriously to heart and to try to make sure that we get it right this time. The test will be when the awful metronomic death toll of the work done week in, week out by the Counting Dead Women initiative starts going down, and the number of people on the MAPPA system starts going up with the right sort of people. At that point we can feel that we are actually doing something that all these victims and their families have been looking for, for so many years; that will be really good news.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)]

A Member in the Chamber has indicated his wish to speak. I call the noble Lord, Lord Paddick.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 17th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, who has made a powerful speech on her amendment, to which I will add a fairly brief footnote.

As she said, over the last few days we have seen growing pressure on the Government to alter the terms of trade, the balance of power, between men and women. The murder of Stephen Lawrence in the 1990s marked a turning point in our attitudes towards race in this country; the murder of Sarah Everard may do the same for attitudes towards women. Other noble Lords may have had telephone calls yesterday from women asking for support for this amendment. Elesa Bryers rang me, asking if she could send me a petition she had started which had some 700 signatures. I readily agreed.

It is crucial for the Government to strike the right balance in response, avoiding a knee-jerk reaction and a headline-grabbing solution that does not stand the test of time but recognising that, after careful analysis, we have to move on from where we are. I can think of few people better placed to help make that judgment than my noble friend the Minister who is replying to this debate.

Turning to the amendment, no one could say that this is a knee-jerk reaction to the tragic events of last week, as, of course, the case for it was made last month in Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and others. I have reread the reply that the Minister gave on that occasion. My noble friend said:

“Given the range and depth of the work undertaken by the Law Commission, we do not think it would be appropriate to prejudice the outcome of its work, including by issuing guidance or requiring the collection of statistics along the lines proposed by the amendment. As I have said, the noble Lord rightly wants to see evidence-based policy. The work of the Law Commission will add significantly to that evidence base.” —[Official Report, 8/2/21; col. 59.]


“We do not think it would be appropriate” is not a total rejection of what we were asking for. Indeed, one could argue that the amendment would add significantly to the evidence base that the Minister referred to in her reply, because it would broaden that evidence base beyond the 11 police forces which currently collect the relevant statistics. I wonder whether my noble friend has sought the views of the Law Commission on this amendment as it completes its work.

We know that the domestic abuse commissioner is supportive of the principles behind the amendment and strongly welcomes proposed subsection (2) about issuing guidance. I was pleased to hear in her interview on Friday that the domestic abuse commissioner said she was listened to by the Government, and my noble friend can build on that basis of trust in her response today.

Winding up the debate in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Russell, offered a way forward by suggesting that we should

“try to send some message to police forces about the benefits that other police forces which have trialled this are having from it, and to encourage them to look at it seriously.” —[Official Report, 8/2/21; col. 61.]

Perhaps that offers us the way forward today.

Rereading the briefing for this amendment, I was struck by the evidence from Citizens UK and from the organisation HOPE not hate that ideological misogyny is emerging in far-right terrorist movements, and that there has been a growth in online misogynistic abuse. Hate motivated by gender is a factor in a third of all hate crimes, the same briefing tells us—all of which reinforces the case for a fresh look at this issue.

As other noble Lords have said, we need to rebuild confidence in the police. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, referred to the case of Nottingham and the survey, where they have already adopted the measures outlined in this amendment, as she said. That survey showed, first, that the problem was taken seriously by the police and, secondly, that what Nottingham did increased public confidence in the police in the county. Adopting this amendment could do the same for the police nationally.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I was very happy to put my name to this amendment, and I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, for the eloquent and detailed way in which she has introduced it.

At Second Reading on 5 January, I mentioned that I would raise the issue of misogyny and probably put forward an amendment in Committee. First, those of your Lordships who, like me, laboured through the Second Reading—there were no less than 90 contributors —were brave, but, secondly, it is interesting to note that, of all the contributors, I think I was the only one to actually mention the dreaded noun “misogyny”. I was not surprised when the Minister, in her summing up of so many contributions, also did not mention misogyny.

We fast forward to Committee, and on 8 February—the fifth day in Committee—I put forward an amendment, ably assisted by the noble Lord, Lord Young, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Bull and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, to all of whom I am extremely grateful. As the noble Lord, Lord Young, said, the Minister basically said, “We can see it is quite a good idea, but we have asked the Law Commission to look at this, and we will wait and see what it recommends”.

