Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

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

[Baroness Crawley (Lab) (V)]

My Lords, I wish to support in particular Amendment 154 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Meacher, my noble friend Lady Wilcox of Newport and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London. I also welcome the important contributions that have been made on this group of amendments.

Recently, Gill, an abused Brazilian woman of insecure immigration status, spent three days in the middle of winter sleeping on our streets with one of her children. How she got there is a heartbreaking tale of police misunderstanding of the guidance, Home Office incompetence and, indeed, laws that are not fit for purpose. Gill’s is one of several case studies presented to us by the Latin American Women’s Rights Service, which is constantly seeing migrant victims of domestic abuse, as the right reverend Prelate has said. It sees the lack of trust and confidence that these victims have in our institutions, which are meant to protect them but often end up only harming them further. It knows, as does anyone who originates from a diaspora, that trust is a rare commodity and has to be built up step by step and law by law, as my noble friend Lord Rooker suggested in his reflections on the Home Office and the hostile environment.

Migrant women face many additional barriers to safety because, as has been said, abusers commonly use women’s fears of immigration enforcement and separation from their children to control them. The End Violence Against Women Coalition has pointed to the particular vulnerabilities experienced by migrant women: no recourse to public funds, homelessness, the financial impact of the inability to work due to their immigration status, forced marriage, so-called honour-based violence and much more. Add to that the harm that this amendment seeks to address, which is the fear that their information will be passed on by the police and other organisations to Immigration Enforcement, and it is no wonder that many, including the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, my noble friend Lady Wilcox and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London do not believe that the Bill in its present form—however much we welcome it, and I certainly do—is compliant with the requirements of Article 4, paragraph 3 of the Istanbul convention.

During the passage of the Bill in the Commons, MPs, including the Minister, stated that all victims of domestic abuse are treated first and foremost as victims, regardless of their immigration status. However, for that to happen certain things have to change. Accepting this amendment would be a good place to start, backed up by the conclusions of the super-complaint investigation by Liberty and Southall Black Sisters on policing and insecure immigration status. The report on this was published in December 2020 in collaboration with the College of Policing and the Independent Office for Police Conduct. The super-complaint has been taken seriously by the police because it underlines, among other things, the ongoing danger to public safety of migrant victims’ perpetrators, who are sometimes part of criminal gangs, going free and undetected outside the law because their victims fear reporting them to the police. The super-complaint concludes that for victims of domestic abuse, a complete separation or firewall must be in place between the police response to a victim who is reporting domestic abuse and the handling of their immigration status, as is provided for in the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher.

While the amendment obviously goes further than interaction with the police, the focus of the super-complaint and its call for all chief constables to stop immediately the sharing of information on domestic abuse victims with Immigration Enforcement provides welcome ballast for this important amendment. I hope that the Minister sees the need to accept the amendment and will not wait for the findings of the support for migrant victims scheme.

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

My Lords, I refer to my interests on the register. I support Amendments 55, 56 and 154. My main concerns relate to victims of modern slavery and of forced marriage who are from overseas. Some victims of modern slavery suffer from domestic abuse and may not go through the NRM. If they do not, their immigrant status will be not just uncertain but probably not acceptable. It may not be safe for them to be returned to their own country.

I refer particularly to a group of foreign wives who marry men in this country but whose marriages are not registered. An example, but not the only example, is a nikah in a Muslim marriage. If that marriage is not registered, as everyone knows, it is not legal in English law. Consequently, wives will not receive the spousal visa or have the protection of being a wife—although they believe of course that they are wives. This is very serious, and I ask the Minister to look at this group of women, some of whom may be in a forced marriage, while others may be in a perfectly good arranged marriage where the husband has walked out on them or turfed them out and they are completely lost, because they do not have the appropriate immigration status as a wife.

[Lord Paddick (LD) [V]]

My Lords, as my noble friend Lady Hamwee has explained, our Amendments 55 and 56 in this group are designed to prevent information about victims of domestic abuse that could be used for immigration control being disclosed by the domestic abuse commissioner. These amendments go further than Amendment 154, as they talk about information provided to the domestic abuse commissioner whether a request for support has been made or not.

The danger is that the information, supplied by either the domestic abuse commissioner or somebody seeking support, is shared with the police. There have been numerous reported examples where the police have passed the details of victims and witnesses of crime to immigration officials, including a case in 2017 of a woman who alleged she was raped and kidnapped. She was first taken to a haven, a centre for victims of sexual assault, but was subsequently arrested and questioned about her immigration status.

In 2015, the last year for which I can find figures, police tip-offs to the immigration service of the details of crime victims and witnesses occurred on over 3,000 occasions—in one year. As the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, said, such sharing of information makes genuine victims of domestic abuse less likely to come forward to receive the help and support that they so desperately need. These victims are likely to be even more vulnerable to coercive control than those with regular immigration status.

