Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Woolley of Woodford Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 5th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Woolley of Woodford (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I start by congratulating the Government on the progress that has been made with this Bill. I am honoured to follow my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, in the debate. I also want to state my support for the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, which would introduce a specific offence of non-fatal strangulation and suffocation. I will come back to that amendment and its merits later.

First, I want to pay tribute to the strength of victims and survivors of domestic abuse in dealing with such adversity. I thank all the civil society groups and organisations that provide support for such victims. We should all be thankful for and grateful to the people providing this support, especially during the current Covid health crisis.

I thank my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, for her work. I want to repeat a passage from her speech that sums up the importance of this Bill and the amendment that she intends to table. She said:

“We must remember that these are not just statistics; in each case, it is a daughter or maybe a sister or mother who has been killed. Whether it is a Helen, an Aisha or a Zoe, it is someone whose violent end haunts their family and friends for ever.”


I want to speak about a worrying omission in the Bill, which some noble Lords have already mentioned. The Domestic Abuse Bill seeks to leave no woman behind. That is laudable but, unless the Government listen to and engage with groups such as the Southall Black Sisters, it will leave some women behind. At worst, it will leave behind some of the most vulnerable women in the country. The women I am talking about are migrant women, who, as we all know, are least likely to call for help for a variety of obvious reasons, including the lack of recourse to public funds. In effect, these vulnerable women remain trapped in domestic abuse, unable to avail themselves of any protection contained in this Bill. I implore the Minister to engage in a meaningful discussion with Southall Black Sisters and other groups that are working on this issue as a matter of urgency. I hope that the Government will engage with us on this issue to ensure that all women are protected and covered by this important, much-needed Bill. I remind and plead with the Government that it is not too late.

On the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, I join noble Lords in strongly supporting the need to create a new offence of non-fatal strangulation and suffocation. We need to listen to domestic abuse support workers up and down the country who, day after day, help victims who have had to endure this life-threatening, terrifying ordeal at home by a person they once loved. Strangulation leaves few, if any, marks—much fewer if you are black—yet the psychological marks that we do not readily see can be profound for victims. When a victim loses consciousness, which happens quickly after 10 or 15 seconds, the lack of oxygen to the brain can result in neurological problems such as memory loss and an increased risk of miscarriage and stroke.

It should concern us all that non-fatal strangulation so often goes unreported. A recent informal survey of domestic abuse survivors suggested that 60% of non-fatal strangulations are not reported to the police. Introducing a specific offence would highlight this issue and encourage more victims to come forward and get the help that they need. That is why I support the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Woolley of Woodford Excerpts

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

The Bill has raised real hope that it will lead to a transformation both in how as a nation we regard and deal with domestic abuse in all its forms and in the determination we show in seeking to stamp it out and provide full support for all victims of domestic abuse. Significantly reducing domestic abuse in all its forms, providing full support for those affected and changing attitudes and culture will lead to significant societal and financial benefits which should not be underestimated. However, achieving that goal cannot be done on the cheap, and the required provision of specialist refuge services is one key area where the resources must be provided if the Bill is to lead to the transformation that we all want to see delivered. I beg to move.

[Lord Woolley of Woodford (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak in support of Amendments 89, 93, 102, 106, 107 and 108. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. I hope that I will not duplicate much of what he has said, but, clearly, we are on the same page.

The amendments would strengthen the statutory duty on local authorities to fund support and safe accommodation for survivors of domestic abuse. The desperate need to improve the funding system for life-saving measures for women refugees cannot be overstated. Every fortnight in England and Wales, three women are killed by a partner or ex-partner, yet in England there is currently a 30% shortfall in relation to the number of refugee bed spaces required by the Istanbul convention.

Fifty-seven per cent of referrals to refugee services were rejected between 2009 and 2020. Nearly one in five of all referrals received were rejected because the refugee centres had no space or capacity to support the women and their children. One-third of specialist refugee services for black, Asian and minority-ethnic women have been decommissioned since 2010, resulting in a 50% reduction in bed space capacity.

Secure funding for refugee services remains a critical priority, and this legal duty could be an important step forward in delivering that, but will it change the funding and commissioning crisis that these refugees currently face? There are serious concerns from the Women’s Aid Federation of England and Imkaan that it will not. Those organisations represent providers of refugee services who deliver far more than a roof over a survivor’s head; they provide holistic, specialist support, including that relating to physical and mental health, immigration status, children’s welfare, education, financial needs, and criminal and family justice, to meet the needs of survivors in a safe and secure environment.

The Istanbul convention makes it clear that such specialist services are best delivered by women’s organisations—by expert staff who have in-depth knowledge of violence against women and girls. They are specialist refugee centres, led by and for black, Asian and minority-ethnic women, and represented by Imkaan. These centres of excellence provide support and safety not only from violence and abuse but from racism, immigration control and other forms of oppression which remain structural and systemic in society.

However, as has been mentioned, those services face systemic inequalities in the current funding landscape. Competitive tendering is now commonplace for accessing local authority funds for refugee services. I know that it has been referred to but it is worth mentioning again that these competitive processes are toxic for specialist refugee services, as they favour large organisations over small. Specialist women’s services for refugees are expert in meeting survivors’ needs but are forced to compete against generic housing providers and housing associations, which do not have the expertise to support survivors but can deliver services at a lower cost. Indeed, they might have entire bid-writing teams who can easily undercut specialist women’s services for refugee contracts.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Woolley of Woodford Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 8th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Woolley of Woodford (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak in favour of Amendment 151, tabled by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester. I want to start by commending the right reverend Prelate, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and Southall Black Sisters for their work on this amendment and more generally for their work on behalf of migrants. I also want to mention a dynamic Christian group, the Black Church Domestic Abuse Forum, made up of academics, lawyers, pastors, therapists and counsellors who would, as well as representatives of Southall Black Sisters, very much like to meet the Minister to discuss these and other related issues. During the course of the Bill, we have heard a great deal from many unsung groups such as Southall Black Sisters who, by the way, have been on the front line of this work for more than 40 years.

