Support for Black Victims of Domestic Abuse

Debate between Abena Oppong-Asare and Alex Sobel

Monday 28th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a customarily excellent speech on a really important issue. I gave evidence to the Macpherson inquiry over 20 years ago. A number of the recommendations in the Macpherson report were about training police on a variety of issues, but this issue was not picked up. There is a range of issues, including domestic violence, where the police do not deal with black and minority ethnic communities in the same way as they do white communities and white victims of crime. Do we not need a broad look at all those issues, and mandatory training in all those areas, including domestic abuse?

[Abena Oppong-Asare]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. The Macpherson inquiry was 20 years ago. Where are we now? Why is there no training being implemented to address these issues and support victims of domestic abuse? There is no reason it should not be implemented right now.

Sistah Space has made it clear that it is willing to work with the Government, other domestic abuse organisations and relevant bodies such as the College of Policing to develop a package of training that could be incorporated into existing training on domestic abuse. That would be relatively straightforward and would ensure that this important training is delivered to a wide range of police forces and agencies. But it requires the Government’s support to make that happen. If the Minister cannot commit to that in full, I hope she will commit to working with Sistah Space and other organisations to see what progress can be made.

I note the Government’s response to the petition states:

“To accompany the Domestic Abuse Act we will shortly publish statutory guidance for consultation that will provide further detail on how specific types of abuse can be experienced by different communities and groups, including ethnic minority victims.”

Could the Minister give us more details? It sounds as though that could be a positive step towards ensuring that agencies provide support to all victims of domestic abuse, including black women, but it is crucial that the Government work with specialist organisations to ensure that the guidance is rooted in the reality that black and other minority victims face.

I want to mention several other connected things the Government can do to support black victims of domestic abuse, and I hope the Minister will be able to respond to some of them. First, the Government should provide substantial ringfenced funding for specialist services run by and for black women and girls. Secondly, they should fund further research into the prevalence and dynamics of violence, abuse and exploitation experienced by black women and girls, in collaboration with specialist services supporting them. That should be accompanied by robust data collection for inquiries into domestic abuse, with responses collected and published by gender, race, ethnicity, age, ability and other relevant protected characteristics. Finally, the Government should ensure that all public services respond appropriately to disclosures of domestic abuse. Safe reporting mechanisms for survivors accessing vital public services must be established, including for victims with no recourse to public funds so they feel confident making disclosures without fear of immigration enforcement.

I will bring my remarks to a close as I am looking forward to hearing from colleagues. I will end by acknowledging the experiences of victims and survivors. Last week, colleagues and I heard from a survivor who experienced domestic abuse from members of their family. The survivor had two children under three years old. Despite seeking help, they were turned away by multiple councils and other agencies, each saying that it was someone else’s problem. Eventually, they were pushed back to their perpetrator. Victims and survivors may only have the energy to seek help once. That is why every agency, including councils, police forces, the NHS and third-sector organisations, must have the training skills to adequately support black women from the start. That is all that Valerie’s law seeks to do. I hope the Government will do the right thing and support it today.

Environment Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Abena Oppong-Asare and Alex Sobel

Thursday 12th March 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Abena Oppong-Asare]

You said parliamentary scrutiny.

Ian Hepburn: Yes.

Stuart Colville: I completely agree with all that. The clause gives quite a lot of power to the Secretary of State in ways that we cannot really predict, sitting here today, so we want to see a bit more structure or a few more checks and balances within that. The affirmative procedure is one way of doing that. Consultation and a requirement to talk to the experts are all helpful in that context.

Chris Tuckett: The scope of the water framework directive goes out to 1 nautical mile, so it goes into the sea. When you are talking about chemicals and where they are going, it is going to impact there as well.

[Alex Sobel]

Q The River Wharfe in my constituency and in Robbie’s has significant sewage outflows when it rains, with E. coli levels 40 to 50 times the EU bathing water limit. Only 14% of our rivers are, by EU standards, in a good ecological state. Considering that track record, do you think the Bill will improve the quality of our rivers? Chris alluded to this earlier, so perhaps she wants to respond.