Amendment 154 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, similarly requires the Secretary of State to make arrangements to ensure that personal data of a victim of domestic abuse that is processed for the purpose of requesting or receiving support is not used for immigration control purposes, along with domestic abuse witness and victim data. We support these attempts to prevent the disclosure of this information for immigration control purposes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]]

My Lords, we have Amendments 64, 68 and 69. Clause 26 takes us fully into the area of protection orders. Of course, we have been referring to them this afternoon. We are particularly concerned about how the Bill is constructed to mean—as I read it—that there is an inevitability about a protection order following a protection notice. I appreciate that there are stand-alone protection orders: those are not the ones I am referring to here.

Under Clause 26(3), the police must apply for an order if they have given a notice. Our Amendment 68 would change that “must” to “may”. Clause 27(1), to which we have tabled Amendment 69, makes a similar point. The wording in the Bill is “required … to apply”. Amendment 64 anticipates those two amendments. Of course, we are not arguing that there should never be protection orders, but does the Bill have the right balance? It seems to me that the Minister’s descriptions, in response to the last group of amendments, of situations in which a protection order could be used, make that point very well. I find it quite depressing to see that notices would always be regarded as precursors to an order. Do notices not have their own place in prevention? In other words, this group of amendments asks: is the balance in the Bill right? I beg to move.

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

My Lords, I support Amendment 68. This is really a very short point; it is a question of flexibility. There may be circumstances where a protection order has been issued, but by the time it comes to a senior officer, circumstances have changed and it would be far better not to have it go forward. It would be wise, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said—I realise that this is a probing amendment—to have the flexibility in the Bill so that it is not the case that, if an order is issued by someone of junior rank, it is automatically supported by someone more senior.

[Lord Paddick (LD) [V]]

My Lords, as my noble friend Lady Hamwee said, Clause 26(3) states that if a domestic abuse protection notice is given by the police under Clause 20, the chief police officer must apply for a domestic abuse protection order. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, just said, what if it transpires that the circumstances have changed or that the police officer who gave the notice, for example, made a mistake? What if further evidence becomes apparent that means a domestic abuse protection order should not have been given or is no longer required? Can the Minister explain why the issuing of a domestic abuse protection notice is discretionary, but the application for a domestic abuse protection order, once a notice has been served, is mandatory? Hence our Amendment 68. As my noble friend explained, Amendments 64 and 69 are consequential.

--- Later in debate ---

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

My Lords, I do not want to go over ground that has already been expressed by so many noble Lords in this important debate, but I emphasise a concern that noble Lords have. In welcoming the Bill and applauding the Government’s attempts to drive this forward in as consensual a way as possible, it could all fail if the funding is not available to enable local authorities in particular, but other services too, to provide the support that has been identified, in all the work leading up to the Bill and in noble Lords’ debates.

That is what makes the amendment of my noble friend so important: it tries to define the provision that local authorities are responsible for much more closely. I hope that the Government recognise that giving greater assurance to noble Lords that local authorities have the ability to deliver the kinds of services we want will be crucial to their response. This is not just about funding—we know that—but we cannot ignore funding. The evidence that has been put forward by noble Lords about issues with refuge bed spaces is convincing.

As I understand it, 64% of total refuge referrals in England were declined last year. We know from the outstanding work of Women’s Aid in its annual survey of support providers that, for most organisations that provide these essential services, the local authority commission did not cover all or most of the cost of running the service. We should think about this: over the last year, as they have had to cope with real issues in raising funds, increased demands on their services and the uncertainty of local government finance, those lifesaving services have been under huge strain. We took the experience of Refuge as an example. Since 2011, it has experienced cuts to 80% of its services. Funding for refuges has been cut by an average of 50% and, as Refuge says, it is far from alone in that experience. The Covid-19 emergency has put further strain on the specialist sector: obviously many providers have had to transform the way in which they deliver services while meeting additional demand.

We all sign up to the idea of a national network of refuges to grow and meet demand but, without much greater clarity over the commissioning and strategic responsibilities of local government and the funding made available by central government, we must be very concerned about whether the Bill, when enacted, will be implemented properly.

I have one other point to make. I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, had to say about the importance of data collection. As he said, it seems that the police no longer collect data regarding the sex of victims. I think that is a mistake. It also emphasises the importance of new subsection (1B)(a) in Amendment 89 in relation to the information that a local authority is required to obtain. Obtaining the prevalence of trends in domestic abuse and other forms of violence against women and girls is vital to ensure that the full scale of the problem is known and the proper strategies can be adopted.

Overall, we want to hear tonight the Government recognise that in order to make sure that the Bill— a Bill that we really support—will actually work in practice, they are going to have to tackle the issue of local government responsibilities, direction and funding.

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

My Lords, this is a very good Bill, as I said earlier, and it is excellent to include the references to local authorities. However, good Bills require to be improved, and consequently I support Amendments 93, 95, 100, 102 and 106.

I remind the Government how important it is to include victims of forced marriage and modern slavery in specialist services strategy guidance for local authorities, for the proposed boards and for other organisations. The particular group that needs special support is young people who are being coerced into a forced marriage. Some of these girls are under 18. They are in a particularly difficult group and may need suitable refuges if local authorities do not take them over sufficiently quickly.

In this group of amendments we have of course been concentrating on women and girls, but we ought to remember that 20% of those who suffer domestic abuse are men. Forced marriage does not only affect girls; it affects young men, some of whom may be gay or transgender, and we should not forget that men have need for refuges and for specialist services.

