Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Stephenson and Kate Green

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Andrew Stephenson)]

Humanitarian needs are rising in Zimbabwe, due to a combination of poor and erratic rains and the deteriorating economic situation. DFID has committed £49 million to a new Zimbabwe humanitarian resilience programme, but our ongoing re-engagement depends on fundamental political and economic reform in Zimbabwe.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

T6. Further to the question by my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar), will the Government press for the United Nations group on India and Pakistan to make a fact-finding visit to Kashmir to assess the humanitarian and human rights situation there?

Domestic Violence

Debate between Andrew Stephenson and Kate Green

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

Thank you for allowing me to open the debate, Mr Williams, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I am grateful for the opportunity to debate an important topic that, sadly, I have become all too familiar with since entering Parliament. I, and all MPs no doubt, often meet the victims of domestic abuse, in constituency surgeries or other settings, and also regularly meet those who work with the victims. The topic is one of immense sensitivity, which throws up a range of different and difficult issues that make tackling domestic abuse extremely challenging, in specific cases and overall.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) and especially my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee), who had hoped to lead this debate and must take credit for securing it. Both of them will be following it with interest, and I pay tribute to their work on this important issue. I also pay tribute to the huge number of people, especially volunteers, from around the country who devote time and much more to be there for the victims of domestic violence. Their work is commendable beyond words, and I want to put on the record how highly we appreciate their work and that we recognise it in Parliament.

I hope that the debate will provide an opportunity for hon. Members to express their concerns about areas where not all is being done to protect the victims of domestic abuse. The Government are concerned about such violence and are already offering a huge amount of support. I look forward to the Minister’s response to the debate.

Domestic violence is close to my heart, because I have seen at first hand how it tears families, communities and people apart. Those who have followed my short career in Parliament will know about the Justice for Jane campaign, which has been successful in changing the law better to protect women and men who may be the victims of domestic abuse.

On 28 June 2011, I introduced a Bill to change bail laws, following the murder of Jane Clough, a nurse who lived in Barrowford in my constituency. She was murdered by her abusive partner, Jonathan Vass, for having the courage to speak to the police about the repeated rape and other abuse to which he subjected her. He had been released on bail by a judge, against the advice of the Crown Prosecution Service and the police, when he tracked Jane down and killed her, stabbing her 71 times and then slitting her throat as she lay bleeding on the ground.

My Bail (Amendment) Bill would have conferred on the prosecution a right of appeal against controversial judicial decisions to grant bail—a right that did not exist at the time. In October 2011, almost a year ago and following a hard-fought campaign, the Government agreed to support the Bill, and this year they introduced amendments to achieve its aim to protect the victims of domestic violence in future.

The provisions of my private Member’s Bill are, thankfully, now law. That was a huge achievement for Jane’s parents, John and Penny Clough, and all those involved in the Justice for Jane campaign. The courage shown by John and Penny in the face of such a terrible loss has been incredible. I raise the case to demonstrate one of the barriers, thankfully now removed, that existed for victims of domestic violence when they tried to protect themselves. I hope that this debate will shine a light on other barriers faced by victims and how the Government and we in Parliament can help them to overcome them.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman is opening such an important debate this morning, and I echo his recognition and acknowledgement of Jane Clough’s family’s fight to improve the law. Does he agree that it is shocking that as many as 20-plus incidents of domestic violence may occur before a victim has the courage and confidence to report it? Does he also agree that there is real urgency for action to address that?

[Andrew Stephenson]

I agree totally with the hon. Lady. Lancashire probation service told me only yesterday that it estimates that an average of 35 incidents of domestic violence occur before a victim contacts anyone—the police or another agency—for help.

East Lancashire has considerable support for victims of domestic violence, and I have had the benefit of visiting some of the centres that offer advice and support to victims. Pendle women’s refuge has been open for 25 years. It is run by Pendle borough council, and extended its facilities six years ago. Sixty families have been accommodated at the refuge in the past year, but there were 178 applications in the same period, with many cases involving problems such as substance misuse and severe mental health issues. Despite the problem of resources, refuge staff try to accommodate as many families as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Stephenson]

I thank the hon. Lady for that incredibly important point. The Government are doing an awful lot of work to ensure that the abuser is now made homeless, rather than the victim, because for so many years in domestic violence cases, reporting the abuse led directly to homelessness for the victim. That was the immediate consequence, and it was a huge issue associated with domestic violence that needed to be addressed.

Another concern is the uneven service around the country. As I have explained, in my area, voluntary agencies and Government agencies are working together to provide a very good service. In the north-west as a whole, we are very well supported. As a parliamentary answer in July informed the House, the north-west will have 12 Government-funded independent sexual violence advisers—ISVAs—from next year. However, London will have only eight and the north-east only six. That seems like an imbalance.

Back in January 2009, a report from the campaign group End Violence Against Women found that one in four local authorities in Britain had no specialised support services for women who had suffered violence. I hope that the Minister can provide us with an update on improved access throughout the country. Perhaps the new police and crime commissioners will want to deal with those regional imbalances when they get into office.

There is also a concern that the services available can focus solely on the woman as the direct victim of domestic abuse and often fail to take into consideration the impact on other members of the family, especially children. Research by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children estimates that 14% of children under the age of 18 will have been exposed to domestic violence in the UK and cites research studies that estimate that, in 30% to 60% of domestic violence cases, the abusive partner also abuses children in the family. Where domestic violence is present, rates of child abuse and neglect are up to 15 times higher than the national average.

[Kate Green]

The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the fact that members of the wider family are affected. Does he share my concern that one consequence of local authority funding cuts is that work with the perpetrators of domestic violence is increasingly coming under pressure and programmes are being closed? Does he agree that, as much as we work with the victim and the victim’s immediate family, we need to focus attention on preventing such violence from happening in the first place?

[Andrew Stephenson]

We definitely do. That is a valid point. One reason why I am talking in particular about the effect on children is that many of the children who see domestic violence at home and for whom that becomes almost a normal daily routine will go on to abuse their children or become violent themselves. We therefore need to consider the wider societal impacts of domestic violence in the home.

A report published in July by the Centre for Social Justice if anything paints an even worse picture than the NSPCC. The CSJ claims that 25% of children in the UK witness domestic violence. It emphasises the psychological damage caused to children and the cycle of abuse, as generations repeat that parental behaviour. It points out that almost two thirds of child witnesses of domestic abuse show more emotional or behavioural problems than the average child. The damage can extend to post-traumatic stress disorder and, less predictably, can even affect IQ levels. The CSJ claims that, on average, children with experience of domestic abuse are 7.25 points lower than others. One of the report’s authors, Dr Samantha Callan, summed it up by saying:

“The impact on children of being a witness of domestic abuse is underplayed even though they are more likely to fail at school, develop anti-social behaviour and go on to harm their own children.”

The report made several recommendations to improve children’s outcomes in domestic abuse cases, including therapeutic provision for children in schools, proactive help for children who have witnessed abuse—instead of the reactive approach of waiting for signs of mental health problems—and better training for social workers.

We have not mentioned the violence that happens within teenage relationships. Again, according to a recent NSPCC report, 25% of girls and 18% of boys report experiencing some form of physical violence from a partner, 11% of girls and 4% of boys report severe physical violence and 72% of girls and 51% of boys report some form of emotional violence from their partner.