Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 8th February 2021 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, it is hoped to get the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, on the telephone. In the meantime, I call the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss.

[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.

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[Baroness Verma (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am very supportive of Amendment 149. I would like to put it in the context of how I see this: supporting women from BAME communities in particular, where they are separated from their families and yet the coercive behaviour continues, not just by one perpetrator but by many family members, in particular with regard to the economics of abuse or the way they poison—and I say “poison” very strongly—the minds of children against the victims and survivors. We need to have something in place that supports women. I concentrate on BAME women because I feel that they are probably those who least know how to access the services that are available and how to utilise the law as it currently stands. We need to make sure that they have as much protection as possible and are able to access it.

I know my noble friend will take away the serious implications of the amendment, particularly for the women I am trying to focus on. I feel, as other noble Lords have said very eloquently, that this is something that is critical and missing in an important piece of our legislative framework.

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

My Lords, I support Amendments 149 and 157. I am very well aware of the time and shall keep this short. Victims of domestic abuse who escape the perpetrator need protection in circumstances already set out so well by other speakers—and not exclusively, I have to say, in situations of economic abuse. However, to look at economic abuse, as a family judge financial dispute cases post-divorce came before me which undoubtedly came within the framework of economic abuse. They were very difficult to resolve because those who had perpetrated this economic abuse were usually very clever in managing to prevent adequate financial relief for the spouse. However, it is absurd to suggest that the CPS would be likely to prosecute these sorts of cases as issues of harassment. Possibly it would, but I would be astonished if it did or, indeed, if the police brought them to the attention of the CPS.

As I said, I also support Amendment 157. It is broader than has been suggested and, in my view, it includes teenagers who are being forced into marriage by family members who do not necessarily live under the same roof. An example would be uncles or brothers who have already left home, but they are as abusive and dangerous to the teenager being forced into marriage as those who live under the same roof.

[Baroness Redfern (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lords and to listen to their powerful and compelling speeches. I am pleased to speak to Amendment 149. It is vital that post-separation abuse is recognised within this Domestic Abuse Bill, as the controlling and coercive behaviour offence only recognises victims who live with an abuser or who are in an intimate relationship with them. That cannot be right. Leaving a controlling relationship is very dangerous, as many survivors know. It is too easy to assume that once a victim has left their abuser, that abuse stops. In too many cases it is just the opposite and economic abuse is rarely used in isolation, as victims still suffer from other forms of abuse, which forces them to abide by their abusers with unreasonable demands placed on them. All the while, they desperately want to keep themselves and their children safe.

As one victim said, it is like an invisible chain: it goes on and on. That is because their abuser does not even have to know where their victim is. As a result, it puts them at an even greater risk of homicide during this period. The resulting outcome is that it prevents a victim from moving on with their lives. They feel that they can never be free. This new clause would ensure that those victims who were previously personally connected are protected from any coercive or controlling behaviour occurring post separation. This is a one-step opportunity within this Domestic Abuse Bill to change the law and save lives.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

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

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, my quick message to Hansard is that they can tear up the note I sent earlier. In fact, the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, has just made the speech I decided to make having listened to the debate. I do not propose to repeat what he said, save for the fact that the general thrust of his conclusion as a lay person is the same one I have come to. I read the briefings, considered the issue and listened to my noble friend Lord Rosser; I was then surprised when listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner. As the debate went on, I started to have second thoughts. This is the benefit of Committee—that is what it is for. The idea can be taken away and reworked.

I will raise one point from one of the briefings, from Support Not Separation and Women Against Rape, which quoted the harm review. They said they found a pattern of bias in the court professionals which gave weight to the views of the child who wanted contact but dismissed the views of the child who did not. That is extremely worrying.

However, having come to the same conclusion as the noble Lord, Lord Randall, I will leave it there.

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

My Lords, I view this amendment, which is in two parts, with some concern. To a very large extent, I share the views of the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, and those of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge.

When I was President of the Family Division—and throughout the 35 years I was a family judge—I heard a great many cases which had some element of domestic abuse. I do not like presumptions, if they can be avoided. I remember that, when the amended Section 1(2A) was introduced while I was a Member of this House, I was very dubious about it, because I do not like presumptions. The important point of the Children Act is Section 1, which says that

“the child’s welfare shall be the court’s paramount consideration.”

Any family judge or magistrate has to look at all the circumstances and decide whether it is appropriate, in those circumstances, for both parents to have a relationship with the child after their separation. In normal circumstances, one takes it for granted that both parents will have a relationship, but there will be cases in which there should not be one.

I am not quite so concerned about the first part of Amendment 130, because it says that subsection (2A) shall not apply in situations which have affected the child. Even so, it should be a matter where the welfare of the child is paramount and the judge exercises his or her discretion, having come to a conclusion based on all the facts.

I am particularly opposed to the second part of Amendment 130: the restrictions on Section 9. This is, first, because it does not require domestic abuse to have affected the child. Other points have been made on this by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, with which I entirely agree, but I can see circumstances where a child was for one reason or another—possibly at boarding school or away on holiday—not present when there was domestic abuse between the parents, and the child had no knowledge of it. In those circumstances, it would not be inappropriate for the child to have unsupervised contact with a parent who had done absolutely nothing wrong to the child but who may have been involved in a single or unusual circumstance which could be classified as domestic abuse of the other parent.