--- Later in debate ---

This amendment is supported by the crisis and destitution sector, including the Children’s Society and the Trussell Trust, as well as financial sector experts such as the Lloyds Bank Foundation, the Smallwood Trust, and Surviving Economic Abuse. By enabling this new clause to form part of the Bill, the Government would be holding out a financial lifeline to survivors so that they can afford to escape to safety with their children. I beg to move.

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

My Lords, I am very happy to have put my name to this amendment. I support entirely what the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, has just said, so I will not weary the House at this time by repeating any of it.

Local welfare provision schemes are vital to the ability of the Domestic Abuse Bill to offer what is needed in local authority areas, particularly in emergency situations, but also more broadly. It is very important that local authorities have sufficient funding. Again and again during debates on the Bill we have listened to those who have said, quite rightly, that the Bill is a good Bill but, unless it has the money, it will not work. Again and again we get very good legislation, but it does not get implemented. The main reason for the failure to implement good legislation is the lack of funding. We absolutely must not find ourselves doing that with this very good Bill. I would only add to it to please, please include welfare provision for victims of domestic abuse and those who suffer from forced marriage or modern slavery.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I was pleased to add my name to Amendment 101, which in some ways follows on from my group of amendments on social security, debated last Wednesday.

If we had a decent social security system that provided genuine security to survivors of domestic abuse, including economic abuse, and still had a national emergency scheme like the Social Fund, we might not need local welfare assistance schemes. As it is, such schemes, which constitute the final safety net—leaving aside charitable support—are in a parlous state, despite the welcome injection of cash to help cope with the pandemic.

When local welfare assistance schemes were introduced to replace the national Social Fund, the Government refused to make them compulsory or to ring-fence the money allocated, despite your Lordships’ best efforts. It is no surprise, therefore, that when local authorities are strapped for cash because of years of cuts, research by the Children’s Society last year found that one in seven local authorities does not even run a scheme any more. It found that, of 121 authorities that provided spending data, about three-quarters spent less than half their allocated budget on local welfare assistance schemes. That budget has itself been cut, so that overall, it stands at less than half the money that was allocated to the Social Fund it replaced.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, has pointed out, the lack of any regulation has given rise to our old friend the postcode lottery, which is particularly damaging to domestic abuse survivors who might find themselves excluded by local connection criteria if they have moved local authorities to escape their abuser. A woman might find herself excluded because she is subject to the “no recourse to public funds” rule. It is essential that any guidance issued under this amendment, should it eventually pass, ensures that these groups are covered.

More generally, domestic abuse survivors need the security of knowing that they can get appropriate help from local authorities and not just help in kind which may well not be appropriate. It is not good enough that we have to rely on a charity to provide basic information on state local welfare assistance schemes because central government have taken the Pontius Pilate approach and washed their hands of all responsibility for the schemes, ignoring the recommendations of the Work and Pensions Committee in a previous Parliament.

Paul Maynard MP on the Government Back Benches is leading a cross-party call tomorrow in the Commons for a review of local welfare assistance schemes, supported by among others former Secretary of State Iain Duncan Smith. Mr Maynard stated:

“We need to ensure we learn the lessons of the pandemic to embed a better provision of emergency support for some of the most vulnerable in our society.”

This amendment would at least require central government to exercise some responsibility towards this particularly vulnerable group of people and it therefore deserves support.

I also want to speak briefly in support of Amendment 176, leaving it to the sponsors of the amendment to make the case more fully. I am sure no one would dispute the importance of specialised domestic abuse provision for a range of minority groups, including particular provision by and for domestic abuse victims and survivors. It is just such provision which has been particularly vulnerable to funding cuts and changes in commissioning practises in recent years, as was discussed earlier. That is sufficient reason for supporting this amendment, but it would also go some way to redress the balance, following the welcome introduction in the Bill of a duty on local authorities to assess the need for accommodation-based services by ensuring the duty in this new clause covers community-based services. As important as accommodation-based services are—they are very important—the Justice Secretary noted at Second Reading debate in the House of Commons that 70% of domestic abuse victims never set foot in a refuge. Many of them will seek support from community-based services.

The Government say they need more evidence about the need for community-based services and that nothing can be done until the domestic abuse commissioner designate has completed her investigation. However, the domestic abuse commissioner herself and organisations on the ground insist there is ample evidence to make legislative provision now. What further evidence do the Government need?

In Committee in the Commons, the Minister assured MPs that

“the Government are committed to addressing”

Whatever the domestic abuse commissioner’s findings are,

“that the commissioner will publish her report under clause 8”,

and the Government are

“required to respond to it within 56 days.” ”—[Official Report, Commons, Public Bill Committee, 11/6/20; col. 249.]

That is all well and good, but this Bill will be on the statue book by then. The chances of another Domestic Abuse Bill coming along in the near future must be slim—just look at how long it has taken us to get to this point on this Bill. I hope the Government will listen to the experts, the domestic abuse commissioner designate and organisations on the ground and extend the duty on local authorities to assess the need for community-based services and accept this amendment as a way of doing so.