Extremism

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend, and he is right to point out that the strategies we have adopted are looked to with respect around the world. Of course there is always more for us to do, which is why we look constantly at the work we are undertaking to ensure that we are doing as much as possible and learning any lessons from the past. We have a good record on the strategies we have put in place. Yes, we can look to do more, as I have said, but we should not lose sight of the fact that Contest and Prevent are looked at with respect around the world.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I spoke last week to Muslim leaders in my constituency, and I recognise that the vast majority of the Muslim community are extremely concerned about the activity of extremists, not least because they know that their sons and daughters are some of those most at risk. They want to know that they are being backed to keep their families and communities safe. Will the Home Secretary therefore explain why she cut the anti-extremism programmes’ support for community action from £17 million for 93 local authorities to £1 million for 30 local authorities?

[Mrs May]

First, it is indeed important to reach out to and work with communities, as I have said in response to a number of questions this afternoon. I am sorry to repeat the point I made to the shadow Home Secretary, but we have changed the way that various parts of what was the last Government’s Prevent strategy are delivered. We therefore cannot look at Home Office figures and say that there has been a cut in funding, because the Home Office has changed, and we are funding activity that is much more focused than it was. Two Departments are responsible for the different elements of the Prevent strategy, and the reason for that is simple: it is precisely Muslim communities who were getting concerned about the way the strategy operated under the last Government, and its mixing of the counter-terrorism strategy with communities integration work. We responded to that.

UNHCR Syrian Refugees Programme

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point and I have specifically discussed that issue with the UN. It told me that it is keen to ensure that support is provided, and it gave the example of young gay men who have suffered homophobic abuse and persecution, and who may need additional assistance. That is why it is important to include LGBT issues in our consideration of vulnerable refugees who may need additional sanctuary elsewhere and outside the region.

We should rightly provide sanctuary alongside other countries across the world. No one country can shoulder this alone, and we should work together and urge others to join us. France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the USA, Canada, Australia and many other countries are helping to provide sanctuary. That is why Britain must also do its bit and why it would have been wrong for it to turn its back.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for all the work she has done over the past couple of weeks in highlighting this issue and working with charities and organisations outside Parliament. Does she agree that the UK taking in refugees—as the Government have now stated we will—is a mark of our responsibility in the world and of our need to lead efforts and lead by example? A constituent wrote to me stating:

“I feel…very concerned at the UK’s refusal to accept displaced persons…We are shamed by the actions of other countries.”

That is a sad thing for a church in my constituency to be saying.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We must not only urge other countries to do more, but do our bit and show that we stand together in humanitarian causes right across the world. We are stronger if we stand together, and it says something about who we are as a country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson]

My hon. Friend raises a very good point. The Government are working with 52 different firms that have signed up to the voluntary code of conduct. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary has appointed an experienced diversity champion, Charlotte Sweeney, to review the effectiveness of the code and report back to him in the new year. My hon. Friend is right to raise the issue of Departments that employ head-hunting firms for public appointments, but it is made absolutely clear that one of the key attributes that they need to look for is diversity.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister confirm whether Labour’s target that 50% of new appointments should be women has continued, and whether the Government have removed the targets to increase the number of ethnic minorities and people with disabilities in public appointments?

[Jo Swinson]

It is very important that we address diversity in all its forms. Sadly, the previous Government did not achieve the aim of women comprising 50% of all new appointments. We are working towards achieving that by the end of this Parliament, but I think we all agree that we need to do more. The hon. Lady is absolutely right to say that other areas of diversity, including background, ethnicity and disability—a whole range of different characteristics—are also important. To get truly high-functioning teams, we need diversity in all its forms.

Immigration Bill

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather]

No, I do not accept that. This happens because of the culture of disbelief in the Home Office, and it is that culture that needs to change, yet I see nothing in the Bill that will have any impact on the quality of decision making or on how individual officials treat constituents such as mine when they go with their asylum or visa applications. In my 10 years as an MP, I have seen countless examples of this behaviour, as all Members will have done. Those of us with the highest levels of immigration casework will have seen more, but it is a source of huge frustration for many MPs that our advice surgeries are spent mostly dealing with stuff that the Home Office should be dealing with.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Lady is making some powerful points about the human cost of the way our immigration system works. Has she, too, experienced cases like those in Feltham and Heston of people who have been given leave to be here and to work but have struggled for months at places where they have been given jobs because they are waiting for documentation? Their lives, and those of their families, are on hold and they then fall into poverty.

