Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 5th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, the arrival of this Bill in the House, slow as it has been, is a huge victory for campaigners—something that must not be forgotten. That a right-wing Government should plan to acknowledge the many ways abuse can occur within the family, not just physical violence, is really radical progress. Recognition of the reality and seriousness of physical violence within the family little predates the start of this century, the early history of which the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, set out. A hashtag sums up my point: #CampaigningWorks.

Victories inspire and encourage. Despite everything else going on, like many other noble Lords have noted, I have seen my inbox fill up quicker with briefings and proposals for improvements to this Bill than any other. That is where I get to the inevitable “but”: this crucial Bill should, and can, be much stronger to address the many issues of inequality, poverty and powerlessness that Covid-19 has exposed and amplified. As the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, acknowledged with commendable frankness earlier, previous legislation has been inadequate. We need to get this right.

My noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb has already addressed many issues and I will not repeat those. Top of my list is “no recourse to public funds”—the immigration status that can effectively trap victims in abusive relationships. Only 5% of refuge places are available to women with “no recourse to public funds” status. The Step Up Migrant Women campaign makes many important points about how abusers can use immigration status and the threat of deportation against their victims. The law, and the Government’s hostile environment, must not be collaborators in domestic abuse. All services must be available without discrimination or danger; that is a fundamental principle of the Istanbul convention.

Another familiar theme is the discriminatory nature of universal credit. As our House expert, the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, outlined, its household basis is profoundly dangerous and, of course, its level inadequate. At a minimum, there should be a requirement in the Bill to ensure that separate payments are made by default and advances paid as grants to survivors of domestic abuse. All welfare changes—and the current system—should be assessed for their impact on abuse victims and the possibility of escape, and the obvious problems presented by the benefits cap should be ended.

Employers too, as the TUC stresses, need to have a statutory duty to support affected staff, including provision of a period of paid leave. But the only way to ensure that everybody has the resources they need to escape an abusive relationship is an unconditional payment to meet their needs: a universal basic income.

However, services would still be needed. As Women’s Aid notes, there is a 30% shortfall in the number of refuge spaces, measured against need, and 64% of people referred in 2018-19 had to be turned away. Funding for specialist, dedicated services, both residential and in community, needs to be long term and secure, and guaranteed in the Bill. The market approach, of making effective, in-place services bid again and again for contracts, is enormously wasteful and destructive.

What is also lacking in the Bill is a requirement for all publicly funded services to make trained inquiries into current and historical domestic abuse and sexual violence standard practice, as the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, highlighted. Also, far more needs to be done in the Bill to ensure that family courts are fully aware of, and acting on, the risks and dangers that domestic abusers present. A Ministry of Justice panel concluded that the presumption of contact should be “urgently reviewed”. That has been started, but there is already ample evidence of the need to act. As a mother told that inquiry:

“It is not correct to assume, before investigation, that somebody will further a child’s welfare just because they share his/her genes.”


While we are talking about protecting children, I draw the House’s attention to the so-called “smacking bans” in Scotland and Wales, and note that the Bill could be an ideal opportunity to introduce that to England.

Finally, I associate myself with the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws: moments of change are rare and should be seized.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

I now call the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 25th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I take a moment to praise the powerful speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, with which I entirely concur.

As a Green, being lobbied from a wide variety of perspectives on the linked Amendments 2 and 4 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, the obvious place to start was with the evidence, so I asked the House of Lords Library for a survey of the peer-reviewed research. The conclusions of that evidence—the concern that the concept of parental alienation had been dangerously overdeveloped and overused—were clear. An entire issue of the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law is dedicated to this subject. The introduction states that,

“experts in the field of domestic and family violence have expressed serious concerns regarding the recourse to the concept of parental alienation by family court and child protection services. In the context of domestic and family violence, women may have well-grounded reasons to want to limit father-child contact … However, with a ‘parental alienation’ lens, women’s and children’s concerns are likely to be seen as invalid and as a manifestation of the mother’s hostility and alienating behaviours.”

That quote, and my views, reflect the concerns expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and I also associate myself with her concerns about the current uses in the courts. I support her call for the removal of the reference to parental alienation in the draft statutory guidance for the Bill. That is not the conclusion of just one journal; it is reflected in other articles in a range of journals, including the Family Court Review, Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, and the Journal of Child Sexual Abuse.

The introduction from the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, is an atypical account. The whole basis of claims of parental alienation is, in general, highly gendered. It claims that what women are saying cannot be trusted and relied upon. The pervasiveness of this was also evident in the conclusions of the brilliant Cumberlege report into medical devices and practices causing harm mostly to female patients and their concerns not being listened to.

That is the evidence, but I also want to go to fundamental principles. I believe in trusting individuals, in believing their capacity to make choices and decisions for themselves. That is a foundation of Green political thought. Inherent in the claims of parental alienation is the assumption that children can be turned against one parent by another, an assumption reflecting the hypodermic syringe theory of communication: that a message delivered will be 100% absorbed, believed and acted upon. This is a false consciousness argument, a claim that people do not understand their own circumstances and situations. Trusting individuals includes trusting, and listening to, children. Failure to do that has been a huge issue in many recent, tragic child sexual abuse scandals.

Votes at 16 is a long-term Green Party policy, but I regularly speak to school and community groups much younger than that who have very clear views and understandings that they have developed by themselves, through thought, research and consideration. The exam-factory model of schooling, to which successive Governments have been so attached, has not succeeded in destroying this. I believe very strongly that children need to be consulted and listened to by the courts and professionals when decisions are being made about their lives.

This brings me finally to acknowledge that we are all shaped by our own lives and experiences and should be open about and declare them. There is no such thing as an unbiased observer—in science, social science or politics. I know about this from personal experience. As a child, I was subjected to an attempt by a grandparent to alienate me from other members of my family. I rejected that, turned against it, understood what was being done to me and resisted from a very young age. In today’s debate, I will be listening to and relying on the peer-reviewed evidence, but also reflecting my own life understanding, in speaking against the inclusion of parental alienation in the Bill, because the whole approach fails to listen to women and children particularly and is not based on evidence.

[Lord Cormack (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I begin with an apology: I was unable to take part at Second Reading of this important Bill, a Bill on which I, like others, congratulate the Government. Unlike much of our discussion and debate in this House, this is a real debate, with passionate views, strongly and sincerely held, being expressed on both sides of the argument.

I come to this from a background of 40 years as a constituency MP. Throughout that time, I held frequent and regular advice surgeries—at least a couple a month. I was always most distressed and least able to help when people brought their parental and marital difficulties to me. Whenever I saw people to discuss these things, I became convinced that, in almost every case, the victims were the children. When there is a separation or break-up of a marriage, long-term relationship or anything else, it is the children who always suffer, regardless of the “blame” attached to either side. Other noble Lords will have shared these experiences, which were the most difficult—indeed impossible—to resolve adequately, properly and fairly.

Some years ago, when I was in the United States with the Foreign Affairs Committee of another place, I met someone who felt passionately about this issue. In the margins of our meetings, she explained to me the cause that she was championing and gave me some of the details of why she was doing so. That person was the wife of our then American ambassador, Sir Christopher Meyer, and is now our much-admired colleague in your Lordships’ House. She spoke today with passionate intensity; it was a very moving speech.

I was minded to say that I would of course support these amendments. I support so much of what is behind them, but I cannot ignore the powerful speeches from the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Helic, or from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, a few moments ago. I am very persuaded by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who knows perhaps more than any of us about marital problems and difficulties from her work in the family court. Although she spoke so briefly but movingly, this is something we must not dismiss.

I wonder whether the Bill is the right vehicle at the moment. I am not saying that I am persuaded that it is not; I shall talk and read more after today’s debate, but one body is frequently derided in the modern age: the royal commission. I wonder whether a royal commission to look into these things, to weigh the conflicting academic and other evidence, might not offer a positive and helpful way forward. There is no doubt that both my noble friends Lady Meyer and Lady Helic would be more than well equipped to give powerful evidence to such a body—as would others; we have all had representations on both sides of the argument.

There is nothing worse than polluting the mind of a child and weaponising and indoctrinating a child, particularly doing it with the intention of discrediting the other parent. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to enjoy very long marriages and see our children likewise enjoy long marriages have no real idea of just how devastating the sort of situation that my noble friend Lady Meyer described can be. We can only listen with sympathy and regard. We can empathise to the best of our ability, but we have not been there and we do not know that. However, I think that it would be very sensible for a royal commission to look into this. Royal commissions do not always have to, in the words of the late Lord Wilson, take minutes and sit for years. A small group of very experienced lawyers and others could pronounce on this in a fairly short timescale.

For the moment, I reserve my position on this amendment. I want to listen to what others say in this debate and when we come to Report, but I ask my noble friend who will reply from the Front Bench at least to reflect on the suggestion I have put forward and see whether it offers us a way to achieve what my noble friend Lady Meyer would have us achieve without some of the dangers talked about so powerfully by the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and my noble friend Lady Helic.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, and her powerfully argued and richly detailed speech. I plan to be brief, as the case for these amendments, which collectively address a lack of comprehensiveness in the Bill, has already been made quite clearly.

Amendment 8 in this group, in the name of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and to which I have attached my name, addresses forced marriages and abuse within them. The noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, has perhaps previewed some of the responses we might expect from the Minister in saying that many of the issues raised here are covered by other Acts. However, it is worth noting, as many noble Lords did in their first speeches, particularly on the second group, how important and ground-breaking this Bill is. It is taking us on to new ground and covering issues and areas around criminal and abusive activities that may be partially covered in other Acts, but not with the same strength and width.

I will also briefly mention Amendment 9 on domestic servitude. It made me think of a visit I made many years ago to Migrant Rights’ Network, where, sadly, I met an early victim of the hostile environment—someone clearly in need of asylum but who had been denied it and found themselves living in a household situation that they regarded as a family, domestic situation but was clearly effectively an abusive employment situation. It is really important that we make sure the Bill covers those kinds of situations, because the line between domestic and employment is not always as clear-cut as one might expect.

It is really important that this Domestic Abuse Bill is as comprehensive as possible. As written, it is very powerful; I am confident that, when it leaves your Lordships’ House, it will be even more powerful and effective. It is important that that protection is extended to as many people as possible. Structures of households are many and varied. We need to make sure they are covered as best we can.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and to contribute for the first time at this stage of proceedings. I would like to pause for a moment and congratulate the previous Prime Minister, Theresa May, who introduced the Bill in its early stages in, I think, 2019. As she said at the time, this is a landmark piece of legislation, and I am delighted to see it progressing today.

The noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, powerfully and effectively made the case for why carers should potentially be considered as personally connected. I lend my support to the strong terms in which she expressed that. However, I will focus my main remarks on the amendments expertly moved and spoken to by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, who speaks with great authority from her years of experience at the highest level in the family courts.

