Domestic Abuse Bill (Second sitting)

Alex Norris Excerpts

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th October 2019 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We are into the last four minutes, so we must have short questions and short answers.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q Good afternoon, Zoe. You have been in your role at HMIC throughout the period of the domestic violence disclosure scheme—Clare’s law. How would you characterise its usage over the years and today?

Zoe Billingham: It is patchy, again, in terms of not just right to know, but need to know. We encourage forces. Each year, we have identified the patchy use, knowledge and understanding of Clare’s law as something that forces have responsibility to do more about in terms of greater publicity and awareness-building. It is another one of those powers that the police have and that are available to them, but that are too often used inconsistently.

[Alex Norris]

Q Do you think there are tools or avenues open to us through the Bill to raise that tide?

Zoe Billingham: Obviously, putting this on to a statutory footing will help, but two other things need to happen in conjunction with that. First, it needs to be publicised effectively in forces and across the broader population. Secondly, it is absolutely imperative that forces have sufficient resources to deal swiftly and effectively with what we suspect will be an increased number of requests. Our concern is that there might be a lot of local publicity about, “Your force will do this”, or, “Come forward and ask this”, only for victims to be let down because forces have not geared themselves up with the right resources. That would be our word of caution, but as I say, putting it on a statutory footing is welcome.

[Alex Norris]

Q To turn to the role of the commissioner, you mentioned that you can recommend that forces make those changes but you cannot command them. The commissioner will be a big ally for you in making similar public statements about the lack of satisfaction about certain local arrangements that will create significant public pressure for reform. Do you have any reflections on the commissioner’s role or ways that we could seek to improve it or its relationship with you through the Bill?

Zoe Billingham: We welcome the introduction of the commissioner’s role. I have met her briefly. We need to ensure that we, as an independent inspectorate, work closely alongside the commissioner, that we do not duplicate our efforts, and that our learning from inspections is passed to her and vice versa, so that we can continue to set the expectation that is required of police forces. I expect us to work in close concert on that.

[Victoria Atkins]

Q On the point about independence, questions have been asked today about the commissioner reporting to the Home Office. You are appointed by the Home Office, or HMIC is. What are your thoughts on your independence?

Zoe Billingham: I would say that we are independent. As you know, Minister, we make recommendations without fear or favour. We are very happy to make recommendations directed at the Home Office and have often done so in our work around domestic abuse. We expect action to be taken not only by police forces or police and crime commissioners but by Departments. I feel extremely independent in my role. I suspect that that will be reflected in the role of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner as well. The fact that I have a relationship with the Home Office does not undermine my personal statutory independence as an HMI or our organisation’s independence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

Q This witness was requested by Plaid Cymru, but I will step into the shoes of Ms Saville Roberts and ask a general question. How will you work together with the Domestic Abuse Commissioner to maximise the impact of the two roles across Wales?

Nazir Afzal: I met with her yesterday, and I very much welcome her. I think she is sitting behind us right now. Obviously, there are restrictions on what she can do: there are devolved areas for the Welsh Government, and she is not permitted to comment on or analyse those areas. There are reserved areas where she can. We agreed yesterday to collaborate, and I know we will do that from here on in. There are opportunities for the sharing of good practice, and there are opportunities for commissioning joint research and things like that. I have no doubt whatsoever that our relationship will be very fruitful.

[Alex Norris]

Q When we looked at this in the Home Affairs Committee, we made the final judgment, after a lot of back and forth, to pursue a Welsh approach—to introduce an Act to deal with violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence, as was done in Wales. That is at the nub of the conversation about whether there needs to be a gendered definition. Whenever that is raised, there is the obvious reply about not missing out male victims and survivors. How does it work in Wales? What comfort can you give us that a gendered approach is practical but works for everybody?

Nazir Afzal: We live in the real world, and it is acknowledged that 84%, or thereabouts, of victims are female. Much of the men-on-men abuse, for example, is men abusing, and the vast majority of perpetrators are male. When you recognise that, it does not mean that you ignore male victims. The Welsh Government have been working closely with organisations that support male victims, and I have no doubt that that will continue. Being one thing does not mean that you have to stop being another. That should not cause any problem for us in England and Wales, because it certainly has not caused any problems in Wales.

[Alex Norris]

Q What positives has it brought?

Nazir Afzal: There is a substantial learning. For example, there are people working in the male victim sector who previously felt that they were being ignored and not listened to and that perhaps—I think this was underlying your question—they were second-class victims. What they have picked up from those who are suffering has informed the Welsh Government’s work in relation to female victims. There is substantial good practice in that area, which perhaps would not have been picked up had we not engaged with them in the way that we are doing.

[Gillian Keegan]

Q I am quite intrigued by this role. Will you give us some examples of how it has helped to improve the response to domestic abuse in Wales, and how that might be seen from the viewpoint of the victim or survivor?

Nazir Afzal: Do you mean the national advisor role?

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[Sarah Newton]

Q I was thinking along slightly different lines—sorry if I did not make myself clear. Again in my constituency, there is another Big Lottery-funded youth work-based project where young people are coming to realise that they are living in a home with domestic abuse and violence, whereas before they did not really understand that that was what was going on. The youth workers are there to make sure that the parents have a conversation and that they are being supported to address their relationship issues. That is more what I was thinking of. Is that something we should be looking at, so that rather than the child being identified as being in an abusive home, it is more that the child themselves identifies that they live in an abusive home? What support can we then give to the parents?

