Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Ratification of Convention) Bill

Debate between Andrew Smith and Eilidh Whiteford

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 16th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Whiteford]

I agree entirely that this is an extremely urgent issue. Nobody can use the excuse of parliamentary time any more, given the way that business has been collapsing in recent weeks. There is plenty of parliamentary time; what we need is political will. I hope that my Bill will be a step along that road and give us the opportunity to examine this in more detail and to push the Government to follow up their words with actions. They have said consistently that they want and intend to ratify the convention, but we have reached a hiatus, the process has stalled and the convention has now been languishing on the backburner for over four and a half years, which is far longer than Council of Europe conventions usually take to ratify. The Bill is an attempt to shift the logjam and give the Government the impetus they need to take the final steps to bring the UK into compliance.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Lady on her Bill. This is a vital matter. What does she think is holding the Government back from ratifying the convention?

[Dr Whiteford]

I have some theories, and I hope to come to those in due course, but at the end of the day a lack of political will holds these things back. The fact that so many Members are here on the Friday before we break for Christmas shows that many people recognise how critical this is.

As Members will see, this is a short and straightforward Bill that would require the Government to provide a clear timetable for ratification within four weeks of Royal Assent and require the Home Secretary to come to Parliament annually to report on our compliance with the convention. This would afford Members across the House better opportunity to scrutinise the Government’s record and plans for tackling violence against women. Ratification needs to be more than a tick-box exercise. It is a challenge for us all, as legislators and policymakers, to make sure that it works in practice to improve women’s lives. Strengthening parliamentary accountability would also improve our compliance with article 70 of the convention.

I want to turn to those areas where the UK is not yet fully compliant with the convention. The main sticking point appears to be article 44, which makes provision for countries to establish jurisdiction over an offence committed by one of their nationals outwith their territory. I am told by learned friends that extraterritorial jurisdiction can be a tricky legal area—parliamentary Clerks and civil servants visibly blanch when those magic words are spoken—but the UK already exercises extraterritorial jurisdiction in relation to dozens of serious offences in a wide range of areas, including in several relevant to the convention, such as forced marriage, trafficking, female genital mutilation and sexual offences against children. There are still a number of offences, however, including rape, sexual assault and domestic abuse, where it does not yet apply and where compliance would require changes to domestic law.

Moreover, some of those offences relate to areas of devolved responsibility in Scotland and Northern Ireland, so UK Ministers would need to work with Ministers in Holyrood and Stormont to secure the necessary legislative changes in the Scottish Parliament and Northern Irish Assembly, or agree legislative consent motions. I am pleased to say that the Scottish Government have signalled their willingness to push this forward, and I have been heartened by the support for the convention and my Bill from Northern Irish MPs across the political spectrum.

I want us to be clear about the difference that ratification would make and why it matters. A few weeks ago, the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) raised in Prime Minister’s Question Time the case of a constituent of his who—it is alleged—was raped by another British national outside the UK. If we had already ratified the Istanbul convention and integrated the provisions in article 44 into domestic legislation, the authorities here could have investigated and prosecuted that crime, and crimes like it.

Another example is that the women’s organisation the Southall Black Sisters has been working tirelessly to highlight the circumstances surrounding the death of Seeta Kaur, a UK citizen whose family believe was the victim of a so-called honour killing in India. The UK already has extraterritorial jurisdiction over the crime of murder, but the contested circumstances of Seeta’s death have made it difficult for her family to get the police here involved, even though they claim there is evidence that a serious crime was planned in the UK. Again, ratification of the convention would strengthen the law to provide unambiguous protection for those at risk of honour-based violence.

The Istanbul convention would offer significantly enhanced protection to women who spend time working overseas and those who work for airlines or on cruise ships. Many women travel abroad in the course of their professional lives, but if, for example, a colleague sexually assaults or rapes them in a country where the law is weak, they may have little or no redress. Workplace harassment policies are not designed to deal with criminal violence, nor should they be. We need to give our police and our courts the authority to hold UK nationals and habitual residents accountable for behaviour abroad that would constitute a serious crime at home.

We already exercise these powers in relation to child sex offences, but not sexual offences against adult women. We exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction in relation to terrorist offences, but not to those terrorised behind closed doors. It is important that we send a strong signal that crimes such as rape, sexual assault and domestic abuse committed by UK nationals will be taken seriously wherever they occur in the world. The key point is that the very existence of extraterritorial jurisdiction and the possibility of sanction will act as a powerful deterrent and help end the impunity with which some of the most violent perpetrators evade justice. These people should have nowhere to hide.