I would like to put a question to my noble friend. The Explanatory Notes and the Bill itself refer to a number of other pieces of legislation that are being amended and are therefore within the remit of the Bill, which is all to the good. Could my noble friend, in summing up, say whether there is a reason why the Modern Slavery Act and other pieces of legislation, to which the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, referred in speaking so eloquently to her amendments, were not included and the subject not brought within the remit of the Bill? I am thinking in particular of modern slavery.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 27th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester [V]]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for proposing Amendment 152, which it is my privilege to co-sponsor, and, indeed, for her excellent speech in opening the debate on this group of amendments. I also look forward to the speech from the noble Lord, Lord Best, who knows more about housing matters than anyone it has ever been my pleasure to work with.

This amendment concerns the application of universal credit, so perhaps I need to say at the outset that the notion of a unified benefits system is one that I and, I suspect, my right reverend and most reverend friends on these Benches will heartily endorse. The mix and mess of the separate systems that it replaced was well overdue for retirement. There are, of course, proper questions about the level of such benefits and what caps, if any, should generally apply if we are to maintain a proper incentive to find work. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, indicated, those are for another day.

The amendment is simply about how far rules designed for the general context can safely be applied to the very specific circumstances of victims of domestic abuse and their dependants without those rules themselves becoming abusive. As a priest and, for two decades, a bishop in the established Church and as chair of numerous housing associations and housing charities over many years, I have seen all too often the enormous obstacles that lie ahead for anyone, especially a woman with children, fleeing domestic abuse. Too many too often give up and return to a place of damage and danger. Too many who escape face long periods in temporary and unsuitable accommodation, often beyond the point when they need the particular support services offered there. Sadly, too many die at the hands of their abuser.

The overriding purpose of the benefits system and of universal credit as its linchpin must be to help victims to make the transition for themselves and their children from the place of abuse via such short-term specialist accommodation as they require and into a settled home where they can begin to regain some normality in their lives. Only then can children be settled into schools with some hope of permanence, and a mother know what pattern of work will be practicable alongside her parenting responsibilities.

Capping as a feature of the benefits system was introduced primarily to encourage the take-up of employment. While some abuse victims have somehow managed to continue a successful work career—admirably so, even while being grossly mistreated at home—as we have heard in numerous speeches in this debate, it is all too common for a controlling partner to restrict or prevent their victim from accessing finance and the job market.

UK benefit rules already recognise that a woman fleeing abuse may not be in a position to seek work immediately. We cannot logically combine that proper yet modest degree of latitude with the blunt imposition of a benefit cap. As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, the principle that different levels of benefit should apply is already accepted when it comes to specialist accommodation.

What this amendment seeks to do is extremely modest. It would allow a breathing period, while a new household was being formed, during which more lenient rules would be applied. I know that the plight of women fleeing abuse is dear to the heart of the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and I am grateful to her for steering this Bill through your Lordships’ House. I would be even more grateful were she able to offer some assurances that Her Majesty’s Government will look again at how the benefits system interfaces with our efforts to prevent domestic abuse and then propose specific amendments to that end.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I must begin, as others have, by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, both for tabling these amendments and for her excellent and comprehensive introduction to them. I shall speak to Amendment 34, in her name and signed also by the noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Sherlock. I also offer the Green Party’s strong support for Amendments 150, 152, 153 and 190. It is a pity that the systems of your Lordships’ House do not allow more than four signatures and so a chance to show the full breadth of political support for all amendments, particularly these very important ones.

I shall treat the amendments as a group because they very much fit together. I want to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for her reference, in relation to Amendment 153, to the bedroom tax. It is worth highlighting again, in the age of Covid-19, the pernicious effects of forcing siblings into sharing rooms, with the impossibility of self-isolating should that be needed. Where households are fleeing domestic abuse, we should think about the impact that being forced to share rooms might have.

The noble Baroness said that the Government had a moral duty not to facilitate abuse, which she indicated was acknowledged. Even if we look at this issue simply on a financial scale, as some might want to do, we need to consider that the costs of keeping victims of domestic abuse and children in those families in situations of domestic abuse are enormous.

Amendments 150 and 152, which propose that the advance need not be repaid and that the benefit cap be not applied, relate to policies which are hugely damaging to everybody affected by them. Let us think about the domestic abuse situation. Others have focused on the negative impacts; I would invite the Committee to consider the positive impacts of the amendment. If the Government were to give way and this amendment were to be adopted, just think of the relief and the improvement in lives created for victims fleeing domestic abuse by being able to get that modest sum of money, not as an advance but as a payment that could meet essential needs in those five weeks before universal credit kicked in, with no debt burden applied afterwards as a result. If we were to think about simple measures that could be taken at very modest cost, that would be a great case study.

The benefit cap is a hideous, populist, nonsensical measure that plays to the worst of the tabloids. It is often suggested that people would not have children if the benefit cap were applied, but for those fleeing domestic abuse, in almost all cases, when they chose to bear those children, this would not have been at the forefront of their mind.

On Amendment 34, to which I have attached my name, there is a matter that I particularly want to address. In some ways, it could be argued that calling for a report on the impact of universal credit should be unnecessary, but it becomes obvious when thinking about the underlying assumption of universal credit being paid as a household payment. The assumption is that couples work in unison and unity, but that may well not be the case, and not only where domestic abuse happens. It is not reasonable to assume that all money that goes into a household is equally available, or available according to need, to all members of that household. Any kind of power imbalance—it does not need to go to the lengths of domestic abuse—means that there is unequal access to household resources. That is one reason why I very strongly believe in a universal basic income. It would give people agency and control over their lives.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 1st February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab) (V)]

My Lords, I am pleased to support the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, on Amendment 154. I do not want to appear negative, but I had a year at the Home Office dealing with immigration, nationality and citizenship, and while I well understand the pressures on civil servants, I do not think that the Home Office is as trusted as it used to be. We can go back to the hostile environment started by Theresa May which led to Windrush. The Home Office has a long way to go before it builds up trust again. The key thrust of this amendment provides a chance for the Home Office to send a signal to other public bodies that the Home Office is not going to abuse or misuse information on domestic abuse for immigration control purposes. It is bad enough that the staff of the commissioner will be Home Office civil servants, and that the accounting officer for the whole function is still going to be the Home Secretary. The Home Office has some way to go in distancing itself from the misuse of information on domestic abuse for immigration purposes.

I know that civil servants will want to make the system work, but there is a lack of trust and some big moves need to be made to rebuild it. Accepting an amendment such as this would go some way to sending a signal to the police, the immigration authorities, social services and others dealing with domestic abuse and immigration issues to realise that a massive wall has been built between the two. The Bill will fail unless an amendment such as this is accepted.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) (V)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to offer the strong support of the Green group for, and to speak in favour of, the amendments tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Meacher. I associate myself with powerful contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox of Newport, particularly her focus on the Istanbul convention, the importance of which was also highlighted by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London. All the speakers before me have covered the issue in depth and with clarity and power, so I will be brief.

I begin by noting the widespread support for this Bill from all sides of the House and the Government’s stated commitment to protecting victims of domestic abuse and ensuring that the law does not act as a facilitator of abuse. If ensuring that domestic abuse victims have a route to safety and perpetrators are brought to justice is the highest government priority, they need to ensure that not just those who might be subjected to immigration control but those who might fear being subjected to it, whether rightly or not, are not prevented from accessing the protections. Immigration status is a complex area and we know from the tragedy of Windrush that even citizenship is not always an adequate protection from detention and deportation.

It is not just those who might face immigration controls who need the reassurance of these amendments, but those who fear becoming entangled in the horrors of the Home Office’s hostile environment as a result of reporting abuse or seeking help. They might have no real reason to fear that, but history will tell them that there is cause for concern. We need not only to protect them and make sure they are safe but to ensure, by stating it loudly and clearly in the Bill, that reporting abuse and seeking safety and justice will not entangle them in that hostile environment. This needs to be set out in government publicity so that there is a clear understanding across the community.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alderdice) (LD)]

The noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, has withdrawn so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I offer the full support of the Green group for this group of amendments collectively. We have already heard very powerful and important testimonies from all who have spoken, but particularly from the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in introducing them and the noble Lord, Lord Woolley of Woodford, in making some powerful points about how BAME communities and other minority communities are affected. I have three or four points to make in general terms. It must be repeated, as all speakers up to now have stressed the importance of specialist support, that simple provision of accommodation will not meet the needs of victims of domestic abuse.

I make a point particularly about funding. As the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, said, competitive tendering for these services has often been—and he used an appropriate word—toxic. I do not think there is anything on this in this amendment, and it may be a matter of policy more than law, but the Government should consider moving away from the idea of regular competition as an appropriate way of seeing that these services are funded. We should move closer towards a system of having a good, ideally local, service that meets the needs of a community, with an appropriate check to see that that continues. The assumption should be that that funding continues, rather than seeing the huge waste of resources that are put in again and again into bidding to keep contracts. The risk is that you can lose a local service completely, if it loses just one round of contract bidding.

Another point worth making in this context is on the place of refuges in feminist history. From the early 1970s onwards, they were places where we saw the growth and coalescence of a movement. They continue to be a centre for advocacy and campaigning support for the essential services that domestic abuse victims need. If we lose those specialist services, we also lose a lot of that advocacy and campaigning, as well as a depth of knowledge.

I have a final reflection on how we are talking about increasing statutory provision. The Green Party very much believes in localism and decisions made locally, and referred upwards only when absolutely necessary. But we also need a foundation of rights and standards, which is appropriately provided at the national level. Those standards and that statutory provision is not enough; we now that, increasingly, local government is left with barely enough funds to meet its statutory requirements, let alone to provide the extra services and needs that each local community has. When talking about this, it is crucial that we also focus on ensuring that local communities and local government have the funding that they need to meet these statutory requirements—and not just that but to meet the extra, individual local community needs that each local government area has, to ensure that that we truly deliver what the local community asks for.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alderdice) (LD)]

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 3rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD) [V]]

My Lords, my four amendments in this group—Amendments 109, 111, 112 and 113—to which the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, has kindly added her name, are intended simply to apply the Bill’s provisions relating to special measures in family proceedings to civil proceedings as well.

Under the Bill as it stands, special measures are to be available to parties or witnesses in family proceedings who are victims of domestic abuse or at risk of being such victims. Although the provision of special measures in courts is relatively recent, the courts recognise how important it is to help vulnerable parties and witnesses reduce the trauma— the ordeal, even—of involvement in court proceedings. Special measures are arrangements to help a vulnerable party or witness give evidence or participate in court proceedings in a way that mitigates that trauma. Even in the driest and least emotional of cases, the experience of being involved in litigation, especially of giving oral evidence, is often extremely stressful. For vulnerable parties and witnesses, most with a history of deep and often emotionally searing personal involvement in the events that led to the proceedings, the experience of reliving them is fraught with anxiety, fear and even terror. Therefore, the need for special measures arises.