[Sarah Teather]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point. These are the sort of people I worry will fall foul of the Bill because they struggle to provide their documentation. We know that there are a lot of people who fall through the net when they are first given refugee status and end up destitute. They make up the bulk of the people whom the British Red Cross deals with in terms of food parcels because they cannot prove their entitlement to benefits. A significant number of people have the right to stay but will struggle to be able to prove it.

Personally, I have never seen an organisation more in need of checks and balances on its own use of power than the Home Office or, indeed, its predecessor, the Border Agency. Instead, the Bill gives powers that it is not equipped, nor frankly able, to meet and powers that it cannot be relied upon to exercise properly. Where it exceeds or abuses its power, or simply fails to do the job, it will be shielded from challenge in many cases and there will be no redress whatever. The implications of the Bill cannot be understood without also placing it in the wider context of legal aid changes and proposals to restrict judicial review.

The problem is that the impact on individual lives gets lost in the grandstanding of headlines. When immigration is all about reducing numbers on a spreadsheet to meet an arbitrary cap or creating arbitrary political dividing lines and traps for opponents to fall into, the subjects of the legislation—the human beings at the centre of it—are somehow invisible. I am weary of a politics that creates and defines enemies in order to demonstrate potency but, frankly, it angers me to see politics do that at the expense of those who have the least power to change their own futures. All three Front Benches, I am afraid, are at it, including my own, scrabbling over the mantle of toughness, chasing opinion polls and, in some cases, wilfully whipping up fear and loathing in the process. It is staggeringly careless with lives and with community relationships that have been built up over a long time.

I am afraid that whatever the damage that is done by the detail of the Bill when, I dare say, it is ultimately passed, some of the worst damage has been done in our debate in the lead-up to it. The language with which this was brought forward is what really causes the damage to community relations. I remind hon. Members of the debate we had earlier about the Home Office vans. That is a case in point; it had almost no effect on the ground except to whip up real tension between communities. My constituency was one of those areas that was targeted by the vans.

Stop and Search

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend talked about the launch of the public consultation this week. This is a different thing from the report that Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary will be producing, which will provide an evidence base. We have figures already that I think make it right for us to question whether stop and search is always used appropriately. It is therefore right to say to the public, “We think this is a matter on which we want to hear the public’s views.” On the matter of what information needs to be recorded and what information will need to available under any changes that are made to the guidance and so forth, I can assure my hon. Friend that we will, of course, make it clear where information is required and where it is voluntary.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. I think all Members of the House will welcome the consultation, which I hope will put an end to the experience of many young people of repeated stop and search. But as we are approaching the summer break, can she explain the timing of the consultation and why she thinks six weeks might be long enough, bearing in mind that people may be going on leave? It gives very little time for extending the consultation out into our communities.

[Mrs May]

I encourage the hon. Lady to do just that, and I hope she will be able to ensure that in her constituency people are aware of the consultation and are able to respond. I think six weeks is an appropriate length of time for us to be able to undertake the consultation. We will then be able to come back to the House in the autumn on the basis of both the consultation and the HMIC report, and make firmer proposals to the House on stop and search going forward.

UK Border Agency

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend makes very good points. It is precisely because of the difficulty that Opposition Front Benchers have in defending their poor record on immigration that we hear them trying to go on the party political attack rather than accepting the necessary decisions to deal with our immigration system.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Home Secretary confirm her estimates of the cost of her reorganisation and whether it will be met from existing budgets?

[Mrs May]

I can assure the hon. Lady that any costs incurred in reorganisation will be met from existing budgets.

Violence against Women and Girls

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Shuker]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, because I do believe there is an issue of resources to address. It is also important to acknowledge that successive Governments have perhaps not sought to invest enough in these services, particularly in the kinds of hub and spoke models that would allow us to get into the community to engage with the people who are most vulnerable to sexual exploitation and violence. I believe that our educational bodies have a responsibility to teach and model respectful and healthy relationships for all young people.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a key point about the importance of education. Statistics suggest that 750,000 children are witnessing domestic violence each year, so does he agree that it is increasingly important that our schools play a role in ensuring that children are able to understand that what they are seeing and experiencing is not normal?

