Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

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

[Baroness Boycott (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I am extremely pleased to be able to be part of this historic debate tonight. It brings back a lot of memories for me from when I was 20 years old and founding Spare Rib magazine. In the second month of our life, we went to visit Erin Pizzey and her newly opened Chiswick Women’s Aid. It was a first in this country and certainly a first for me in learning a bit about domestic abuse. I remember my horror at learning that almost two women a week were killed within the confines of their family. I thought, in my naivety, that women’s liberation and the newly acquired power of women would mean that this figure would reduce. Sadly, it has not, and today the rate is still exactly the same as it was almost 50 years ago.

For this reason and many others, I so welcome the passage of this Bill, and applaud the efforts of so many people who have pulled it all together. When I was a journalist and writing about this, I used to think that if all these women were killed together on one day the whole world would stop and take notice, but somehow this drip feed of pure horror has gone on under our noses. I thank everyone who has made it this far.

I would like to add a very particular and personal note—the question of alcohol in relation to domestic abuse. Twenty-five per cent to 50% of cases of domestic abuse involve alcohol—certainly mostly in the case of the abuser but often in the case of the victim as well. Moving someone to a new location and getting them out of immediate danger is obviously of paramount importance—I cannot stress that enough—but, as they say in certain organisations, just moving does not necessarily remove the problem. If the drinking is not stopped, or at least in some way modified, the victim will go on receiving the abuse.

I have a young cousin who is the superintendent of a police force outside Reading and I spoke to her yesterday about this. She said that out of 50 calls they get every day, over 25 concern domestic abuse, and a huge number of those involve alcohol.

I have been lucky in my life. I have had problems with alcohol but have been able to afford good treatment, including in-house treatment, to help me overcome the situation and to lead a full and happy life. But when I consider the prospect of being on your own with an addiction problem, having coped with a domestic abuse problem, and trying to pull your life back together without sufficient support, I wonder how many women, or indeed men, can do it. So I would like to see added to the Bill provision for sufficient funding and scope for treatment and help for people in this situation, so that they get the support they need. It is only by breaking patterns of dependency that we can stop people re-entering the same kinds of relationships.

My dear little cousin, Felicity—she is not little any more—said that in many cases the police are called to, they see the address, look round the station and say, “Here we go again. It’s probably going to be bad, they’re going to be drunk and she’s going to have a black eye. This is going to go on.”

I would love to meet the Minister to ask whether there is anything that I can do, from my personal experience, to help. It is of great importance that we understand alcohol’s role in these horrible crimes and situations in which both perpetrators and victims are themselves the victims of addiction and troubled lives. They need help to move on.