Chris Tuckett: Absolutely; it needs to be managed as a system. The targets need to be there and need to bite. You talked about E. coli and bathing waters. To be fair, good progress has been made on bathing water quality, but absolutely, there are some exceptions, like the one you talk about. Stuart mentioned the temptation to use bathing waters year-round in different places—swimming in rivers and all that sort of thing—so the need is there, from a recreational point of view, to do more. The biting part of the Bill around targets is pretty crucial.

The measures around waste water management and the need for planning for waste water management are also really welcome. Obviously, Stuart will come in on that. For a long time, there has been a requirement to plan around water resources, but not around waste water management. It is necessary to plan ahead on that, and to understand what the volume of water is likely to be under climate change conditions. It will increase. Having a sewerage system that works and can cope with that kind of capacity is a big ask, but it needs to be planned for. So yes, I think there are things here that will help.

Stuart Colville: Perhaps I could add two things. I agree with all that. First, on E. coli, that speaks to my earlier point that the legislation is aimed at ecological outcomes, not public health outcomes, which is why that issue is there. For me, there is the long-term question to address—probably through the target-setting process—of what we as a society and legislators feel about that.

The second point I would make is that one of the principal causes of spills of sewage into rivers at the moment is blockages, and the main cause of those is wet wipes congealed with fat, oil and grease within the sewerage network. One of the things we are calling for is for some of the producer responsibility powers in the Bill to be used to do something about that. We know it is an increasing problem. It costs £100 million a year and it is a direct cause of several pollution incidents we have seen across the country. That is why we hope this framework will at least address that element of the cause of what you describe.

Ian Hepburn: You have alluded to the fact that we have not done desperately well in terms of achieving good ecological status for water bodies. In England, 61% of the reasons why water bodies are failing are down to agriculture, rural land management and the water industry. I believe that the Bill does a lot to address the water industry aspects; it does not seem to do very much on the agriculture and rural land use aspects of the pollution. Of the 37% of reasons for failure that are attributed to agriculture and rural land management, 85% are down to, effectively, diffuse pollution from farm land and rural land use. It is a big issue, and has been for a long time. We have not got around to dealing with it. We need join-up between the Environment Bill and the Agriculture Bill to ensure that we deal with that sector.

We have been talking about clause 81 and the need to have it framed in a way that does not allow regression. There must be a temptation somewhere down the line—not necessarily in this Parliament, but in future—to lower the bar because of the levels of failure. We need to resist that, and ensure that under the framework, that is unlikely to happen.

Environment Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Abena Oppong-Asare and Alex Sobel

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th March 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Abena Oppong-Asare]

That is very helpful; thank you.

[Alex Sobel]

Q I have just one question—I know we have had a long sitting, because of the vote. The clauses on environmental principles have been widely criticised for being creatures of policy, with many carve-outs and exclusions. Do you agree with those criticisms, and if so, what would your recommendations be to improve the Bill and ensure that we do not have carve-outs and exclusions?

Ruth Chambers: As we discussed with Deidre, the carve-outs are not helpful, because they absolve much of Government from applying the principles in the way that they should be applied. The most simple solution would be to remove or diminish those carve-outs. We do not think that a very strong or justified case has been made for the carve-outs, certainly for the Ministry of Defence or the armed forces; in many ways, it is the gold standard Department, in terms of encountering environmental principles in its work. There seems to be no strong case for excluding it, so remove the exclusions.

There are also proportionality and other limitations on how the policy statement should be taken forward. Again, we do not see a strong case for those being embedded in the law. As I mentioned, we should strengthen the duty, so that it is not just a duty to have due regard to a policy statement, which is a next-step-removed duty, but a duty in relation to the principles themselves. To repeat the point, it would be brilliant if we could see the policy statement soon, so that we can help the Department and the Government shape it into a really helpful vehicle for everybody.