Such special measures enable witnesses or parties to give evidence from behind a screen, usually in abuse cases, to protect them from having to face their abuser or abuser’s family across a courtroom. Alternatively, provision can be made for witnesses to give evidence via a live link or with the assistance of an intermediary. Special measures cannot remove the fear but can help to reduce it. We take them as a matter of compassion for those involved, but also out of concern that victims and vulnerable parties should not be too frightened of bringing proceedings to come forward and therefore continue to suffer abuse in silence, sometimes with horrifying consequences. We also take special measures to help ensure that proceedings are fair, that the quality of the evidence before the court is as good as it can be in difficult circumstances, and that the courts can, therefore, make fair decisions.

For family proceedings, Clause 61 would require that where a party or witness is, or is at risk of being, a victim of domestic abuse carried out by another party or relative of another party, or by a witness in the proceedings, it is to be assumed that there is a risk of the quality of the victim’s evidence, or of her participation in the proceedings generally, being diminished.

That has the effect of bringing into play the provisions of Part 3A of the Family Procedure Rules 2010, which are supported by a detailed practice direction. They provide that victims of domestic abuse and other parties or witnesses are eligible for special measures if the quality of their evidence or their ability to participate in the proceedings is likely to be diminished by their vulnerability. The rules and the practice direction set out a full code for the court to identify vulnerability and consider ways to help vulnerable witnesses and parties. They do not just cover giving evidence. Directions may include

“matters such as the structure and the timing of the hearing, the formality of language to be used in the court and whether (if facilities allow for it) the parties should be enabled to enter the court building through different routes and use different waiting areas.”

The existing provisions also go wider than domestic abuse and cover:

“sexual abuse … physical and emotional abuse; racial and/or cultural abuse or discrimination … forced marriage or … “honour based violence” … female genital or other physical mutilation … abuse or discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation … and … human trafficking.”

Clause 61 requires the court to assume that, if the threshold I mentioned is met, special measures will automatically be available in domestic abuse cases for victims and those at risk of being victims. The court will then consider what, if any, special measures should be taken. There is scope for an opt-out under Clause 61(4), whereby a party or witness in family proceedings can signify that they do

“not wish to be deemed to be eligible”

for special measures.

The reason that I have spent some time setting out the background and the arrangements proposed for family proceedings is that they are thoroughly sensible and helpful and likely to be effective without unforeseen and unjust gaps. My amendments are directed at ensuring that the same arrangements apply in civil proceedings by bringing Clause 62 into line with Clause 61. They would implement the recommendations made by the Civil Justice Council and supported by Refuge, Women’s Aid and the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, among others.

Clause 62, as drafted, does not do the same for civil proceedings as Clause 61 does for family proceedings. For a reason I do not understand, the clause sets a higher bar for civil proceedings. There is an additional threshold test, which a party or witness would have to surmount to secure eligibility for such measures. The clause requires that to qualify as a victim or alleged victim, the person must be the victim of “a specified offence”, that is one specified in regulations by the Lord Chancellor. That condition is defined in Clause 62(3). For it to be met, there must have been a conviction or a caution for the offence, or someone must have been charged with the offence against the victim. Therefore, it would not be enough for the vulnerable witness or party to establish that they are frightened of being a victim or at risk of being a victim, nor even that they have, in fact, been a victim. They have to establish that the criminal law has been invoked so that the offender must have been cautioned or charged by the police for the specified offence or convicted of it by a criminal court. I suggest that there is no basis for this distinction between family and civil proceedings.

We know how often victims do not report abuse to the police, whether out of fear of their abusers or the relatives, fear of the trauma of criminal proceedings, concern for their private lives being exposed, or other reasons. The Office for National Statistics estimates that around four in five—79%—of survivors do not report partner abuse to the police. Requiring that victims go through the criminal process before being treated as vulnerable, and excluding those at risk of being victims from being treated as vulnerable altogether, represents a failure to understand vulnerability. Invoking criminal proceedings requires robustness. Experience and common sense tell us that vulnerable witnesses and parties are those least likely to involve the police and the criminal courts.

I have discussed this issue with the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, and I am grateful to him for talking to me about these amendments and engaging with them. The noble Lord explained the Government’s position by saying that there is an intimacy to family proceedings not present in ordinary civil proceedings. In many cases that will be right, but I invite the noble Lord to concede, from his own experience, that there are literally thousands of cases involving partners, former partners and others who are personally connected—as defined in the Bill—which involve disputes that have a domestic or quasi-domestic context.

I give a few examples only: disputes about ownership and occupation of property; ownership, loss or damage to goods; landlord and tenant disputes, including disputes about who holds tenancies; employment disputes; and inheritance disputes. There are also disputes arising out of families running businesses together, which has become increasingly common in recent decades. These sometimes involve partnership disputes, sometimes it is disputes over the ownership of shares or misuse of company funds. In these cases, the parties might be companies, but the witnesses might have been involved in an acrimonious and abusive personal relationship.

The list goes on and lawyers well know that cases with personal connections give rise to the greatest animosity and the greatest tension. I can see no reason to apply a different test for vulnerability in civil proceedings from that applicable to family proceedings. If the conditions for family proceedings are met and the party or a witness is a victim or at risk of being a victim of domestic abuse, carried out by another party or a relative of such a party, or another witness in the proceedings, special measures should generally follow. It will always be for the court to determine whether those conditions are met, as it is in family proceedings. It would also be for the court to determine whether special measures are appropriate and what they should be. If the threshold is met, however, it is unjustified, illogical and unfair to insist that an offence must already have been committed and that the criminal law must have been invoked before eligibility for special measures is established. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the clear, comprehensive and powerful outline of these amendments by the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, in whose name they are tabled. It was a pleasure to attach my name to Amendments 109 and 111.

The case has been set out very clearly so I do not need to detain the Committee for long. I will just say why I attached my name to these amendments when I saw that no other noble Lords had done so. It was because of my experiences as a young journalist many years ago in Australia, when I covered mostly criminal courts. This was in the days long before there was thought of protecting witnesses who were the victims of what we now call domestic abuse.

I saw the sometimes harrowing ordeals that people had to go through. I think the noble Lord, Lord Marks used the word “ordeal”. Members of your Lordships’ House are used to testifying, speaking and being in these spaces, but we are talking about people who are victims of domestic abuse and have suffered all the personal damage that entails. They are also not used to being in these environments very often. As the noble Lord, Lord Marks, said, this is an issue of compassion—of protecting people and ensuring that we are not making victims of domestic abuse suffer again. It is also an issue of justice because if they are to be able to clearly set out the case—to explain the circumstances and to bear witness—they need to be in conditions that reasonably allow them to do that.

As the noble Lord, Lord Marks, said, to set a higher bar for civil proceedings than for family proceedings simply does not make sense. As he said, there are many cases in which civil proceedings will be intimately entangled with family issues and issues of domestic circumstances. I think particularly of farms and some cases I have seen where the acrimonious break-up of family farm businesses will often be tangled in civil proceedings but have an intensely personal side as well.

These are important, sensible and helpful amendments. I very much hope that the Government will take them on board in the interests of compassion and justice.

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[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD) [V]]

My Lords, could I have a moment? I apologise for the delay. Following so closely on from my last speech, it was difficult to see where we were.

Having spent some considerable time this afternoon introducing my amendments in groups 1 and 4, I will be relatively brief in introducing this group. The amendments are intended to extend to all civil cases the same protection from direct cross-examination by a party as is to be afforded in family cases to victims and vulnerable witnesses where certain conditions are met.

The reason for my relative brevity in this group is that the principles upon which I contended in the first group that special measures should be available on the same basis for civil proceedings as for family proceedings apply with equal force to the prohibition of direct cross-examination. Therefore, I will not dwell on them again, save to make the point once again that there is no justifiable distinction to be drawn between the trauma likely to be caused to the vulnerable by direct cross-examination in civil cases and such similar trauma as may arise in family cases.

However, because the proposals are complex, the amendment is long. Clause 63 inserts new Clauses 31Q to 31U into the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984, which broadly prohibit direct cross-examination in family cases in a number of circumstances. First, direct cross-examination by someone convicted of, cautioned for or charged with a specified offence—that is, an offence specified by the Lord Chancellor—of a witness who is a victim or alleged victim of that offence is prohibited and, importantly, vice versa. No victim or alleged victim of such an offence may directly cross-examine the perpetrator or alleged perpetrator. Secondly, direct cross-examination by either party of the other is prohibited in cases where one party has obtained an on-notice protective injunction which is in force at the time of the proceedings. Thirdly, in cases where specified evidence—that is, evidence of a description specified by the Lord Chancellor in regulations—is adduced that a witness in proceedings has been the victim of domestic abuse carried out by a party to the proceedings, that party may not directly cross-examine that witness. Correspondingly, where there is such evidence that a party to proceedings has been the victim of domestic abuse carried out by a witness, that party may not directly cross-examine that witness.

What is important is that these three categories of cases involve a prohibition that is absolute. That offers vulnerable parties and witnesses an assurance that there will be no direct cross-examination that offends against those provisions in any of the cases covered by the prohibition.

Finally, in other cases not coming within the first three categories of cases, the court may prohibit—that is, it has the power to prohibit—direct cross-examination of any witness by a party if the court takes the view that two conditions are met. The first condition is that the quality of the witness’s evidence would be likely to be diminished if direct cross-examination were permitted and improved if it were prohibited. The second condition is that the witness’s distress would be more significant under direct cross-examination by the party than were the cross-examination differently conducted. Before prohibiting direct cross-examination in such a case, the court must be satisfied that the prohibition would not be contrary to the interests of justice.

So while those provisions may be complex, they are, by and large, admirable, as they cater effectively for all circumstances where a vulnerable witness is liable to be directly cross-examined by a party to proceedings of whom she or he is plainly frightened, or where a vulnerable party may be put in the position of being obliged to cross-examine directly a witness who has in the past abused that party. It goes without saying that such a cross-examiner may be afraid of the consequences of putting questions to such a witness. But the important point to note is that the first three categories of case involve mandatory prohibition.

In civil cases, however, for a reason that once again I do not understand, there is no provision in Clause 64 of the Bill for the mandatory prohibition of direct cross-examination in any of the categories 1 to 3—that is, commissioner-specified offences, a mandatory injunction in force protecting a party, or evidence of domestic abuse by a party against a witness or a witness against a party. All that remains is the fourth category of protection: the discretionary and conditional protection offered in family cases that do not fall into the first three categories.