The Government need to take the Istanbul convention out of the bottom drawer, where it has been filed for far too long in a pile marked “too complicated, too difficult, too low a priority,” and we need to work together, across the House, across Departments and across the devolved Administrations to move things forward.

Crisis Loan Funding

Debate between Andrew Smith and Eilidh Whiteford

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to debate crisis loans and the changes to the social fund ushered in in the Welfare Reform Act 2012. My primary purpose in requesting today’s debate was not to rehearse arguments we have already had on the substance of those changes, although a number of issues remain unresolved and undoubtedly inform today’s debate, but to seek clarity from the Government about the implementation of the new system and assurances about the funding allocations accompanying the policy changes.

Although social fund crisis loans and community care grants will disappear from April next year, the need for emergency and one-off support for people on low incomes will not. We know that funding will be made available to local authorities in England and the devolved Administrations in Scotland and Wales to provide discretionary social assistance, but we do not yet know how that will work in practice or how local authorities and devolved administrations are expected to deal with the shortfalls. Questions raised throughout the process on the merits of ring-fencing the social fund allocations remain acute. We need to know what guidance the Government will issue to support implementation and whether resources will be allocated to establish a replacement system.

In terms of contextualising our discussion this afternoon, it is worth drawing attention to the important role that social fund crisis loans and community care grants play in our welfare system. They act as a safety net for people on low incomes who face unexpected or unplanned costs and help people to acquire essential furniture or equipment if they are setting up home in very straitened circumstances.

As the debate about crisis loans progressed last year, the Government repeatedly relied on the argument that the cost of crisis loans was spiralling and needed to be brought under control. Back in March last year, I suggested to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions that the rise in the uptake of such loans was largely attributable to the recession. Given the ongoing economic turbulence, financial insecurity and high unemployment of the past few years, that might seem to most of us to be a no-brainer, but the Secretary of State insisted that the cost of crisis loans was rising prior to the recession.

I am glad to have the opportunity this afternoon to scrutinise that claim in more depth. It is clear that there is a link between the rise in demand for crisis loans and the onset of the financial crisis. We should be honest enough to face up to that. Members who have followed the issue will be aware that the Department for Work and Pensions annual reports on the social fund have been published from 2006-07 onwards only. If we use 2006 as our pre-recession baseline, as the Government appear to have done, there is clearly a dramatic year-on-year increase in both the number of claimants and the amount spent on crisis loans as the recession began to bite.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate on a very important subject. Underlining the point she makes, does not the DWP’s own research, “Local Support to Replace Community Care Grants and Crisis Loans for Living Expenses in England”, show that there is indeed a close correspondence between flows on to jobseeker’s allowance and the number of crisis loan applications?

[Dr Whiteford]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a salient point, which backs up the point I am making.

I want to look back a little further, using information that had to be obtained from the Government under a freedom of information request by a non-profit company called Full Fact. Looking at that, we can see that, in reality, prior to 2006-07 and the start of the banking crisis, the amount spent on crisis loans was remarkably stable between 2000 and 2005-06. During that period, the gross amount spent on crisis loans did not fluctuate—up or down—by more than 5%, and spending dropped in 2003-04 and the following year. Although overall there was a slight upward trend prior to 2007, it would be misleading to compare that with the dramatic increase in applications and expenditure once people started to experience hardship, as work dried up and costs for basic foods and heating started to rise. I am concerned that we are still in that position and that we can expect demand to continue to rise for as long as the economic turmoil continues.

I am struck by briefings from Citizens Advice Scotland and others that outline the wide range of circumstances in which people try to access the social fund. Those seeking crisis loans and community care grants include people moving into independent living and those who need basic furniture to set up home after a family breakdown or a period of homelessness. They also include people with employment problems, those with complex benefits claims, who are caught in the quagmire of the system with no immediate source of money for food or heating until their claim is resolved, and those who incur unexpected travel costs due to the illness or hospitalisation of a close relative.

Those eligible for crisis loans face a wide range of circumstances, but what they all have in common are cash flow problems, compounded by an underlying low income. That is a temporary state of affairs for some, but some others, such as those who are disabled or have long-term health problems, have little financial resilience to deal with unexpected costs. They have limited means to absorb financial shocks, such as the cooker or fridge breaking down or the aftermath of exceptional events such as burst pipes or a break-in. Burst pipe problems came home to me in the past couple of very severe winters. People living in homes that are not well heated are often those who would particularly struggle if faced with having to redecorate or get a new carpet. Such events are not only a burden on those on very low incomes, but on anybody living on a modest income who has to count the pennies.