Sally Noden: Absolutely. We have to then be very mindful about making sure that we are not keeping children in the abusive relationship, and about whether the parents are willing to do that piece of work or whether someone will continue to be controlling. It is really important to have that open dialogue, and name it. There are a number of projects, such as the Helping Hands project, that you can work with children on, and I know of a number of youth work projects working with young people, but you are right to ask whether they are really doing the joining up. We need to look at that further.

[Alex Norris]

Q What do you think are the implications for children of a proposed legal duty on local authorities to provide accommodation-based support?

Eleanor Briggs: I have touched on that already. Although we really welcome the duty and see it as a step forward, we think that, as it stands, it is not adequate and will not provide the support that children and young people, and adult victims and perpetrators, need. We welcome the focus in the duty as drafted on children’s support, and we welcome the fact that children’s social care will sit on the board, although we would like to see DFE on the national steering group as well.

We need to face up to the reality that most victims will not be in a refuge. That is a positive thing—people should not need to leave their home to get support. It seems logical to us that if you are getting all the local partners together, including children, to look at an issue and how they are going to respond to domestic abuse, you should not limit that to accommodation-based support. It should be a holistic, expanded duty where they can look at what support we need in the community as well.

There is a particular concern about refuges and the amount of support, because of the fact that people are being turned away and that children are being turned away. From what Sally has said, and from what we see in our own research with Stirling University, we know that those issues are also there with community-based services. Currently, there is a real postcode lottery for access. Research that we did with Stirling University and local authorities showed that in two thirds of areas there were barriers to children and young people accessing community services. Also in two thirds of areas the funding issues that we have already spoken about were present, with projects being funded by unstable funding streams and not knowing what their future was. In 10% of local authorities, there were actually no services for children and young people, and only two had services for children in the early years. There is a real problem around adequate services for children and young people in the community, which the Domestic Abuse Commissioner picked up this morning.

The duty is a real opportunity, which we welcome, but to do its job properly, it needs to be widened. In that research with Stirling University, local authorities said that there is an absence of guidance, that they are not sure what they are supposed to be providing, and, unusually, that they would welcome a duty to give them that clarity about what is wanted. Of course, they will need it to be properly funded, but having that clarity would be a real step forward for everyone.

I have already addressed our fear that unintentionally the duty as it stands might have a negative impact on some of those vital community services for children and young people, particularly given the funding pressure that we know local authorities are under. MHCLG has said that the duty will not have an impact on community-based services, but no detail was provided about how or why that is the case. We therefore echo the Joint Committee’s recommendation that the duty needs to look at how community-based support can be provided. We know from the services that Sally provides how important that support is in helping children to recover and preventing further abuse in the next generation.

[Alex Norris]

Q Is anywhere doing it really well at the moment? Postcode lotteries have winners as well as losers. Does anywhere model the sort of thing that you are talking about?

Eleanor Briggs: Yes. The research that we did with Stirling has three different case studies of how local authorities are operating. One is high functioning, one is doing okay, and one is a really poorly functioning local authority. We will happily share that to show you how the different models are working. We hope that through an expanded duty everyone could get up to that high-functioning model.

[Luke Graham]

Q My question builds on those of some of my colleagues regarding how children who experience domestic abuse link with potential fostering services, the Department for Work and Pensions, and future education opportunities. Having had a number of constituents and some family go through a similar process, I know that there is a lot of opportunity to fall through gaps. What, in your view, are the elements of best practice? If they are not in the Bill already, we can try to add them. Certainly, we can share such best practice more widely, supporting an individual in an abusive situation and then connecting them with DWP services, education and other opportunities.

Sally Noden: I can talk about a case study. I think this will answer your question—tell me if it does not. Within our service, we had a referral of a sibling group. There is a waiting list, and by the time of the referral one of the children had been removed—in fact, all three of them had been removed and one was in a foster placement on their own. We continued with that work; our original piece of work was with the foster carer and the young person.

We linked up with children’s social care and with the foster carer, and we met with mum, because the young child was potentially going to go back home—so we linked up in terms of what sort of therapeutic support we could offer this young person. In fairness, children’s social care linked up with us as well and ensured that we were speaking to the right people. We needed to speak to the foster carer. We might have spoken only to mum, or we might not have spoken to her.

The big piece of work that we did with that young person was trying to work out their emotional responses to the uncertainty that they were going to go through. That was a huge piece of work, because they did not know whether they were going to go home. At one point, the courts were looking at whether dad was a potential caregiver. Dad had been the perpetrator of domestic violence towards mum. We had to do some work, although the child was not really in recovery because they still had lots of uncertainties; they really needed some therapeutic support in working out their emotions and their lack of knowledge about what was going on.

I do not know whether that quite answers your question. We ensured that we connected up, and doing so has to be everybody’s responsibility. It is the same with adult services. Often you see the adult presented, and you do not connect up whether the child will have to move school, and what will happen to them and their education. That is why it is so important to have children named as victims in the Bill, because people then have to connect it up, from all services.

Eleanor Briggs: I would add that if we got a wider duty, looking more broadly than accommodation-based services, that would help because you would have the board and representatives from all relevant partners across the local authority on that board looking at their joined-up response. That would get them talking, and would be such an opportunity. If they were looking more widely than just at accommodation, they would pick up on those issues.