[Gavin Shuker]

My hon. Friend is knowledgeable and accurate on this point. We understand that the models we grow up with affect how we engage with the wider world. One of my particular concerns is to ensure that young people who are subjected to seeing this kind of abuse in their own circumstances do not go on to perpetuate that violence in later life.

We know that this education needs to be of high quality; to have age-appropriate content; to enable people to make informed choices; and to highlight potentially dangerous patterns of relationships or environments. It is needed across the board; it must not simply be targeted at a group we would deem vulnerable. I appreciate the views of Members across this House who feel, just as I do, that sex is a spiritual as well as emotional and physical act. There are those who, like me, believe that deep moral and ethical questions are related to issues such as the scale of abortion in this country, but to deny young people the education and the capacity to prevent themselves from finding themselves in that situation in the first place is a perverse outcome of that belief.

Education targeting the prevention of violence against women and girls is not just an issue for women and girls, so there is a need to educate both young boys and young girls about mutual respect within relationships, recognising that men and young boys can also be victims of violence and abuse. Educating both boys and girls is a key element in a preventive education. Alongside statutory sex and relationships advice, resources should be made available in schools so that support can be accessed by young people experiencing or concerned about violence and abuse. I have real concerns about the resources available to engage those at high risk of becoming victims of sexual exploitation.

We do not just need to take action in schools and education authorities. In my role as chair of the all-party group on prostitution and the global sex trade, I have been struck by the measures taken by some good local authorities to introduce strategies to tackle violence against women and girls in their own communities. Introducing measures to tackle domestic violence, sexual violence, prostitution and female genital mutilation under a comprehensive strategy, with direct support and enforcement of the law, is a real step towards the goal of a zero-tolerance approach to violence against women and girls. It would be interesting to hear the Minister’s view on whether other local authorities should also adopt such strategies to work across their own communities. If such strategies were replicated nationally across local authorities and prioritised as a matter of urgency, that could go a long way towards ensuring that vulnerable people do not fall through the cracks.

In finishing, I wish to make a few brief remarks about one of the groups at greatest risk of violence against women and girls. The alarming statistics on adults involved in prostitution who were sexually abused as children, experienced domestic violence or entered prostitution before the age of 18—the age at which they could consent—highlight the urgent need for preventive education and support services for young people at risk. According to Home Office figures, 70% of those involved in street prostitution had a history of local authority care, and nearly half report a history of childhood sexual exploitation. Highlighting issues of vulnerability and the consent of children sheds light on the continued vulnerability of women into adulthood. The legislation on commercial sexual services currently sends no clear signals about the nature of this trade—these are signals to be picked up by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. Perhaps a debate such as today’s is an important time to assess the impact that these industries have, not only on those directly providing these services or being exploited, but on our society’s attitudes towards women and girls.

In our group’s call for evidence for our inquiry into the law on prostitution, I have been struck by the fact that much of the language from those who purchase sex completely fails to challenge, and in some places continues to perpetrate, the idea that access to sex is a man’s right. In normalising and legitimising occupations in this way, we not only maintain the prevalence of an industry that will be sustained by future generations, but we communicate attitudes accepting and promoting the commoditisation of women. It is notable, for example, that violence against women involved in prostitution is part of one of the most popular video games in this country. Inherent in this attitude is the idea of the entitlement of men to pursue sexual pleasure, no matter what the cost. That attitude continues to reinforce the power imbalance at play behind many of the issues we have heard about today. We need to assess how widespread the acceptance of such—

Oral Answers to Questions

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

We are all shocked by the cases of child abuse and child grooming that we have seen. We need to ensure that the police pick up on such allegations when there is evidence and when there are concerns that something of that sort is happening, which is absolutely right. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre will continue to look at that. There is evidence from cases that have been brought to court that one vital tool in catching child abusers is the use of communications data, which is why the draft Communications Data Bill is so important.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Last year in Bedfordshire, 22 people were arrested for swearing at a police officer and 19 were charged. Is that crime better policed in our counties than in Whitehall?