Now we fast forward to today—17 March—the fourth day of Report, and Amendment 87B. Harold Wilson once said that one week is a long time in politics. I do not know about the rest of your Lordships, but, for me, the last 10 weeks since Second Reading have felt like a lifetime in politics. But more to the point, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, said very movingly on Monday, the last 10 weeks have not only seemed like a lifetime, they have also seen the loss of no less than 30 lives—30 women killed by men, whose names she read out on Monday.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]]

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, is absolutely correct about what Nottinghamshire Police records. I cannot confirm what the conclusion will ultimately be, but I have said that I will consult.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

I thank the Minister very much for that helpful response. I would like clarification on how we are going to proceed. Does she agree that the police forces currently recording crimes such as misogyny are doing so slightly differently in each case, because each police force has decided to interpret it in its own way? What the Minister’s department is about do to with the National Police Chiefs’ Council is to look at the different ways different police forces currently collect this data. I imagine she will also work with the Law Commission to take into account its evidence taken on sex and gender and its interim recommendations. Therefore, she will come out with a clarification of the guidance to be given to all police forces in England and Wales.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]]

I can confirm that to the noble Lord. I think a bit of consistency here would be very helpful to give us the information we seek.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 15th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to give maximum support to my noble friend Lady Royall, but in effect to all speakers, since I have not heard anything that I disagree with.

I have four short points to make. First, I was very struck that buried in the short but useful briefing from the London Assembly was a warning that carrying on on a more casual, non-statutory basis does not work. It points out that in London from January to November 2019, the current domestic abuse protection order was used in only 0.5% of domestic abuse offences recorded by the Metropolitan Police. So the warning is that we have these well-intentioned tools but they are not used by the police or magistrates. I was very struck by a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, in her powerful speech, and it is a warning to the Minister: saying “We’ll do it” but then not doing it makes the position far worse. It is a question of resources in finance and of course in will, and that is a crucial point that has to be made.

Secondly, I share the questions of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, having read the briefing from the Suzy Lamplugh Trust about domestic and non-domestic stalking. As the previous speaker, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, said, Amendment 73 probably does not go far enough.

Thirdly, my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath made a point about the numbers affected each week, but we also have to remember not just what happened last week and what has happened since the Bill came into your Lordships’ House, but the fact that we know for certain that by the end of this week another two females will have been murdered.

Fourthly, regarding perpetrators, we have heard the range of examples that noble Lords and noble Baronesses have given. Now I know this might be classed as fanciful because it is not correct, but I ask the Minister to think of perpetrators as an organised perpetrators’ grouping. I know they are not and there would be very little evidence for it, but there is a pretty consistent pattern, not only over some cases but over many years, as if they were such a group. If they were treated as an organised perpetrators’ group by Parliament, the Home Office and law enforcement then by now we would be having strategic views, risk management and people’s names on registers in the same way as with existing registers. We would really be toughening it up. I would take that as a starting point for the debate today, not a finishing point.

As I said originally, I do not disagree with anything I have heard today and I give my full support to these two amendments, both verbally and if they are pushed to a vote.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

And so, my Lords, we come to tail-end Charlie. What is probably not obvious to those listening or watching today’s proceedings who are not around the Palace of Westminster is that they have been taking place with the sound of helicopters circling almost ceaselessly. I think that is because a group of people who feel strongly about what we are discussing, some of whom may even have been on Clapham Common on Saturday evening, have decided to come to Parliament Square today while we are having this discussion, and I suspect while another place is beginning to talk about the policing Bill, to voice their concern and—in a respectful way, I am sure—are trying to demonstrate how strongly they feel about this issue.

What an irony that we have a female Home Secretary and a female head of the Metropolitan Police, and that it was a female assistant commissioner who, under huge pressure, took a decision on Saturday evening that with the benefit of hindsight she may possibly regret. The evidence around the country of demonstrations taking place where the police decided to be judicious and hold back is that they seem to have gone off without event, while the two that I have heard of—one in London and one in Brighton—where the police decided to take a different decision have ended badly. I hope lessons have been learned from that.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Report stage & Lords Hansard
Monday 8th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 7, 8 and 9, tabled by my noble friend Lady Stroud. Why? Because unborn children and small babies are as much at risk of domestic abuse as any other child, yet they have been largely excluded from this Bill. There seems to be no specific reference to them.