Again, I understand from the Minister—who has been keen on this issue, as on all others, to listen to noble Lords and to help—that the Government’s position is that civil proceedings lack the intimacy of family proceedings and so do not merit the same protection for vulnerable witnesses and parties. However, as I said in the earlier group, there are literally thousands of civil cases—as the noble Lord recognised—of many types involving vulnerable parties and witnesses, and exactly the same considerations apply in those civil cases as apply in family cases. I would suggest that the parties and witnesses involved in them should be entitled to exactly the same protection from direct cross-examination on the same basis as in family cases. I mention before closing that this view is shared by the Civil Justice Council, the Law Society, Refuge, Women’s Aid, and many others.

I invite the Government to reconsider whether they wish to stick with this illogical distinction or to instead come back on Report having ironed it right out of the Bill. I beg to move.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

[Inaudible.]

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am afraid we cannot hear the noble Baroness. She might still be on mute.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

Let me try an alternative technology—apologies, my Lords.

It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, for the second time, on this group of amendments, on which it is clear that he has done a great deal of work, and for which he deserves great thanks. I am simply here again as a support act for the reasons that I set out in the first group of amendments we addressed today. I think the arguments of justice and compassion are the same in this group of amendments as they were in that first group.

Sitting in many courtrooms over the years as a journalist, looking at the witnesses, you think about what the experience of being a witness is like. Earlier, I used the theoretical but eminently likely example of civil proceedings arising out of the collapse of a farm business that is also associated with domestic abuse. Later on, we will be talking about attempts to insert into the Bill an offence of non-fatal strangulation or suffocation. If we think about the actual experience of a witness who suffered that kind of assault and is then expected to stand in a courtroom and look in the eye the person responsible for that assault, and who is expected to look strong, stand tall and not seem what anyone might determine as shifty or uncertain, we can imagine the pressure that puts on such a witness.

In his answer to the first group of amendments, the Minister said, “Well, there is always judge’s discretion.” We know from many other debates in your Lordships’ House on the Bill that much domestic abuse is not fully reported. Indeed, we know that non-fatal strangulation and suffocation are sometimes recorded simply as common assault. Full information about what witnesses may have been subjected to may not be available and full reporting may not have happened, so it may not be open to a judge to be in the right place to rule on this. There should be an automatic protection available to witnesses who need it.

I will be brief because we have a great deal to do, but I believe that this is an important set of amendments, and I really hope that the Government will reconsider.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I will start by making a general point about an issue that has been concerning me regarding the amendments on cross-examination on special measures. I apologise that I am not a lawyer, and if I have not quite have grasped what Committee stage is. I could have been jumping up to speak to all these amendments, so I have bundled my comments into one. I hope that will work. If I have got it wrong, I will not do it again.

I have found the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, hugely helpful and insightful throughout these Committee discussions, but something he said on Monday troubled me. He said:

“My Lords, for reasons of brevity and clarity, I will refer to the person to whom a domestic abuse protection notice is given as the ‘perpetrator’, rather than the ‘alleged perpetrator’ or ‘defendant’, and the person the notice seeks to protect as the ‘victim’, rather than the ‘complainant’, the ‘alleged victim’ or ‘plaintiff’.”


He went on to say:

“Clearly it will be for the court to decide, ultimately, whether they are in fact perpetrator and victim.”—[Official Report, 1/2/21; col. 1925.]

I understand entirely the noble Lord’s shorthand point, but I get anxious that sometimes, that sort of shorthand becomes the presumed fact or reality. That has been the case throughout Committee stage—nowhere more obviously than in the discussion about cross-examination —and I worry that that might prejudice justice and fairness in proceedings. As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, rightly stated, it is up to the court ultimately to decide on guilt or innocence. It seems to me that cross-examination is a key part of making such weighty decisions. Testing the evidence thoroughly is very important, and demands for special measures for cross-examination should not compromise that.

We have already heard the way in which this can happen. We have heard the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, say, in calling for special measures in an earlier set of amendments, that if a witness claims that they are frightened, this can be seen as sufficient reason to treat the alleged perpetrator as a perpetrator, and the alleged victim is secure in special measures. I just worry about a slippery slope. Because of the importance I place on cross-examination, in relation to the distinction between family courts and civil courts, I would actually prefer that a legal representative be appointed by both courts in order to facilitate the most objective and thorough cross-examination and to make sure that the evidence is objectively tested.

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[Baroness Finn (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendments 137 and 138 and pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Newlove and many others for their tireless work and campaigning. I, too, thank Julia Drown for her help and support, and I very much welcome the Government’s acknowledgement of this issue and thank Ministers for their support.

I stress that this is the right Bill for this offence: non-fatal strangulation is about fear, control and a toxic mix of physical and psychological abuse, and it is often done with the express intent and insidious subtlety of evading detection. As such, it can be protracted and cause lasting and even permanent harm. Crucially, the current law is letting victims down; this Bill is our chance to put that right and protect them.

Many other noble Lords have already spoken about the horrific nature of non-fatal strangulation, but the current problem of undercharging highlights that the true nature and intent of the crime is not fully understood. As always, context matters: the current narrow approach not only limits the sentencing options but has other serious consequences, as it impacts on future risk assessments and public protection decisions. These include future bail applications, sentencing decisions—including dangerousness determinations—and Parole Board decisions.

As the seriousness of the crime is not currently understood, neither, unfortunately, is the management of its consequences. This is particularly the case when it comes to contact arrangements for children. To protect the welfare of children, these arrangements should reflect the seriousness of the crime; unfortunately, they do not.

I am conscious that, to tackle non-fatal strangulation as effectively as possible, we need all relevant agencies to work together. Early intervention is needed to mitigate damage and even save lives. Unfortunately, current understanding of symptoms and consequences will likely lead to cases being missed and narrow or absent diagnoses offered. If those in the health service seeing patients with the relevant physical and psychological conditions are conscious of the links to non-fatal strangulation, the problem can be picked up earlier and the victims supported.

This would not only save the victims from further and more serious harm; it would also be better for society, as the earlier intervention would be easier and more cost-effective, compared with dealing with the horrific further abuse and deaths of victims. In many of these cases, this will be about protecting children as well as the victims themselves.

It is shocking that, in this country, thousands of victims experience the trauma of non-fatal strangulation every year. Given that the current criminal justice system is clearly not able to protect these victims, we cannot afford to let this Bill pass without addressing this issue. We all know how commitments to introduce something in a future Bill can get derailed through no fault of those making those commitments. There is a suggestion that this new offence could go in the police, crime, sentencing and courts Bill, but that is not the Bill before us now; it has not even started its journey in the other place, and it may well be delayed for months into the future.

We need to get this right, and there is no reason why this offence cannot be included in this Bill to get the victims the protection they need now. If we miss this opportunity to introduce this offence, many women will die, others will suffer unnecessarily and we will be behind most of the English-speaking world on domestic abuse protection.

The UK has been rightly proud of its leading role on the world stage on gender-based violence over many years; this amendment is needed to ensure that we stay ahead and do all we can to protect victims. Rather than have the uncertainties of a future Bill, we can address this issue now in a Bill that will come into law very soon. I urge the Government and Ministers to work with my noble friend Lady Newlove and to include this new offence in this Bill.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

I join every speaker in this rather large group of speakers in offering my support for Amendments 137 and 138, with a preference for 137. I join all of the others in paying tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, for her very hard work on this issue. However, when the idea of a new offence was first put to me, I started from a position of scepticism. We all know that there are far too many cases in history where Governments who are wanting to be seen to be doing something say “Oh, we will have a new law and create a new offence”.

However, when I looked at the evidence and saw the extensive briefings and data assembled by campaigning groups and NGOs, I found that there is clearly a case. There is a specific set of behaviours that constitutes an offence. The case is made very clearly that non-fatal strangulation and suffocation is not generally a failed attempt to kill, but rather a deliberate attempt to control and exert power. The law currently has no real proper way of dealing with that. The fact that there is little visible injury in many cases means that at best it may appear as a charge of common assault, and many others have pointed out how inadequate that is. It is also worth pointing out that it means there is a six-month limit for charges being brought. We know that domestic abuse is very often disclosed only after a large number of incidents have occurred. It also means that, as a summary offence in a magistrates’ court, it does not get the level of attention and resources that this proposed new offence would attract with the charges.

The other point which has not been made but should be, is that I very much do not believe in reinventing the wheel in terms of law and government policy. We can look around the world to see other places that have been leading on this. Reference has been made by the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, to the 37 states in the US which already have comparable laws, and most Australian states do.

The real leader in this has been New Zealand. I note that this started with the Aotearoa—New Zealand—Law Commission 2016 report, which in December 2018 led to its introduction of a new law. I would imagine that the Minister is well aware of the recent report from the Chief Victims Advisor to the New Zealand Government to the Centre for Women’s Justice, which notes that in the first year after the offence was brought in, there were 2,000 charges—most occurring in a domestic violence context. A calculation has been made that, comparing our populations, that means in the first year we could see 26,400 charges in the UK. Of course, no two countries are exactly comparable, but I think that rough comparison tells you that if we delay introducing this charge, there will be thousands and thousands of women who will not have the protection of the law who should and could have the protection of the law if it is included in this Bill. It is very good to hear that the Government are listening on this issue, but the case for action now is overwhelming. I commend Amendment 137, in particular, to your Lordships’ House.

[Baroness Featherstone (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I greatly support Amendment 137 and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, for such a powerful and comprehensive introduction, thus making it necessary for me to make only a few brief remarks. During my time at the Home Office, I remember a particular incident that demonstrates the attitudes at play in the issues before us.

In 2014 a so-called pick-up artist, Julien Blanc, was due to visit the United Kingdom giving lectures to men on how to successfully pick up women and get them into bed. On Twitter, the photo he used to advertise his tour showed Blanc with his hand around the throats of women. He then tweeted the photo with the hashtag #ChokingGirlsAroundTheWorld.

I spoke out, as my responsibility was for tackling violence against women and girls, to say how concerned I was by the sexist and abhorrent statements Julien Blanc had made about women and that if he was allowed to perform in the United Kingdom, I had no doubt cases of violence and intimidation of women would follow, because his thesis was that physical aggression made you more attractive as a man and would give you more success and more sex. Someone who, in my view, wishes to incite sexual assault should not be granted a visa.

I simply use this as an example of the mindset that is out there that illustrates how women are in jeopardy. In days gone by, that mindset echoed down the corridors of our judicial system; to an extent, it still does so, because we are debating it today. It is part of the history of women being blamed for their own rape. Not that long ago, a woman’s previous sexual history was used to exonerate a male rapist. There is a long tradition in matters sexual to blame the woman for her own downfall: she wore a short skirt or a low top; she was asking for it, and so on. It put the onus for male behaviour on to the woman.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)]

I have received requests to speak after the Minister from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. I call the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the House for the opportunity to ask this question, which applies to all these amendments but particularly to Amendment 139, to which my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb is a signatory. She was unfortunately unable to take part in this debate.