[Mrs May]

No.

Domestic Violence

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Pound]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes not just a telling, but an extremely positive point. The draft universal credit regulations will be laid before the House in the next few weeks—I think that they are due when we return after the conference recess—so we are quickly approaching a crucial debate, in which we will have to discuss such matters for precisely the reason that he gave.

Many people do not seem to realise what will happen, say in the case of a woman who flees her violent male partner, if the male partner is named as the recipient of the benefit. What happens if the woman has to go to the abuser, who may still have her blood staining his knuckles, and ask him to sign the benefit over to her as a favour? Will he say that he is more than happy to co-operate and collaborate with her? No. One of the joys of child benefit—one of the most important things about it, and one of the greatest arguments for it—was that it was paid directly and solely to the woman, which is a principle that we seem to be losing.

What I have seen of the draft universal credit regulations fills me with dread, because I can see a fiscal servitude—the shackles of sterling—being locked on to women so that they cannot escape or break free, because of the complicated mechanisms that they are held in simply so that they can provide themselves with the basics, such as food and drink. Nowadays, we more and more see people turning to the charitable sector for the provision of the most basic of basics that, frankly, the state should provide.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point about where power and resources lie in households, and about how a woman may be severely disadvantaged not only through the impact of domestic violence, but through what she then finds she has entitlements or access to. I have a case in my constituency in which the male in the household changed the tenancy agreement on the house, so that the woman did not realise, until she had to flee, that she had no access to that home under the arrangements he had set up. Does my hon. Friend agree that there must be a much more holistic approach to ensuring equal access to resources in the household, not just access to the important services that have to be available in a timely fashion when somebody becomes the victim of domestic violence?

[Stephen Pound]

In her short time in this House, my hon. Friend, whom I am proud to say is my respected neighbour, has earned an enviable reputation for coming up with exactly the right expression to illuminate a problem, and she has again done that extremely well. I entirely agree with her point, but I will go slightly further. I do not think that we can resolve the problem by identifying funding streams within the family; that could stop the problem getting worse, but would not actually stop it.

[Mr Edward Leigh in the Chair]

The hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys said that he did not want the debate to become a list of statistics being trotted round the course and, as in all things, I respect him for that. When it comes to statistics, however, it is worth drawing the House’s attention to the fact that 31% of local authority funding for the domestic violence and sexual abuse sector was cut between 2010-11 and 2011-12, which is a reduction from £7.8 million to £5.4 million in—I assume—England and Wales. That figure is massive, and I would say that that huge amount is cost-ineffective.

We have heard the word “holistic” used two or three times. Let us take that approach not because it is somehow a fiscally mature and sensible way of operating but because it could save lives. We cannot tolerate a situation in which young lives can be blighted and the lives of adults destroyed. We cannot see the destruction of the future of our country because of a lack of funding, financial support and early intervention.

I again congratulate the hon. Member for Pendle on securing this debate. I look forward to the Minister’s response and to a slightly different way of addressing this issue for the sake of present and future generations.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome you, Mr Leigh, to the Chair. I echo everyone’s words of support for the work that the hon. Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) has done both in bringing this debate to the Chamber and in introducing Jane’s law. I had cause to reflect on that law myself as I had a case in my constituency of a woman whose partner had repeatedly attacked and assaulted her. The partner is still out on bail, awaiting sentencing. Having brought in that law, we must ensure that it is used to protect witnesses. As all Members know, there are some cases that keep one up at night and that one worries about and that case was certainly one of them. I spoke to the victim on a regular basis as I worked to get her rehoused and moved away from the area and from immediate harm. I was conscious that Jane’s law would have made a difference in her case.

I also welcome the work that the hon. Gentleman has done today in setting out the challenges that we face in addressing domestic violence. There is, I think, a consensus across the House that this matter needs to be a priority, not just for our criminal justice system but for our public services as a whole because of the impact that it has on so many families across our country.