A very recent research paper published by the First 1001 Days Movement highlighted the fact that there are “baby blind-spots” in policy, planning and funding, where protections for children often do not work for babies. As my noble friend Lady Stroud mentioned, 30% of domestic abuse cases begin during pregnancy. That is a big number, but it is hardly surprising.

The prospect of having a child radically changes the dynamic in a relationship. The partner is suddenly faced with new responsibilities, both financial and emotional. Maybe the pregnancy was never discussed and comes as a complete surprise. The partner may feel duped or resentful, trapped in a relationship he never intended.

As we have heard throughout these debates, domestic abuse can take many forms. But just imagine how it feels when, at your weakest and most vulnerable point—which is how most women feel when pregnant—you are confronted by a partner intent on abusing you. When I was pregnant with my sons, I remember worrying that somebody would bump into me on the tube or I would fall and somehow injure that little being growing inside of me. I used to walk with my arms in front of me, shielding my stomach and my unborn child; it is a mother’s natural instinct. Imagine how frightened and helpless a mother must feel if her partner is a constant threat, not only to her but to her baby.

I remember my mother telling me when I was pregnant that I should only read happy stories, watch cheerful movies and listen to soft music. She strongly believed that the child absorbed everything its mother experienced and that this would affect the child’s development. Today it is an established fact that a baby’s development is as much affected by the mother’s emotional state as by what she eats and drinks, as we heard earlier.

As the First 1001 Days Movement attests, these are decisive moments in the life of a baby. Emotional abuse of the mother can damage the mental or physical health of the child, while physical or sexual abuse can lead to miscarriage. These soon-to-be-born human beings cannot be consigned to the category of “out of sight, out of mind”. If this is to be a piece of landmark legislation, our duty is that much greater to ensure that it recognises babies, the very young and the unborn. That is why I support the amendment.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group. I declare my interests as an officer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Conception to Age Two, and, like the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, I have the privilege of being a member of Andrea Leadsom’s taskforce. We will be producing our findings imminently. I did not speak in Committee because, frankly, I thought I would leave it to people who know rather more about it than myself, including many contributors who have given birth. While I am capable of many things, that is one thing I am not capable of.

I studied the Minister’s answer in Committee very carefully and was not hugely impressed, so I was intending to stand up this afternoon and be slightly critical. However, I have had a quiet word beforehand with the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, and in the Chamber one has a great advantage: I was able to see the body language of the Minister when the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, was making some comments, and it was extremely positive. I do not think those of us in the virtual world can see that—one of the benefits and privileges of being in the Chamber. Having studied the answer very carefully, I thought that what came out of it was something that concerns me and is worth flagging up.

The Minister tried to reassure us that all children will benefit from the Bill and that new guidance, which may be issued by the Secretary of State—it does not have to be—will cover all children, including those in utero. She then talked about the existing guidance which has been in place for some time. The Working Together to Safeguard Children initiative makes it clear that local authorities must have protocols in place to assess the needs of children in utero. She also specifically mentioned Section 47 inquiries under the Children Act 2004, which allow for a child protection conference if there are concerns for an unborn child.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, government Amendment 14 is very welcome. Clearly the call for the commissioner to have powers to collect information on domestic homicide through reviews of such homicides has been heeded. Domestic homicide reviews will give the commissioner a hugely valuable picture of deaths occurring as a result of domestic violence. They bring together the statutory and non-statutory partners to learn lessons and, hopefully, prevent deaths in future.

However, as the commissioner-designate says, actions can drift over time, and there is little accountability for implementation. Although statutory guidance says that a copy of each domestic homicide report should be lodged with the Home Office, it is often omitted because there is no legislative backing to the guidance. Someone needs to grasp that issue firmly, put all this disparate information together and drive the changes that are needed from the lessons learned.