My noble friend would have referred to the fact that the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill allows blanket legal protections for undercover police and informants. The forthcoming overseas operations Bill creates similar new protections against prosecution for military personnel acting overseas. The Government have fought intensely for these protections against prosecution for the police and the military; they have fought against many attempts in your Lordships’ House to reduce or check these protections. In that context, how would the Minister explain—having granted such broad protections to the police and military, even in cases of fundamental wrongdoing—why the Government should refuse what are comparatively far more limited legal defences for survivors of domestic abuse, particularly with such well thought-out and well drafted amendments by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws?

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for that question. I do not wish to be thought flippant in any way, but the short answer is that the situations are different, and therefore you have different considerations and different legal results. However, if she will permit me, given that I am not personally acquainted with that sort of detail—certainly of the overseas operations Bill—to respond to her this evening, I will add to my reply in writing.

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[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I refer to my interests on the register. I have put my name to Amendments 148 and 160, and I support Amendment 151, to which I would have liked to add my name. I agree with what has already been said, and I do not propose to go through it again. I would, however, like to mention the powerful speech from the right reverend Prelate, with which I strongly agree.

I have a concern for several groups of women, about whom I have spoken earlier in this debate. One such group is migrant women who have been subjected to modern slavery. Very often the woman comes over with a man who she thinks is her boyfriend but who then turns her into a slave to make money for him. She is a victim and has irregular immigration status, if any.

I am particularly concerned about a group of women who are married according to the customs of their religion but whose marriages have not been registered and are therefore not recognised in English law. If such a woman leaves—either with her children or on her own—having suffered domestic abuse, she will not be recognised as a wife, her immigration status will not give her any of the support she needs, financial or otherwise, and she will be in danger of being deported. This is a huge injustice inflicted on a small but significant group of women, many of whom have suffered as the victims of forced marriage.

I will refer briefly to Amendment 160. The support that it proposes is urgently needed by victims of both forced marriage and modern slavery.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I join the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in regretting that we have not yet heard the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, introduce Amendment 160. On the assumption that we will do so eventually, I shall contain myself to simply offering support for Amendments 151 and 160. I join others in saying that, had there been space, I would have been very happy to attach my name to them.

I shall speak chiefly to Amendment 148, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. He has already provided an eloquent and powerful introduction, so I shall briefly add some further points.

I start with a reflection on the overall status of no recourse to public funds. This applies to some 1.3 million people who are part of and contribute to our society. We should ask ourselves some very tough questions about why we ask people to contribute without offering them protection.

However, today, with Amendment 148 we are specifically addressing the issue of victims of domestic abuse. I very much hope that every Member of your Lordships’ House will agree with the statement that the state must not be the facilitator of domestic abuse and that it must not act in ways that trap victims in abusive relationships. It is very clear that that is currently happening, and the amendment would seek to ensure that it does not.

Over the past year, I have been doing quite a bit of work on no recourse to public funds from a number of angles. I have spoken to Green Party councillors and asked them to share with me cases that they have dealt with. Of course, at that very distressing local level, very often it is local councillors, who have very few tools and resources at their disposal, who are forced to rush around trying to help and provide support in any way they can.

I want to quote one person who has been stuck with no recourse to public funds during the Covid pandemic. She had just about cobbled together the circumstances in which to survive, but then the pandemic pulled those apart. I ask your Lordships to reflect on this woman’s words. She said, “The citizens advice bureau is a vicious cycle of being referred to the same departments that have already said no.” We should think about what that must be like and the circumstances in which that leaves people. I note from information provided by Women’s Aid what it means practically. It noted that women with no recourse to public funds who care for children are, theoretically, entitled to continued support for their children under Section 17 of the Children Act, yet under the Women’s Aid Federation of England’s No Woman Turned Away project, of 20 women with no recourse to public funds who were fleeing with children in 2017-18, social services refused outright either to fund a refuge space or to provide emergency accommodation for 14. In six of the cases, they offered to accommodate the children but not the mother.

Those findings show very clearly that women with no recourse to public funds who have children are being refused help, despite Section 17 duties, and that the state is acting in ways to break up families. So, we have a situation where victims of domestic abuse are being trapped and families are being broken up by the law. That is why I very strongly support Amendment 148, and I hope that the Government will see the need to support it, or something very like it, too.

I finish with words from a Women’s Aid briefing. It is a simple, bald statement and I ask the Government whether they agree with it:

“No survivor should be left without access to a safety net and it is essential the Bill delivers reforms to ‘no recourse to public funds’.”


Those are the words of Women’s Aid. I very profoundly agree with them and I hope that the Government will too.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

I think it is now possible to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, so I call her again.

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I say this and try to look at a number of examples of where things are contentious because these matters are highly sensitive and difficult, and I simply do not want this Bill to get sidetracked by them. As such, I think that the Minister should avoid all the political agendas when drawing up this legislation and keep it simple: get the bad guys or bad girls, but keep away from the politics.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, these three short amendments bring together some very big debates around the Bill—much as the overall Bill has been welcomed from all sides of the House. I state my position as a feminist, as I have been since age five—and that is a trans-inclusive feminist.

I will begin with what I think is the easy amendment of this group: Amendment 185, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, and backed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester. It concerns joining up government policy and ensuring that any strategy to end violence against women and girls is thought of in the guidance around this Bill. As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, said, this is a bottom-line, very simple approach. It asks that government thinking be joined-up and not be split into silos.

The Istanbul convention, which the Government are explicitly trying to comply with through this legislation, seeks

“to promote and protect the right for everyone, particularly women, to live free from violence in both the public and the private sphere”.

This amendment is very much in line with that approach.

We come now to Amendment 173 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Gale. I very much agree with and support the broad intention of this amendment, particularly the first part of it. It is important to ensure that the Bill is not gender-neutral. The Bill must make it clear that domestic violence and abuse are perpetrated overwhelmingly by men against women. I am indebted to the Women Against Rape and the Support Not Separation coalitions for drawing my attention to figures from the Office for National Statistics from 2018: in the year ending in March, 92% of defendants in domestic abuse-related prosecutions were men, while 83% of victims were women and 95% of calls to domestic abuse hotlines were made by women. Gender-neutrality is at risk of hiding the nature of violence and the nature of our patriarchal society, and enabling perpetrators, sometimes in tit-for-tat claims, to then suggest that they are victims themselves.

However, on the wording of Amendment 173, I am not comfortable with the final phrase, which identifies domestic abuse as

“a subset of violence against women and girls.”

This is where I come to Amendment 186 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. I agree with his broad intention, because the fact is that there are significant numbers of male victims of domestic abuse. I share with others the concerns about expressing that statistic—and the statistic in the amendment is very much contested—although I acknowledge that the figures I read out earlier may be influenced by a lack of understanding of domestic abuse against male victims and by social stereotypes.

None the less, I think we need to not be gender-neutral in this Bill. As the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, said, the Government are trying to steer clear of gendering the Bill, but we are a society in which gender is a major characteristic. This has huge impacts on people’s power, access to resources and risk of domestic abuse. If the Bill does not recognise that fact, then I suggest it is failing to meet our obligations under the Istanbul convention.

[Lord Paddick (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the first and perhaps most obvious thing to say is that, following the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, scratching from this group, I am the only man speaking here. If the Committee will allow me, I am going to take this very carefully.

I thank my noble friend Lady Featherstone and the noble Baronesses, Lady Hodgson of Abinger and Lady Sanderson of Welton, for their support. I want to carefully go through what the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, said, before getting on to my substantive remarks. She said that domestic abuse disproportionately affects women. Clearly, it does. She also felt that the ONS figures took no account of coercive control. On where men are likely to be able to use their power to exert control over women, there are certain circumstances where coercive control is more in the hands of the man than the woman. However, on the other hand, it does not require physical strength, for example. I am not sure how much including coercive control would change the dial on the statistics. Speaking for myself and the abuse that I suffered, coercive control was the major part of that abuse.

The noble Baroness, Lady Gale, talked about higher levels of femicide; I will talk about homicides where there are male victims in my main remarks. She talked about violence directed against women because they are women. Clearly, that is the definition of violence against women and girls, but my position is that that is not the definition of domestic abuse—and this is the Domestic Abuse Bill. Agreeing almost completely with the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, I would say that an accurate description of domestic abuse is not, to use the expression of the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, that it is a subset of violence against women and girls.

I accept far more the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett. She explained that her amendment would mean that the guidance should take into account any strategy to end violence against women and girls. I agree that it makes no sense for any guidance issued under this Bill not to take account of any strategy to end violence against women and girls, as there is a substantial, but not exclusive, overlap between the two.

Amendment 173 requires the Secretary of State to take into account the evidence that domestic abuse affects women disproportionately and, as I have just said, is a subset of violence against women and girls. I accept that two-thirds of the victims of reported domestic violence cases are women and that, as a result, it can be said that domestic abuse disproportionately affects women—there is no dispute about that. It is also therefore a fact that one-third of victims of domestic abuse are men. Domestic abuse is not a subset of violence against women and girls in the sense that it is not exclusively, or even overwhelmingly, the result of male violence against women.

It has been suggested that you cannot rely on the statistics. Noble Lords will be familiar with the alleged connection between lies and statistics, but I will give the Committee some more. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, talked about wanting incontrovertible facts. In the area of domestic violence, I do not think that incontrovertible facts exist. We know that domestic abuse is common, but it is often hidden and difficult to quantify. Half of male victims fail to tell anyone that they are the victim of domestic abuse.

I was a senior police officer when I was subjected to domestic violence that caused cuts and bruises, where I was kicked and punched by my abusive partner—legally, an assault causing wounding, punishable with a maximum sentence of seven years in prison. I did not report it to the police, and I did not even tell my own parents, such was the shame and fear of retribution from my abusive partner that I felt at the time.

The information that I have been provided with—I am grateful to the ManKind Initiative for its work in this area—shows that male victims are far more likely to report that the perpetrator of domestic abuse was female, in 60% of cases, compared with 1% of cases where the abuser was male. Of course, female victims were more likely to report that the perpetrator was male, in 56% of cases, but also that more than 2% of perpetrators were female. The Crime Survey for England and Wales for 2017-18 recorded 695,000 male victims of domestic abuse, compared with 1,310,000 female victims. If these statistics are correct, a significant amount of domestic abuse is perpetrated by women.

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am glad to put my name to my noble friend Lord Kennedy’s Amendment 182, but I also welcome Amendment 174 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Burt. I see the two as complementary. I remind the Committee of my membership of Unison. I am pleased that we are returning to debating these really important workforce issues.