May I welcome the new Minister to his role and put on record my thanks to his predecessor? We did not always see eye to eye, but I was certainly grateful for his assistance in the work that we were doing both in Walthamstow and nationally. I hope that we can help the new Minister by filling his inbox with some suggestions and proposals that he can take to his colleagues to make good on that premise of addressing domestic violence in our communities. All of us recognise that it is a very different type of crime to deal with. More than any other criminalised behaviour in our society, it involves the most repeat victimisation. Intimate violence, as it tends to get called, requires a different approach from our criminal justice and social care services. The failure of all of our services to address the matter is reflected in the high numbers of serious case reviews that involve domestic violence and in the numbers of homicides that involve domestic violence.

Many Members here have already mentioned the statistics. I am mindful of what the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) said about statistics, but it is worth recognising the scale of the challenge. It is about not just the numbers of people, predominantly women, who are killed through their relationship with their partners, but the impact on other services. In West Yorkshire alone, 10,000 calls to the 999 service were related to domestic violence. That is 20% of the total number of emergency calls that were dealt with over six months.

One of the first things that must concern the new Minister is the need to get the right data. If we are honest, we do not yet have the consistency of data that is required to understand the scale of the problem and the impact that it has. In particular, I am talking about the way in which police forces flag up intimate violence. They need consistency in capturing the data so that they can see not just repeat offenders but repeat victims. That is a huge challenge. Some police forces are proactive about such issues, but others are less so.

The police force is not the only place in which the issue of data has to be addressed. It is across a whole range of public services. In that sense, the movement towards a single definition by the Association of Chief Police Officers is welcome, but it needs to be shared across services, and people must be trained to understand what they are trying to capture, so that we can truly understand the impact of this crime.

Although nearly 750,000 cases are recorded by the police, only 100,000 ever proceed to prosecution. What is happening to those other 600,000 cases? What are we doing to address some of the causes and to understand what happens next? My first call to the Minister is for him to make that commitment about data. We need to ensure that both the public and voluntary sectors have the data necessary for us to understand the level of domestic violence that exists in our society.

I have a second call for the Minister, and we have heard many Members, especially on the Opposition Benches, making this case and I pay tribute to them. Indeed it is always a unique experience to be in the Chamber when my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) is speaking, because he brings such passion and genuine emotion to the case. We also heard my hon. Friends the Members for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) and for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) talk about the changes in our benefit system and what impact that might have on victims of domestic violence.

When we talk about this crime, we are talking predominantly about women, but I pay tribute to those in the Chamber today who have recognised that men are the victims of domestic violence as well. The concept of financial control is key to enabling people to leave abusive relationships. In the changes that the Government are making to the benefit system, there is a real danger that the ability to make that choice to leave will be restricted.

Hon. Members have already talked about universal credit. In particular, they have talked about how it will be nominated to a single person in a household, and how some 300,000 households will be affected. The decision about who gets that money will be critical to the choice about how money is spent. Child benefit is crucial to many women because it makes them financially independent. Universal credit will go much further in aggregating people’s incomes and therefore the ability of people within relationships to make choices about how money is spent. May I press the Minister to look again at this issue, and to speak to his colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions about the decision to nominate a single person? Can he look at what more can be done to stop this measure from being a source of financial control? If a single person is to be nominated will he ensure that it is the main carer within a family? We do not want to see women stuck in abusive relationships because they are not able to leave them.

I hope that the Minister is pressing his colleagues in the DWP about the way in which universal credit will be paid and the impact it could have on refuges. About 40% of the women who go into refuges tend to be dual housing benefit claimants. They can claim the money on the property they might have fled and also on the cost of staying in a refuge. Under the new provisions, such a measure will come under the benefit cap. It is not difficult to see how a woman might find herself unable to keep up a private property, and so a secured tenancy, which at some point she may wish to return to with her family once the issue about abuse has been resolved or her abuser is in prison, and to pay for a stay in a refuge, let alone pay for the food that her children need or transport costs under the cap as currently constructed. There is a real concern that it will be the cost of staying in a refuge that will fall under that system.

Refuges are a unique form of supported housing for families. First, they are about not just the individual on the claim but the dependants as well. Secondly, there are no waiting lists for refuges. Already 230 women a day are turned away from refuges in this country because we do not have enough places, so there is not that ability to plan ahead for the need that will be required. Every person who turns up at a refuge is in crisis. A refuge provides only short-stay accommodation. Under the new system, the problem will be not only that the dual housing benefit claimant may find themselves not able to pay for a refuge place but that the payment is paid to the client rather than the landlord. We can see refuges having to chase women, who are being moved around the country, for payment for their place. The work that has been done by several refuges already suggests that almost 60% of their income could be affected, which could be crucial to their future survival.

