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.

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[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.