Thanks to government Amendment 14, all domestic homicide reports must now be sent to the commissioner. As well as domestic homicide reports, though, there are other valuable sources of information into homicides and suicides—other reviews that hold vital lessons. Amendment 16 would spread the information net wider to incorporate reviews or investigations into deaths where domestic abuse had been identified as a contributory factor. Such reviews could come from any number of sources: safeguarding adult reviews, serious case reviews, NHS serious investigations, misconduct where a death was involved and so on.

Prevention of future deaths reports, issued by the coroner’s office, are hugely important in building up a picture of how things have gone wrong and can be improved in the future. Although this information resides on the coroner’s website, there is no systematic way to interrogate it. While recommendations are made, reports to the commissioner would enable her to correlate them and guide future best practice. The commissioner is anxious to preserve the independence of the Chief Coroner, which has been removed from the list of proposed public authorities required to co-operate with the commissioner, so that judicial independence is not compromised in any way. This is why proposed new subsection (3) requires copies of the coroner’s prevention of future deaths reports to be lodged with the Secretary of State and commissioner. Any public authority specified in Clause 15(3) would be covered; this is the subject of my Amendment 12.

During Committee, we proposed in Amendment 51 that Her Majesty’s Prison Service and the National Probation Service be added to the list of organisations with a duty to co-operate with the commissioner. It was subsequently confirmed that they already fall under this duty, as part of the Ministry of Justice, but there are a couple of authorities that the commissioner would find particularly useful to have added to the list. The Independent Office for Police Conduct will occasionally look at allegations of misconduct in relation to a death where domestic abuse has been a factor, while the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will deal with deaths in prison or after release, when a victim or perpetrator of domestic abuse has been involved. These are two poignant examples of where the death of a victim can point to how such a tragedy can be avoided and circumstances can be better handled in future.

It is important to note that there is no intention of creating a blame culture here, but instead to learn lessons by producing thematic reviews that inform policy and practice. Every amendment in the group will strengthen the arm of the Secretary of State and the commissioner to do their job and design better systems to prevent systematic failure in the future. I beg to move.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I rise briefly in support of Amendments 12 and 16, to which I have added my name. In Committee, the Minister was constructive and sympathetic, as she invariably is when considering improvements to the quality, accuracy and timeliness of data, so we are grateful for government Amendment 14. She has followed through, as she promised she would in Committee, and we thank her for it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Burt, has explained clearly what is behind Amendments 12 and 16, so I do not need to go into more detail. It is also clear that the commissioner herself has requested these additions and she is in the business of trying to pull together multiple strands of information, in a way that has not been done before. She is not learning on the job, but to some extent learning as she settles into the job, about the greater complexity that there is and the different strands of information that she will need to make informed decisions and give the Government good advice. It is a direct request from her to fill what she feels are some important gaps in the data that she requires.

The two key benefits are fairly self-evident. The first is to ensure that all these recommendations are recorded and assessed, in particular to see if the recommended follow-up actions are being taken. The second is to draw out the key themes and lessons being learned in order to have a proactive, preventive, joined-up approach, which we clearly do not have at the moment. That is a large part of the genesis of this Bill. The commissioner’s request is extremely simple: please support and accept these amendments, and act. She will then move swiftly to build a more informed, accurate and insightful understanding, which will enable her to do her job as well as we all want her to.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

The noble Lord, Lord Bhatia, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove.

Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 9th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly to Amendment 4, which deals with juveniles and vulnerable adults, and the government amendments to that part of the Bill. The background to this is the debate we had on 13 January, when a group of amendments, led by Amendment 12 in my name, sought to remove children aged under 18 and vulnerable adults from the Bill’s scope entirely. While this secured support from all sides of the House, it was clear that without support from the Official Opposition it was doomed. Therefore, I withdrew it.

The House then coalesced around Amendment 24, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, whose impact on this debate has been substantial. I pay tribute to that. I also supported her amendment, although it did not go quite as far as Amendment 12. Her amendment trumped government Amendment 26 in the same group by offering additional safeguards. Although the Government described these as unworkable, the House supported Amendment 24 in a Division by 339 to 235. As we heard, this was rejected in another place and we now have the government amendments we debate today.

My view, which is shared by the Children’s Commissioner, is unchanged—namely, that we should exempt children and vulnerable adults—but I accept that that will not happen. What we now have is a welcome improvement on government Amendment 26, and I am grateful to my noble friend for listening to the concerns and meeting them where she felt she could. I also pay tribute to the work of Stella Creasy in taking the debate forward.