Experiencing domestic abuse can significantly affect a person’s work life as well as their home life. Victims may have to relocate, which impacts on their ability to get to work, and the effects of the abuse may affect their performance or ability to work at all. As I said in the debate on the group of amendments beginning with Amendment 57, domestic abuse is a trade union and workplace issue as much as any other form of abuse that affects workers’ conditions and income. Home and work issues cannot always be neatly separated, and abusive, violent behaviour does not take place only in the home; it frequently crosses over into the workplace, where victims experience stalking, threats, harassment and sometimes worse.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, just said, work can equally be a lifeline to independence and survival for victims of domestic abuse. They are able to leave their homes to go elsewhere and can maintain a level of income independent of the perpetrator. All victims should surely feel safe in the knowledge that they can take action to put their lives back on track, with their employment secure, and that they are protected while at work. I agree with the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, which seeks the issuing by the Secretary of State of a code of practice. I would also like to see a guarantee that employers will be provided with guidance about the provision of paid leave, which is reflected in my noble friend’s amendment. Guidance really does go hand in hand with a code of practice.

Granting paid leave is one of the most effective actions an employer can take to support workers who are the victims of domestic abuse. Time off allows them the time and space to address the impact of the abuse, such as by receiving medical treatment, finding safe accommodation and attending court or police dates. The great thing is that some employers understand this. During the lockdown, we saw the introduction of safe spaces for the victims of domestic abuse by businesses across the UK, including Boots, Superdrug and Morrisons. This demonstrates the huge impact that businesses can have in supporting victims of domestic abuse. Some employers have policies in place that introduce other practical measures. For example, Vodafone plans to offer up to 10 days’ paid leave to victims of domestic abuse and to provide specialist training for human resources managers to enable them to support employees experiencing violence or domestic abuse.

Hestia is part of a coalition of domestic abuse charities and organisations carrying out a programme called Everyone’s Business, which aims to encourage as many employers as possible to consider how they can support employees being impacted by domestic abuse, so there is something to build on. Despite this, only 5% of employers have in place a domestic abuse policy of any kind. A provision in the Domestic Abuse Bill to make it mandatory for employers to provide care and support for employees suffering abuse has the potential to make a significant practical difference to victims and survivors alike. The domestic abuse commissioner supports the inclusion in the Bill of paid leave and guidance, and I hope very much that the Government will give this further consideration.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and I agree with him that these two amendments, Amendment 174 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, and Amendment 182 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy of Southwark and Lord Hunt, are complementary and, I would add, an essential part of the Bill to make it the complete package. Your Lordships are trying to make the Bill the best that it can be.

I will follow the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in reflecting on the valuable advice given by the designate domestic abuse commissioner for England and Wales throughout the Bill. That advice noted that, while the BEIS best practice guide offers suggestions and advice that pretty much reflects these two amendments, its recommendations are only voluntary. Yet if we look around the world and, as we so often do, at New Zealand, we see an example of a place where this is part of the statutory provision that gives workers the protection they need.

I note the TUC submission to that BEIS review of this issue. It included something that is probably covered by the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, if not explicitly spelled out: the need for flexible working arrangements. We can well understand that, in the turmoil of surviving and escaping domestic abuse, flexible work might well be essential.

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[Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 184, to which I have added my name. This amendment focuses on the issue of abuse in teenage relationships, which is very worrying and more common than we may think. Teenagers are children, and should be treated with all the protections offered to children in law and practice. I define children as expressed in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child—that is, any person aged 18 or under is considered to be a child.

I am familiar with the government view that abuse between children below the age of 16 is child abuse and should be dealt with under child protection. I suggest that this may be a somewhat redundant view. The system was designed to protect children from abuse within the home, not from outside. Many children aged 14, for example, are not always in the home, but some may be, and suffering from abusive relationships. They would therefore not be deemed suitable for statutory intervention.

As we know, there are gradations to maturity in children, especially in adolescents, who are still children but going through emotional and physical changes. Some children are mature in many ways at the age of 13 and some are not. Some of 18 are still immature emotionally, if not physically. Children cannot be slotted into a particular category simply because of age. Sexual activity is one of those categories, much as we may wish it were not.

The Bill and action after it need to address the fact that teenage relationship abuse is not defined in any statute or routinely identified in the child protection system. Interviews with young people, particularly girls, show a high acceptance of what would normally be considered unacceptable behaviour in boys, including violence. Relationships and sex education in schools, referred to by several noble Lords, may produce many benefits to young people. Making this statutory may help to develop self-esteem concepts and ideas of what is healthy and unhealthy in relationships, for boys as well as girls. With Covid, such sensitive discussions are not possible in schools. I fear the outcomes of that.

I taught adolescent girls for many years. Some of those from vulnerable backgrounds, but not exclusively, said that they would accept bad behaviour and even violence from a boy and consider it normal. I thought things would have radically changed many years later, and they have among some young people and people generally, but less than I would have expected. This is possibly due to the influence of the media and other complex factors. Relationship and sex education may have a greater impact now. It is more high profile and generally better prepared for and acceptable.

Beyond education, we need services that support children to prevent and address teenage abusive relationship. Brook Advisory Centres, which I have been involved with for many years, offer free confidential advice for young people under the age of 25 from trained staff, not only on contraception, but on relationships and abuse. But not every town has a Brook Advisory Centre. It would help in all kinds of ways if communities had confidential health services for children and young people.

Statutory guidance must make it clear that, if a child is a victim of abuse in an intimate relationship, they should be entitled to specialist support services. Those services must be available, visible and confidential. Statutory guidance on teenage relationship abuse must be produced to cover both victims and perpetrators. I hope this will be considered by the Government. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I shall speak chiefly to Amendment 184, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, and signed by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen. I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

It is very important that the Government consider the issue of teenage relationship abuse and the need to provide services and support to deal with it. The amendment talks about

“sufficient levels of local authority service provision”.

We know how stretched local authorities are and there is a need for resources attached to that. It is very telling that a lot of the research into this area has come in the last couple of years. A lot of the research and work has been done by NGOs and campaigning groups, and indeed a lot of the education work.

I note the excellent Women’s Aid #LoveRespect campaign and research around that, which found that one-third of teenage girls knew that they had been in an abusive relationship. However, when the remaining two-thirds were asked more detailed questions, it became clear that more than half of them had experienced abusive behaviour but had not recognised it as such. I will go to the words of someone with experience. Women’s Aid quotes its ambassador, the personal trainer, author and social media influencer Alice Liveing, who said:

“When I was 16 I found myself in an abusive relationship and felt so isolated and alone. I didn’t think that abuse happened to young people, and to be honest I had no idea that what I was experiencing was even abuse for a long time”.


I look also to the excellent work of the group SafeLives, which quotes the 2015 Crime Survey for England and Wales reporting that 6.6% of males and 12.6% of females aged 16 to 19 had experienced domestic abuse in the past year, as well as a survey of 13 to 17 year-olds which found that 25% of girls and 18% of boys had experienced some form of physical abuse in a relationship, with the highest level of severity being no different from that suffered by adults.

To further add to the evidence on this, the research project From Boys to Men found that 49% of boys and 33% of girls aged 13 to 14 thought that hitting a partner would be “OK” in at least one of 12 scenarios that they were presented with. Clearly we have a problem here, and I believe it is really important that the Domestic Abuse Bill acknowledges this and accepts that there is a need to provide resources to deal with it.

I will briefly address Amendment 180 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and others. I note that in introducing it the noble Baroness acknowledged that the wording perhaps needed some work, and indeed I found some of it rather surprising. However, the push in proposed new paragraph (c) for increased mental health support in primary schools is certainly something that is very important to raise, given the epidemic of mental ill health that has only been growing in our deeply unhealthy society.

However, proposed new paragraph (d) does not really acknowledge the fact that the Government have brought in compulsory sex and relationships education—I know a great deal about that because in the other place my honourable friend the Member for Brighton Pavilion has been at the absolute forefront of pushing for fully inclusive age-appropriate relationships and sex education. However, I find the final element of the amendment rather curious, with its focus on marriage. The privileging of one form of relationship over another in education is not a constructive approach.

I hope the Committee will forgive me if I take a brief moment for a final reflection, given that we are coming to the end of the sixth day of discussion of this important Bill. The debate has been thoughtful and thorough, and I hope it will be useful for the Government when they go away to consider it. I want to reflect on the words of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, in the debate on Amendment 173. He was paying tribute to all the feminist campaigners who came before us who brought us to this point. That led me to look back over the history of misogyny in your Lordships’ House, which drew me rather quickly to one of our predecessors, Lord Curzon—a man against whom many charges might be laid. Little more than a century ago he authored a pamphlet giving 15 reasons against women’s suffrage. I know that one of his descendants is with us today and I will not hold his family heritage against him. But there is an important lesson to be drawn from that reflection on history: the lesson that campaigning works. Over decades, feminist campaigners have transformed the place of women in society. The Bill is an important reflection of that, and that is something that we can take into Report to fortify us for the debates ahead on this truly important Bill.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Report stage & Lords Hansard
Monday 8th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the Government’s decision to keep a broad definition of domestic abuse. I believe that the coercive nature of alienation is covered in the Bill, so I am afraid that I do not consider this amendment necessary. However, having not spoken on this issue in Committee, I would like to speak briefly to say that, although the amendment is not needed, the issue is real.

I understand the concerns about the way alienation is used by perpetrators, but that does not negate the incalculable harm that was done to my noble friend Lady Meyer and her family and to the many other parents, grandparents and children who have found themselves in a similar position. Her determination to bring a greater understanding and awareness is impressive. It took great courage to stand up in this Chamber and share what is ultimately a very private, very painful experience. That experience should not simply be dismissed and I welcome the fact that work is ongoing in this area, so that we may properly understand this complicated, often devastating problem.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I speak against Amendment 2 as I did against the comparable amendment in Committee. I also express my opposition to the inclusion of alienating behaviour in the statutory guidance.

In Committee, having begun examining the issue of claims of parental alienation with an open mind, I focused particularly on the research and expert evidence, including a complete issue of the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law. Today, I will reflect on what came next. As I expected, having spoken in your Lordships’ House, written an accompanying op-ed and shared both outputs on social media, I got a significant response.

A lot of that response was emotional and angry. That did not surprise me, since we are talking about the most intimate of personal relationships, and I was more tolerant of aggressive tones than I would have been on other topics. But something struck me in many of the responses that I received. It was the use of the word “right”, as in “my right to see my children”, “parents’ rights”, “my right to direct my children’s future”. That crystalised some of the unease that I had felt in reading the academic claims backing a so-called syndrome of parental alienation—explicitly or implicitly, that was where they were coming from.

We live, of course, in what continues to be a patriarchy. Claims laid down for millennia that the father is the head of the household, that, as in ancient Rome—the classical world that some of our current Government seem to so admire—he had the right even to kill any member of it without the law offering any legal protection at all, are extremely hard to wipe away.