We need to do more to ensure that we have refuges. If the Minister takes away one message from this debate today it is that Opposition Members are desperately concerned that the changes through universal credit may have severe unintended consequences on the refuge movement in the UK. We may see more refuges closing and more women unable to move out of their properties. That is before we even get into the difficulties that women then face when they are in refuges and receiving support.

I am sure that the Minister is well versed in some of the debates about legal aid. Given that 230 women a week need legal aid assistance to escape an abusive partner and given the relationship that exists between being in a refuge and being entitled to legal aid, the changes could have severe unintended consequences. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North pointed out that the universal credit guidelines will come before Parliament shortly. Let me extend a hand across the House to say that we will work with the Minister to try to change those requirements, so that we can ensure that women who are fleeing from violence are not hampered by the way in which universal credit is administered.

When it comes to money, however, we are not just talking about financial freedom. Again, Labour Members have already spoken very strongly about the cuts to funding and the impact that they are having. We know that, although local authority budgets were cut by 27% on average, those organisations working with victims of domestic violence have experienced a disproportionate cut of 31%. Moreover, that figure masks a further difficulty, because many of those organisations are small organisations that operate on a shoestring; they work on very small budgets. However, we know that those organisations receiving funding of less than £20,000 a year have actually experienced, on average, a 70% cut in their funding and many of them have now disappeared. That is in comparison with those organisations receiving funding of more than £100,000 a year, which have done better.

Those cuts are also filtering through the system. Once again, I urge the Minister to make strong representations to his colleagues in the Ministry of Justice, given that we have already seen 23 specialist domestic violence courts being closed during the past year. That is despite the fact that we know the difference those specialist courts make in tackling the issue that I mentioned earlier—the number of domestic violence cases that are brought to charge. Indeed, given that only 58% of those 100,000 cases are successfully prosecuted, we need to ensure that we have a court system that understands the issues that we are dealing with and that is able to work with the victims that we are all talking about. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) has now left Westminster Hall, but he ably raised that issue about the court system.

[Seema Malhotra]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to get to a point where we will see a step change in the number of successful prosecutions of domestic violence? It cannot be right that we have such a low rate for successful prosecutions. Surely we need to look at shifting the way that we balance evidence to be in favour of those who are victims rather than adopting the default position, which seems to be taking the view that there is not enough evidence, or, “We cannot prosecute, because it’s his word against hers”? We need to say, “Let’s hunt for the truth and let’s start to see a step change”, and there should be no complacency in wanting to see a much better outcome through the justice system.

[Stella Creasy]

I absolutely agree with my colleague and, if anything, that is the second message that I hope the Minister takes away from our comments today—there needs to be a step change in how we as a society address domestic violence. Clearly, we are not getting it right at this point in time. The changes in relation to universal credit that I briefly mentioned earlier are just a microcosm—the tip of the iceberg—of the way that we need to think differently about how we deal with victims of domestic violence.

Oral Answers to Questions

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

1. What overall change in the level of crime has been identified by the British crime survey since May 2010.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

17. What overall change in the level of crime has been identified by the British crime survey since May 2010.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

The crime survey shows that overall crime has remained broadly stable since May 2010. Police-recorded crime fell 3% in the year ending December 2011 compared with the previous 12 months, but as I have told the House previously, crime is still too high, and that is why we are making a number of reforms to policing to ensure that police are free to fight crime.

[Seema Malhotra]

Over the past two years overall crime has not fallen, whereas crime fell by more than 40% under Labour. Does the Home Secretary believe that the 20% cuts to the police are partly to blame, and will she now change course to a more proportionate cuts plan of 12% over this Parliament?

[Mrs May]

The hon. Lady bases her question on a premise that I do not accept and which is not accepted by the Home Affairs Committee or, indeed, by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, which in its report on “Policing in austerity” recently stated that

“there is no evidence of a correlation between the change in number of officers and the change in total recorded crime.”