Domestic Violence

Debate between Andrew Stephenson and Rushanara Ali

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[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.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the increase in domestic violence among teenagers is of great concern and that the Government need to take that issue much more seriously? Given the cuts in local authority funding, which are having an impact on voluntary organisations and local services, I ask the Minister, whom I welcome to his new role, to look into the issue. It is vital that we provide sensitive and appropriate support to the very young who are facing domestic violence. They are often not noticed, and the agencies are not sensitised in dealing with those issues.

[Andrew Stephenson]

I agree with the hon. Lady on that point. The key, though, rather than the funding of services, is looking at the definition of domestic abuse and redefining it to include younger people, because quite often they are completely missing from the Government strategies designed to deal with this problem.

With regard to adult women who are subjected to domestic abuse, Jo Wood, MBE, who runs the rape and sexual abuse centre for women in Merseyside and has worked closely with Jane Clough’s parents since Jane’s tragic murder, makes the point that domestic abuse and violence come in many forms and do not affect a certain type of person. As Jo puts it,

“so much of domestic violence is hidden. There is still a perception that it only happens to certain types of women—but domestic violence is no respecter of class and some of the hardest to reach groups of women are those not naturally engaged with other services—they are more often victims of the type of domestic violence that does not leave bruises but can kill just as effectively in other ways.”

One of the main challenges thrown up by all this is to engage all the services that may be the first to come across domestic violence in looking out for and knowing how to deal with the problem when they see it. There is no guarantee that the first number that a victim calls will be 999, so it may well not be a police officer who is the first person to come across the abuse. As a Member of Parliament, I am sometimes the first port of call—for example, in forced marriage cases. There are many opportunities for people to break the silence around domestic abuse, but we all need to be ready and to understand the challenges when it is us as MPs, or doctors or teachers, who are the first port of call.

I do not want to take up much more time, but I think that it is important to bear in mind the impact of domestic violence on homelessness, as the current campaign by St Mungo’s, “Rebuilding Shattered Lives”, reminds us. For very many victims of abuse, including children experiencing sexual abuse at home, homelessness is their immediate solution. In Pendle, we have the Calico Partnership, run by Calico Housing—a so-called floating support service that provides support to vulnerable people, including the victims of domestic violence, who are not at a particular address.

On a final note of concern, although any debate about domestic violence will inevitably focus on women, who make up the majority of victims of domestic abuse, it is essential to note that men are often victims, too. They are victims of 10% of forced marriages in the UK and make up a quarter of the victims of domestic abuse. I therefore welcome the Home Office fund, launched late last year, to support male victims of domestic and sexual violence. I hope that we hear more about supporting men.

To sum up, it might be helpful to remember and spell out the scale of the problem that we are talking about today. The latest statistics from the British crime survey show that, every year in the UK, more than 1 million women suffer domestic abuse, more than 300,000 are sexually assaulted and 60,000 are raped. According to the survey, through the course of their lives, 27% of women and 17% of men had experienced domestic abuse from a current or former partner after the age of 16. That is equivalent to 4.3 million women and 2.7 million men—a total of 7 million direct victims of domestic violence in the UK today.

As is widely quoted, two people are killed by their current or former partner each week in England and Wales. One of those was my constituent, Jane Clough, who paid the ultimate price for speaking out against her abuser. Clearly, domestic abuse and violence is a huge problem in Britain today. The voluntary sector is doing all that it can in places like Pendle and elsewhere. The Government are clearly also willing to do as much as they can to help to bring extra support to the victims of domestic violence. I welcome the opportunity to open the debate and thank the Minister in advance for his contribution on how the Government plan to support the victims of domestic violence in the UK.