Some relevant questions on the government amendments have been raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Kidron. I hope my noble friend will feel able to continue the dialogue once the Bill reaches the statute book, to focus again on the code of practice, in particular to consider extending the protections in the Bill to all children used as CHIS, not just those authorised to commit criminal conduct, and to reconsider the issue of appropriate adults for those aged under 18. In the meantime, I am happy to support the government amendments.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Young, I will also speak very briefly to Motion D. I thank all noble Lords who have been part of a chorus of voices speaking on behalf of children, young people and vulnerable adults. It is very good news that their voices have been heard.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, who first tabled the amendment that the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, then took on. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, because the initiative he brought forward to have greater involvement by IPCO has been and is extremely welcome. Stella Creasy has probably got enough plaudits without needing any more; it will doubtless go to her head. I thank the charity Just for Kids Law, which has been very active, helpful and constructive in realising what is and is not realistic.

The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, asked all the questions that I would have asked, and probably rather better than I would have. I am sure the Minister will deal with them when she comes to respond. I quickly looked up whether a flock of Bishops is the right collective noun. It is actually a Bench of Bishops or a sea of Bishops, but unfortunately we do not have any with us today.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 1st February 2021 Lords Chamber

That is what Amendment 176 would enable the Government, and this House, to do.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 176 and 177, to which I was pleased to add my name. My three fellow sponsors have made such a good job of the case for the prosecution that I will try not to sound like a worn record. I am also very conscious, listening to proceedings on this Bill, that the neverending stream of amendments could be viewed as an unwitting discourtesy to what are clearly the Government’s good intentions. It sounds like the digestive rumblings of an incontinent House, which always seems to find something to complain about. However, we are not just complaining; we are trying to articulate the case for something we think is important.

These amendments share an important characteristic with Amendments 51 and 54, which I spoke to last week: they have the express support of Nicole Jacobs herself. These amendments, like those, are designed to enable her to hit the ground running, and to use the once-in-a-generation opportunity afforded by getting this Bill on to the statute book to put critical pieces of infrastructure and support in place as early as possible.

We all recognise that delivering accommodation-based services is not enough by itself, welcome though it is. They are essential and important, but they support, and will only ever support, a minority of domestic abuse victims and their families. It is community-based services that can interact with and support victims, with a complex interlocking range of specialist interventions. As I have discovered, it is an area rich with impenetrable—for an outsider—acronyms, such as: IDVAs—independent domestic violence advisers; YPVAs—young people violence advisers; ISVAs—independent sexual violence advisers, and IRIS workers. That is nothing to do with eyesight, but stands for identification and referral to improve safety. Behind these acronyms exist a wealth of specialist knowledge and sensitive and targeted support, which, as other noble Lords have mentioned, look after the needs of 70% of domestic abuse survivors, supporting them in the community, while only the remaining 30% are looked after in refuges.

Nicole Jacobs’s plea is for the Bill to be balanced in placing equal emphasis on the provision and financing of accommodation-based and community-based services in England and Wales. Without this, she is concerned that there will be unintended consequences, as the right reverend Prelate said, and that focusing more on one area than on both will create a form of unhelpful tension or competition, or will force local authorities into making difficult and unpleasant choices. That will do nothing to help the majority of domestic abuse survivors.

The commissioner is also saying that the urgency in remedying this potential imbalance is sufficient to justify acting now, rather than waiting for the mapping exercise to be completed. Nicole Jacobs is an expert. She was appointed because she is an expert. She knows this field inside-out, and if she is saying that we are in danger of getting the balance wrong, she deserves to be listened to, and listened to seriously. Given the strains that the last 10 months have imposed on all of us but, above all, on so many families and relationships already close to breaking point, it is imperative that we act sooner rather than later.

The 70% of domestic abuse survivors and their families who are supported in the community are foremost in the commissioner’s mind. We speak for her but, most of all, we speak for them. I hope that the Minister can work with us before Report to look at this and, above all, to listen to the expert herself— Nicole Jacobs.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 27th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

My Lords, I am hugely encouraged by listening to all these debates around this Bill, because I know that every single one of us wants this Bill to be as good as it possibly can be. I will keep my comments brief.