This draconian proposal that Section 9 be restricted is inappropriate, although I entirely understand and share the concerns about the parents—mothers as well as fathers—who have been given unsupervised contact where there are issues of domestic abuse which are true, where the children are then killed. That is extremely sad; there should be adequate training of all judges and/or magistrates trying family cases. It may be more important to get the Ministry of Justice to discuss with the Judicial College and the President of the Family Division whether the training of judges and magistrates in issues of domestic abuse, to which I shall refer on the next group, should be improved. I will later refer to a useful case in the Court of Appeal which has been discussing this.

I am completely opposed to the second part of Amendment 130. I am sympathetic to what lies behind it, but I believe there should be a broader consideration of whether, where the welfare of the children must be paramount, there should be any presumptions of any sort—but certainly not in the way this has been drafted.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

In place of the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, I call the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann.

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Victims of domestic abuse often have to leave jobs; they would have to pay for the refuge if they were working, and the cost can be several hundreds of pounds a week. They are left sometimes trying to fight for a small amount of maintenance from the perpetrators —if indeed they can manage this—but they are not left with the funds to pay for such contact. That can be damned expensive to finance, and can drain the rest of the finances, adding to the pressures. The victims will have sometimes used all available funds to leave the abuse and start life again. These costs should fall on the perpetrator, partly to prove that they genuinely wish to see the child, and not simply using this contact as an excuse to see the victim at contact centres.

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

My Lords, I strongly support as much training as possibly can be given to everyone who works in any way in the family courts, but I strongly oppose the proposal that this provision should be in primary legislation. This is a matter for the Ministry of Justice; in relation to judges and magistrates in particular, it should be a matter for the Judicial College.

I am interested to see that magistrates who sit in the family proceedings courts have been consistently ignored in this debate, throughout many of the amendments. Many of these cases are actually in the family proceedings courts. Both the judiciary and magistrates have specific training from the Judicial College. I used to be the chairman of family training in the predecessor to the Judicial College; I certainly gained a great deal from seeking the advice outside the judiciary. Involving the domestic abuse commissioner is an excellent idea. She should be able to advise the Judicial College, particularly speaking to the family judges and the family magistrates, but this should not be part of primary legislation.

It is also important to bear in mind that each of the groups which are set out have their own training processes. Again, it would be important for the Ministry of Justice to discuss with social services and with the medical profession—almost certainly through the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the similar organisation for psychologists —whether they have adequate training for dealing with evidence of domestic abuse. Any other independent appointed experts should be looked at for appropriate training. I have no doubt that Cafcass gets training. It works with the Ministry of Justice and with the family courts, and its training is very important. But it is not appropriate in my view for this to be put into primary legislation.

I was interested to read a case in 2020 called H v F; the Court of Appeal gave helpful advice on the importance of the interface between the criminal courts and the family courts on domestic abuse issues and suggested that there should be specialist training for judges. I hope that that will be picked up by the Judicial College. It would be helpful for discussion for the president of the Family Division, but please do not put any of this into primary legislation.

However, although I do not support Amendment 133, I support everything the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, has said about the importance of training. I entirely agree with her suggestions and her very powerful speech, apart from the matter of primary legislation. I strongly support Amendment 134 because of the important research on trauma and its effect, as has already been said, on the ability of witnesses to give evidence. It is believed that very often the problems of not remembering certain things are because of trauma. There is a lot behind this which needs to become part of the training of all those involved in the family courts and domestic abuse cases. It is very important that there should be far more awareness of the impact of trauma on those who are the sufferers of domestic abuse.

Let me mention the two groups that I have referred to throughout Committee: the victims of forced marriage, and those of modern slavery who may not have gone through the NRM; even if they have, they need help for their trauma.

I do not think there is anything more to say about Amendment 136. Clearly the victim should not have to pay for the perpetrator to have contact; I should have thought any parent seeking contact should be expected to pay for it as a general principle.

[Baroness Verma (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I feel very privileged to be following noble Lords in speaking to this amendment. I want to put it on the record that I am chair of UN Women UK.

I shall speak briefly to Amendments 132 and 133. I fully support sharing information, from the perspective of women from minority communities. With the support of the work that H.O.P.E training is doing through Meena Kumari and her team, I have learned an awful lot, even though I have been working in this area for a very long time. I have come to the conclusion that the silos that exist have been compounded even further if someone is from an ethnic minority background, English is not their first language and they do not understand how to access services and opportunities. They live within multigenerational households, and when they finally try to leave and enter a refuge, it may not be equipped for their needs, or they enter the home of a friend of a relative who can also be put at risk.

It is critical to offer as much protection as possible and to try, through training of all our services,—whether it is the judiciary as in this case, or all our other services—to get a much deeper understanding of the perspective of women coming from minority communities, who do not have the opportunities to understand the wider support mechanisms that may be available to them. That is not just through language, but it is also through cultural norms of acceptance.

The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, talked about forced marriages and modern slavery. I have come across numerous cases of forced marriages, and seen the trauma and the effects of having lived within households where every single day was a day of abuse, not just by one perpetrator but by many family members. Trying to find the will to escape and then finding yourself sitting in court rooms with the whole family on one side and you alone as a survivor on the other—it is incredibly difficult to explain the long- lasting effects of that. I cannot imagine how that is ever going to leave you and your psyche.