Women: Domestic and Sexual Violence Services

Debate between Lord Smith of Hindhead and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Monday 13th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. He will know all too well the effects that domestic violence has on children. He talks about how the police deal with these situations. They have had an awful lot more training in what to do when they encounter such situations. A child involved in even one domestic violence incident will carry that episode with them and it may affect them in future. As I explained to the noble Baroness earlier, domestic violence prevention orders keep the perpetrator from the home for 28 days. Also, perpetrator services are now being developed to give men some insight to change their behaviour.

[Lord Smith of Hindhead (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend update the House on her assessment of UK services which educate and support women and girls who have suffered abuse such as FGM and breast ironing, or other gender-based violent crimes carried out in the name of religion or cultural tradition, but which are nothing short of the abuse of young British women and girls?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank my noble friend for that question. We now have FGM prevention orders. FGM has always been a crime, but we are dealing with it. Any of those things is a crime against women and girls. Last week, we talked about how multiagency work can help to tackle some of these problems. If a doctor notices symptoms of violence or abuse—breast ironing or FGM, as my noble friend mentioned—the whole model of multiagency working is now set up to allow information sharing so that perpetrators can be brought to justice.

Betting Shops: Serious Crime

Debate between Lord Smith of Hindhead and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Monday 5th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Baroness makes some good points. New planning laws introduced in 2015 make it harder to open betting shops on the high street and the Government will take further action if necessary. She talks about the Gambling Commission. As I said to the noble Lord, the commission introduced some social responsibility requirements in terms of customers making active choices regarding time spent on machines and money limits.

[Lord Smith of Hindhead (Con)]

My Lords, I know from previous Written Questions to the Home Office that the Home Office does not hold data on the number of police-recorded crimes in licensed premises, such as betting shops, or indeed in any other location. Will the Minister consider reviewing this policy?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The most recent data that we have are from the Commercial Victimisation Survey, which includes the whole industry of casinos, bookmakers and arcades. Therefore, we have information and we take it very seriously.