In relation to Amendment 54, the issue of data is critical. We have to take time to remember that behind statistics are precious individuals—women and men. I support a duty on public authorities to notify the Home Office and the domestic abuse commissioner in cases of death where domestic abuse has been identified as a contributory factor.

In order to make good policy, we need good data. It is not enough that data are trustworthy; they must also be trusted, otherwise they will not be used. A key objective of the Bill is to raise awareness and understanding of domestic abuse and its impact on victims. That task can be effective only if the Home Office and commissioner are fully apprised of all reviews and investigations into deaths where domestic abuse is identified as a factor.

On Amendment 51, I wish to make a brief comment on communication between various bodies and the domestic abuse commissioner. We have already seen the fruits of the designate commissioner’s hard work. If this role is to be a success, it is essential to have join-up. Nicole Jacobs has been exemplary in her role already, and I am grateful for the many connections she has made and the strong relationships she has built, not least in the preparation of this Bill. But it is important to ensure that the list of public authorities that have a duty to co-operate with the commissioner is as extensive as possible on the face of legislation, so that we do not rely on relationship alone as we go forward.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak briefly in support of Amendments 51 and 54, to which I was happy to add my name. I am grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Burt and Lady Bertin, for introducing the amendment so well.

We heard in the group starting with Amendment 23 about the critical role of better information. I know it is a theme the Minister is acutely aware of, not least because she has departmental responsibility for it in the Home Office. To restate the obvious, and it really cannot be restated often enough, more joined-up, accurate, timely and informative data would enable Nicole Jacobs, on our behalf, to understand the past and the present better, a point made very well just now by the right reverend Prelate.

This point was also made very forcefully earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, on Amendment 23: the need not only to recognise but to try to predict future violent and abusive behaviour better, in order to prevent or mitigate injuries to abused partners and their children. What is the point of having a domestic abuse commissioner if we do not equip her with the right powers and authority, moral and statutory, to do her job as well as possible? As others have mentioned, these amendments have the active support of Nicole Jacobs and, if accepted, they will enable her, again on behalf of all of us, to understand the full gravity and texture of domestic abuse more clearly than we do today. We have to be more proactive and joined up. As was mentioned earlier, domestic homicide reviews are an improvement, but they are still not working as they should.

Amendment 54 will provide the commissioner and the Home Office with ready and immediate access to this vital data. Amendment 51 adds to the collation of vital data by drawing into the commissioner’s information hub all the investigations into domestic homicides by the five bodies named.

In summary, the commissioner has asked us not just on her behalf but on behalf of victims and their families to articulate what is behind her request to be given the additional access to key information that she judges she needs. This will enable her to do her job even more effectively and to do so right from the start. I hope I am right in anticipating a positive and supportive response to the commissioner and the Committee from the Minister.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

My Lords, Amendment 189 is of a rather different type. We are proposing that to remove an authority added by regulations to the list through Clause 15(4)(a), the regulations achieving that removal should be the subject of an affirmative resolution. The Minister may say that as the Secretary of State has imposed—I am not sure whether that is the best term—an added authority under Clause 15(4)(a), it is hers to dispose of, but unless there has been an aberration, the public authority so added will be of significance. The Minister will of course know that it is not unusual for my noble friend Lord Paddick and me to take a look at every regulation-making power we find in legislation.

With regard to the other two amendments in this group, listening to and reading the names of the victims of domestic homicide is very moving. They are individuals who together make up significant data. We are particularly aware of this in the context of those who have died during the pandemic. My noble friend Lady Burt has already given the support of these Benches to Amendments 51 and 54. As the noble Lord, Lord Russell, has just mentioned, these are matters that the domestic abuse commissioner designate is calling for. Her shadow period in post has led her to call for a limited number of significant amendments to the Bill. It is not an impossibly large number, and it is not an impossible ask, so I think we should have a very good reason to reject what she has identified as necessary.

In a Bill which is going through your Lordships’ House concurrently, and on many previous occasions, the Minister, and other Ministers, have argued for public servants to have all the necessary tools in the toolkit. We have not always agreed on what those necessary tools are but, on this occasion, we certainly support these amendments.