Under British law, until 1839 every father had the absolute right to keep control of his children should their mother leave. Even after 1839, only women who had the means to petition the Court of Chancery had a chance of keeping what we would now call custody, and then only if they could demonstrate an absolute moral clean sheet. The father’s morals were irrelevant. If your Lordships want to see how there is nothing new about coercive control, the life of Caroline Norton, whose brave, landmark campaigning won that change in the law, will demonstrate that. The global pervasiveness of this patriarchal ideology was referred to earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin.

The noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, said in opening this group that the Bill should not be caught up in gender politics. This issue—the entire Bill—is deeply, inevitably gendered, however much the Government might try to deny it. The struggle to get to the situation we are apparently in now, where the wellbeing of the child is predominant in decisions made about that child, was one long struggle against a society run by men in their own interests. But now we are faced with renewed efforts, a fightback for a “presumption of contact”—an assumption that if a child says they do not want to spend time with a parent, the other parent must be turning the child against them.

After entering the debate publicly in Committee, I was contacted by women who told me what presumption of contact and a fear of an accusation of parental alienation had done to them. I want to give them voice, so I will report one such case. I will call her Camilla, although that is not her name. Her account was of seven years of hellish coercive control and physical assault. She remained, at least in part, because the partner concerned told her that he would claim parental alienation if she left and did not allow wide access to the children. She was concerned about what would happen during that access.

After Camilla had left the relationship, she went through court case after court case as he claimed rights to parental access, while not paying the child maintenance that he could have afforded, and alleging that the children’s expressions of a desire not to spend time with him were a result of so-called parental alienation. Such offenders, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said, can be extremely convincing in a public space and in contact with professionals.

For fear of not being believed, Camilla told her child that should anything bad happen when they were with their father, the child should not tell her, but should instead tell an official authority figure. So, that upper primary school age child declared, in front of many peers and school officials at a school gathering, that their father was physically abusing his new girlfriend in front of them. Then, happily, safeguarding apparatuses kicked in, as they should have. A few weeks later that child disclosed, again to people outside the family, that they had been sexually abused by an individual that the father had left them with. It is a horrendous account and one that I will long remember, and I think of the difficulties and pressures on that child.

This brings me to my final point, one that I do not think our debate in Committee really brought out. It is about the impact on a child of being told that they are deluded, or that their mother or father is leading them astray, or lying to them, and that their own impressions, feelings, desires and beliefs about not being with a parent are some kind of false consciousness. When a child says that they do not want contact, they need to be given—no doubt for their own well-being—the chance to explore that with trained professionals and given the time to explain, to discuss and to vent their feelings.

Above all, children need to be listened to. Imagine what it feels like to have stated very clearly to officialdom that you do not want to spend time with a parent, that you have seen them doing things that are illegal or vicious or clearly damaging to other human beings, then being forced by a court to spend time with them anyway.

I was talking about these issues with a friend of mine who is over the age of 80. I was fascinated when she explained how, not through the agency of the court but through community and social pressure, she had been forced to spend teenage weekend days with her father who had separated from her mother years before. She felt that her father did not really want to be there, and she certainly did not want to be there as a teenager, but she did not have agency or control. More than 60 years later those weekends clearly still had an impact on her. We know that agency and control of one’s own self, being listened to and believed, are crucial for well-being.

It would appear that this amendment is not going to be pushed to a Division, so on one level this is academic. That is narrowly true in terms of the progress of this Bill, but in terms of defending a hard-won, long-fought-for principle of children’s interests being paramount in the official approach to custody and access, against the weight of those millennia when the father’s control was absolute or near absolute, this is an important debate. Let us keep the well-being of children as the sole goal—a very recent goal that is both a moral right and one that will give us the healthiest possible society.

[Lord Cormack (Con) [V]]

My Lords, that was a very powerful speech in favour of the aims of the amendment. At the end of the last debate in Committee when I spoke I said that I was somewhat ambivalent, although I totally supported what my noble friend Lady Meyer was seeking to do. That remains my position to a large degree, although I have come down—if it were a case of this amendment going to the vote, which I hope it will not—of probably being on the side of my noble friend. There is nothing more admirable in life than somebody who dedicates himself or herself to trying to ensure that others do not suffer as he or she has done. The noble Baroness’s campaign, over 20 years or more now, to ensure that other women and men should not have to tread the road she was obliged to tread is wholly admirable and commendable. There is nothing more wicked—and I chose my words with some care—than seeking to corrupt the mind of a child, particularly so that that child is turned against either their father or, more often, sadly, their birth mother.

We have devoted time recently to debating the importance of motherhood—there is nothing more important in the world. My noble friend Lady Meyer has clearly suffered greatly. She does not want others to suffer greatly in the same way, nor do any of us. It is a question of how we achieve her aim without making this Bill more difficult. As I listened to the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and to my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern, I thought that between them they had got it right. They both signed this amendment but they do not really want it to be necessary.

--- Later in debate ---

When domestic abuse victims generally leave home with little or no money and few possessions, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, the only two options of a complete lack of money or a loan are just not reasonable in a civilised country. The five-week wait is surely the most widely criticised aspect of universal credit—and there are many. But if the Government will not get rid of it for all claimants, as they should, I hope that the Minister accepts the modest proposal in Amendment 69.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I was very pleased to be able to attach my name to Amendments 10, 68 and 69 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, also signed by the noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Burt of Solihull. I join the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, in paying tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for her tireless work in these areas. I also express the Green group’s support for the cross-party backed Amendments 72 and 102—linked amendments which I would have signed had I recognised that there was a space.

I begin with Amendment 68, which gives the Government a duty to assess the impact of social security forms on victims or potential victims of domestic abuse. I go back to 2010, when the Fawcett Society—I had better declare an historic interest as a former member of the board—took the Government to court for a judicial review over their failure to conduct a gender assessment of the impacts of the Budget. It was one of those cases where the society lost the case but won the argument. The Government conceded that the gender impact assessments did apply to the Budget and should have been carried out in two key areas. The challenge also led to an investigation of gender assessments by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, also referred to the European Court of Human Rights ruling in 2019 that the bedroom tax unlawfully discriminated against vulnerable victims of domestic violence living in sanctuary schemes. If an assessment had been made, victims of domestic abuse would have been exempt in the first place and—of far less concern to me personally, but none the less possibly of interest to the Government—embarrassment to the Government would have been avoided. I suggest that the Government, by either accepting this amendment or introducing something similar of their own, would be avoiding similar events in future.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson of Welton, suggested that we should not be telling the commissioner designate what to do, but I think that requesting and providing the requisite resources—a small sum in the overall context of the government budget—is entirely appropriate when the Bill becomes an Act and is implemented and enforced.

As a noble Baroness said on one of the previous groups, so much of our debate on the Bill has focused on the criminal justice system, but we know that that is not the only place or, for many victims, the primary place where their problems lie. In our Second Reading debate, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, acknowledged with admirable frankness that earlier legislation passed on his watch had been inadequate: it was inadequate when it was passed and it has been exposed since. I would say to the Ministers working on the Bill for the Government, “You do not want to be in that position in a decade’s time”. Ensuring that an assessment is made will ensure that the appropriate actions can be taken as they are needed. As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, current assessments are not taking account of the impact of government policies on victims and potential victims of domestic abuse.

Finally, to conclude on Amendment 68, I note that an amendment that might have been here is not. There has been strong pressure on Bills across this House to deal with the disastrous impact of the immigration status of no recourse to public funds. Victims of domestic abuse who have that status are the most vulnerable victims explicitly pushed away from the benefit system. I noted that in Committee the Government said, “Oh, exceptions are made”, but being an exception is not a comfortable, safe or certain place. Only by abolishing the entire status of no recourse to public funds could we ensure that no victim or potential victim of domestic abuse was left, all too literally, out in the cold. I would ask for a change in policy, but an impact assessment would be a start to expose what is happening.

I turn to the other amendments in the group. I note that the Women’s Aid briefing for this stage, which says that it is essential that the Bill delivers reforms beyond the criminal justice system alone if it is truly to make a difference to women and children experiencing domestic abuse. The lack of funding, the inadequacy of our support system, is a fundamental barrier to escaping. Over half of the survivors surveyed by Women’s Aid and the TUC could not afford to leave an abuser. Amendment 10, providing separate payments as standard, has been extensively covered. All I would say in addition is that we do not have to look just at the situation of abuse to consider the damage that single payments of universal credit are doing. I should like to add to my argument on the second group that, even where a relationship does not fit a definition of abuse, the gendered nature of power relationships in our society is still marked by years of male breadwinners, unequal pay and discrimination, particularly against mothers in the workforce.

I recommend that anyone who has not encountered the campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed look it up and consider how reports we have heard about the likelihood of abuse starting in pregnancy fit with the level of pregnancy discrimination experienced in the workplace.

Amendment 69 is about the argument that, when you have just taken the brave, frightening and dangerous step of leaving an abusive relationship, it is unarguably damaging and wrong to take on the weight of a loan; that should be changed.

Finally, on Amendments 72 and 102 on the benefit cap, this is a heartless, disastrous and damaging policy that explicitly and by design throws children into poverty. I note the comments that the noble Lord, Lord Best, made about the Government suggesting that this could be covered by discretionary housing payments from local councils. Here I should perhaps declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Local councils are seeing enormous pressures, with continuing austerity in the supply of funds from Westminster. We have heard from Ministers that they want to make this Bill the best it can be. A postcode lottery in the ability to escape from abusive relationships, due to the benefits cap, is not the best this Bill can be.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, back in the days of the joint consultative committee on this Bill, on which I sat, we identified that

“access to money is one of the main barriers to ending an abusive relationship”,

for all the reasons outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. This is why she returns to this theme today, and I am delighted to continue my support.

We have long discussed single universal credit payments as a major tool of the perpetrator of economic coercive control—a tool handed to him by the Government. Amendment 10 requires the domestic abuse commissioner to look at this and to report to Parliament.

In her remarks, the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, said that she believed this is not appropriate or realistically achievable in one year, and that it is for the commissioner to decide what investigations she makes. She has a point. Frankly, I for one do not understand why a review should be necessary at all. For me, the case has already been made several times over.

Maybe those who design the payment systems would prefer to consign the work to enable split payments to the “too difficult” box, but, if they can design a mostly working model to incorporate six benefits into one payment that fluctuates with income—universal credit—I do not see why split payments should not be a doddle.

Amendment 10 is a very moderate amendment that calls for the facts to be laid bare so that the Government can be absolutely sure they will achieve the effect of greater economic independence, not just for the victims of domestic abuse but to generate greater economic independence for women receiving universal credit in all circumstances. Split payments reflect modern-day life. If we purport to see the independence of women in an equal society as a desirable thing, for so many reasons, why hand financial control in the vast majority of cases to the man?