I believe that the Government need to shift their position and ensure legislative protection for all migrant women. This amendment is a test for the Government as to whether they will turn their back on some of the most vulnerable women in our society today. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Hussein-Ece, and many others have given us eloquent and passionate chapter and verse about the plight faced by these women, including intolerable coercion and the use of absolute power by abusive men. In effect, the Government are operating a two-tier discriminatory system of support for those fleeing violence, one in which migrant women and children, in the absence of state protection, are at heightened risk of escalating abuse, exploitation and harm. Their plight is summed up by Farah, a survivor being supported by Southall Black Sisters:

“I guess that No Recourse To Public Funds means that it is ok for me to be violated, physically and mentally abused by my father. I guess the Government approves of people like me being treated like I was.”


I appreciate that the Government have committed to support the migrant victims scheme pilot, but, frankly, the support is not enough. It will not reach the majority of abused migrant survivors who urgently need protection. Southall Black Sisters has estimated that the number of abused migrant women who are subject to NRPF and need support is likely to run into the low thousands—anywhere between 2,000 and 4,000 women a year. At a stretch, the pilot project is likely to provide only minimal support for up to 500 women for a maximum period of only 12 weeks. What answer should Southall Black Sisters and other groups give to the thousands of women and children who are turned away because the money has run out?

Without this change to the Domestic Abuse Bill, migrant women will continue to be turned away routinely at a time when they most need help and, worse still, are being regarded as potential immigration offenders rather than the victims of domestic abuse. This could be a matter of life and death. As the Bill makes its way through Parliament, we have borne witness not only to the Windrush scandal but to the Black Lives Matter movement as well. These are transformative events that have shed light on the deep and widening nature of structural economic and race inequality in the UK. This Bill offers the Government a real and ready opportunity to change course and provide redress for those who have been historically, and are presently, being excluded from protection and from their rights because of their background or immigration status. This would demonstrate a commitment to the promises made by the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, following the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, to address institutional ignorance and thoughtlessness towards the issues of race.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

I rise to speak to Amendment 160 while offering my sympathy and support for the other two amendments in this group. I reflect on the words of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, who said that this is a landmark Bill and needs to be as near perfection as we can possibly make it. I speak also as a member of the delegation from this Parliament to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The Istanbul convention is one of the key cornerstones of the achievements of that council over the last several years. It grieves me that I regularly see on the material put out by the council that the United Kingdom is one of the countries that has not yet ratified the convention, although of course it added its signature in 2012.

The idea is that our legislation is not yet in line with all the requirements of the convention, and that we are working on that. Earlier today, I heard extraterritoriality mentioned in debates and that a parallel effort is being made in the Northern Ireland Assembly which, mercifully, will deal with a major part of what prevents us at this minute ratifying the convention. That leaves us with Article 4(3) and Article 59. The whole question of discrimination has been properly alluded to as a very important thing for us to accord. I believe that the Government wish to do that, but they have taken the extraordinary step, having seen the recommendation in what is the fourth report since we have had these annual reports, to refer the matter into a pilot that will sit from December last to the end of March. That pilot’s findings will help us to quantify and find sustainable responses to this particular need.

I say that it is ironic and it is because, in a sense, the two other amendments in this group, were they on the statute book, would provide exactly the guarantees being sought and would allow us to ratify the convention at once. Is the fact that we have the pilot, which goes on to the end of March, going to make it necessary or impossible for us to include any measures to deal with discrimination for migrant women within the timescale of the passage of this Bill? I cannot see that we can possibly do the Bill and include any outcome from this process, which means that we will have missed the opportunity in this landmark Bill to deal with the two outstanding obstacles to our signing the Istanbul convention.

I missed a lot of these riveting debates because I was in Strasbourg, virtually—but we were talking about the same things. It pains me that we have not ratified the convention. At this minute Turkey and Poland are on the point of withdrawing from the Istanbul convention, and our moral stance in urging them not to is greatly diminished by the fact that we ourselves have not ratified it. With all that in mind—and this point has not yet been made, although it has been alluded to many times—I wish that these amendments could be made. Some 58 people and organisations wrote to me, as I am sure they wrote to the Minister, to say that all the evidence we could possibly need has been gathered. What is to stop us going forward? Why cannot we find a way between now and Report to leapfrog any obstacle, if necessary? Is this really impossible?

At the end of the day, it will all come down to money—£1.5 million will not do what needs to be done in the next five months and certainly, it will take a lot of money to deal with this in a sustainable way in the fullness of time. The domestic abuse commissioner designate—what a welcome appointment and what a clear-sounding person she seems to be—says that, unless migrant women with no recourse to public funds are included,

“their options are brutal.”

So, there it is from the person who will be overseeing this whole area of our national life.

I do not know whether the Minister can assure us that, even though we are out of sync with the passage of the Bill, we can hope in the not too distant future to incorporate retrospectively all that we are seeking to do through these amendments.