Amendment 68 does the same thing as Amendment 10 from the perspective of relevant government departments, getting everyone involved in implementation looking at the issue from the perspective of what they can do. Amendment 69 takes the strain and worry of having to pay back benefit advances from victims who have received them. As I said in Committee, if the benefit system is not up to helping victims under great duress in a timely manner, those victims should not be made to suffer the worry of where to find the money to repay all the additional expenses they have incurred because of government tardiness.

This is a time of extreme vulnerability, as many noble Lords have said, not only for the victim but, potentially, for her children. Changes in the light of these amendments could make the difference between a decision to escape or to stay and face the misery and danger of remaining with an abuser.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 15th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, who added powerful examples to the already clear and strong examples from the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the noble Lord, Lord Randall, as to why we should agree both these amendments. I will not detain the House for long, but I want to strongly express the Green group’s support for these two amendments.

The logical way to take them is in the opposite order to that in which they are numbered. Amendment 87C, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and with strong cross-party support, expresses the ideal situation which, we have been told, is already being created in Scotland, with even stronger support for victims of domestic abuse. It is for people to stay in their own homes and communities and, very often, for children to stay in the schools that they are used to, with their friends. This is obviously the right thing to do to support victims of domestic abuse and to ensure that abusers do not profit from the situation, as they are often left with the home, tenancy, control and their place in the community.

Amendment 66B, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, acknowledges that that is simply not always possible. Victims of domestic abuse, having fled to refuges, may have started to establish themselves in a new place, possibly on the other side of the country, and have started to make friends, and children have become used to schools. The amendments make an excellent package—in this case, the grouping works—to provide a bit more wraparound and support for the victims of domestic abuse, for whom we are all spending so many hours in your Lordships’ House trying to make this the best Bill it can be. These two amendments, or something very like them, are needed to make this the Bill that it should be, so I commend them to your Lordships’ House.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by commending my noble friend Lord Randall for the case he made for Amendment 66B. I look forward to the Minister’s reply on that. The case for Amendment 87C was capably made in Committee by a number of noble Lords and reinforced today by the noble Baronesses, Lady Deech, Lady Warwick and Lady Bennett. I will not repeat it, except to gently remind the Minister that in Scotland they have gone further than our modest amendment in giving security to victims of domestic abuse, even when they are not a joint tenant.

I want to focus on what has happened since Committee, and begin by thanking my noble friend Lord Parkinson for his patient and sympathetic approach in seeking to find a way forward. In his wind-up speech in Committee, he recognised that our amendment would simplify the current complex and uncertain legal mechanism available to victims, and would prevent perpetrators from exerting control over a victim. That was enormously helpful.

In our letter dated 15 February, we sought to address the concerns that he expressed on five separate issues. In particular, we amended the section on responsibility for arrears to clarify that the perpetrator remains liable for arrears before the joint tenancy is terminated. Then we added subsection (11) to the new clause proposed by the amendment, to give the Government time to assess progress in Scotland. We had a meeting with my noble friend earlier this month, for which again I am grateful, and he replied to our letter last week, in which he repeated his sympathy for the motives behind the amendment.

So where do we go from here? If there are defects in our drafting, we know that the Bill will go back to the other place, so there will be an opportunity for the Government to tidy it up. My preferred solution would be for the Government to accept the amendment, tidy it up in the other place and implement it as soon as it is successfully rolled out in Scotland.

I would understand the disappointment if the Government were to resist but, if they do, with some reluctance I would consider the more cautious approach suggested in my noble friend’s letter and referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, in her opening speech—namely consultation. I am not entirely convinced that this is necessary but, subject to some strict conditions—an early start date, a reasonable but not protracted time for consultation and a decision by the Government by the autumn—the proposition is worth reflecting on. The option would be even more attractive if there was also a commitment to include the necessary measures in the first relevant piece of legislation, be it on rights for renters or leasehold reform, both of which are likely to feature in the next Session. I will listen with more than usual attention to my noble friend’s response at the end of this debate, before deciding how best to proceed.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 17th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I can only begin speaking on this amendment by taking a moment to think of the victims of the Atlanta spa shootings and their families. It is very early to understand motives for a deadly mass attack, but it is hard not to suspect a link to the kind of hate crime, possibly intersectional hate crime, that we are discussing today.

I want to pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, and the noble Lords, Lord Russell of Liverpool and Lord Young of Cookham, for their work on this amendment and their powerful presentations for it. Had I known there was a space, I or my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, who backed a similar amendment in Committee, would certainly have joined them.

I will be fairly brief, noting the intervention we have just had, but it is important to note that this amendment marks a potential national step forward for a grass-roots movement which, as other noble Lords have noted, started in Nottingham. This amendment has not, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, identified, gone as far as Nottingham in data collection, but it is certainly a step in that direction. The recording of misogyny by police in Nottingham can be taken as a case study of how political campaigning works and how grass-roots, community-centred action can make a big difference in the individual community and far beyond. Now, 11 out of 43 police constabularies in England and Wales have made recording misogyny a hate crime part of their practices or are actively considering the policy.

How did this all start? It started with a community group called Nottingham Citizens, which conducted a survey that found that 38% of women had reported a hate crime that was explicitly linked to their gender and that one in five hate crimes that took place were reported. Nottingham Women’s Centre held a conference about street harassment at which the police and crime commissioner asked those who had experienced misogyny to raise their hand. The police and crime commissioner, Paddy Tipping, was quoted afterwards as saying “I just thought people should not be treated like this.” Since the change has been made in police recording in Nottingham, reports indicate that women say that they have been able to walk down the street with their heads held higher and debate and action have made a lot of men recognise the extent of the problem. I urge the House to listen to the experiences of the women of Nottingham and of the increasing areas of the country where people have had their experience understood and recorded and apply that to the victims of domestic abuse.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, linked the amendment and support for it to the current level of rightful anger in the country following the death of Sarah Everard, but as the noble Lord, Lord Russell, pointed out, the proposal originated far before that. Indeed, I have to pay tribute to the deputy leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, Amelia Womack, who has bravely publicly identified herself as a victim of domestic abuse and who has been campaigning on this issue for many years.

In response to the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, about potential confusion, any examination of what has happened in Nottingham shows that real-world experience does not demonstrate significant difficulties.

It is said often that we have an epidemic of misogyny and violence against women, but my science background makes me want to be precise in my use of epidemiological wording. We have endemic misogyny. “Endemic” defines a disease that is always present in a certain population or region. Smallpox was once an endemic disease in much of the world, but we have almost eradicated it. We need to have the same target in mind, as distant as it may look, for misogyny. That is the only way that women and girls can be safe. I do not think I can put it any better, so I will finish by quoting Mel Jeffs, the former CEO of Nottingham Women’s Centre:

“Misogyny is the soil in which violence against women grows.”

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, for her work in this area. The figures that she mentioned are terrifying, and I agree with many of her points.

I received a number of emails asking me to speak to this amendment because of the level of concern about misogyny. Like many others, I am tired of misogynistic behaviour and appalled by the way that women are still treated in society. However, what looks like a simple amendment that I could support is in fact far more complicated. The amendment does not explicitly state the word “misogyny”, and to me the inclusion of the word “perception” is not precise enough.

I am grateful for the various views from other noble Lords and, as always, the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, has given me much to think about and challenged my views about what misogyny actually is. I am still inclined towards a legal framework for it, but I am tired of women having to change their behaviour because of it.

However, we need to consider what we can do to prevent, report and tackle it, and which legislation it should be placed in. Both men and women are affected by domestic violence and all those affected by it deserve protection, but women are undoubtedly more commonly victims. There is only one place in the Bill where the word “female” is used and we should take absolute care with it because it is the only place where women are centred in the legislation.

Domestic abuse legislation is complicated; it should not be, but it is. Last week the Government told me that including a specific provision in the Bill for disabled people who experience abuse in the domestic environment would be too complicated. I am strongly in favour of improving law enforcement around violence against women and girls, which we desperately need, but, while I am moving towards the idea of having a legal framework for misogyny, I do not think the Bill is the right vehicle for it. We should spend more time and care on the question of hate crimes—I am particularly keen to look at disability hate crimes—than on an amendment that comes towards the end of the Bill. We should have an opportunity to explore more options to enable us to do the job that we want it to: offering protection to women and girls.

Counting women should not be complicated. The amendment is largely about the counting aspect of hate crimes. How do the police measure how many crimes of male violence against women are reported and how many are prosecuted? That is fundamental, and this is where it does not need to be complicated. Scotland passed a Bill on hate crimes last week and excluded women and misogyny from it, saying that the issue was too complicated. There is a working group led by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, and many will be interested in its outcome, but that will not be for many months.

I understand that the word “gender” was added to the amendment after previous stages in another place. Earlier versions used the correct legal definition of “sex” and did not have the late insertion of “or gender” so that has not been through lengthy scrutiny. I am concerned that adding “gender” here takes away from the clarity of Clause 73 in centering women. I reiterate that anyone who experiences domestic abuse deserves support and protection. Gender is neither definable nor defined in law, so including it here could undermine the single use of the word “female” in the Bill, again given that it is women who are disproportionately affected by domestic abuse. Surely we should be concerned about whether the police take crimes of violence, abuse and sexual harassment against women seriously, not what they perceive the attitude of the perpetrator towards the idea of sex or gender to be. Sex is a protected characteristic and defined in law, and is adequate to cover the intention of the amendment if it goes forward.

The Law Commission is developing a proposal on reforming hate crimes legislation and has consulted on it. It has an open question on whether include sex or gender in future, and that section alone runs to 43 pages out of a 544-page document. I understand that it received a great number of responses but, again, it will not be reporting any time soon, so it is important that we do not prejudge that outcome. It is also notable that the Law Commission’s proposal draws on the Office for National Statistics in setting out what it means by sex and gender. After the ruling announced this morning from the High Court, it may need to go back to the drawing board. My noble friend Lord Pannick, who is unable to be in his place today, has stated that he thinks it would be very unwise to legislate on this sensitive issue until we see the Law Commission consultation.

Scotland recently removed the word “gender” from a Bill on forensic medical services for victims of sexual offences to ensure that if a woman asks to be examined by a female doctor, there is no confusion or negotiation about what that means. I would also be really interested in the opinion of the domestic abuse commissioner on this amendment, particularly on the addition of the word “gender”.

My worry is that including gender and sex as a caveat to the word “female” in the guidance would prevent domestic violence services being clear about sex. Women who have been victims of domestic abuse need to be able to access female-only services if they choose and, again, all victims of domestic abuse need to be able to access services that offer support and protection. We must take misogyny and violence against women seriously, not just seek to be seen to do something when the issue is in the headlines. It happens every single day.

The Government have just reopened the consultation on their violence against women and girls strategy. Surely that is the right place to be dealing with this complex issue, rather than via this last-minute amendment and its additional wording.