Violence against Women and Girls

Baroness Clark of Kilwinning Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in the debate. I missed the opening remarks of the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) because I was bringing in one of the young women who is attending the event organised for those in their final year of school. I was going to call them sixth formers, but that is not a term we use in Scotland.

The debate is an important one for the week of international women’s day. Violence against women and girls is an international issue. It is estimated that internationally about a third of women and girls experience such violence, but the issue is unfortunately alive and kicking in all parts and communities of the United Kingdom, across all classes. Women and girls of all backgrounds can be affected, at any stage of life. I am grateful for the opportunity to say a few words and want to focus in particular on some issues from North Ayrshire and Arran, which has some of the worst domestic violence statistics in Scotland. That does not necessarily mean there is more domestic violence there than in other areas of Scotland; we do not know. However, more crimes are reported there than in many parts of Scotland.

The issues that I want to focus on are within the power of government. Many services and support mechanisms available to women and girls have been under threat in recent years, as there have been budget cuts from all parts of government—Westminster, the Scottish Parliament and local government. Unfortunately, as often happens when public finances are squeezed, some of the services that are less fashionable or that were developed for the most vulnerable are the first to be attacked. That is happening to services that were developed over decades for women and girls who are subjected to violence and abuse. North Ayrshire is not immune to that effect.

I want to discuss the future of North Ayrshire Women’s Aid. Like Women’s Aid throughout the country, the service was set up by women concerned about the issue, with an ethos very different from that of many services in the voluntary and public sectors. It had the aim of providing support to people in difficult situations and was a women-led service.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I am glad that the hon. Lady has brought the debate to the subject of violence in this country, important though it is to consider the matters that have been covered so far. I do not know whether she has read the “Building Great Britons” report produced a couple of weeks ago by the all-party group on conception to age two. We gave the cost of getting things wrong with respect to perinatal mental health and maltreatment of children as £23 billion. Interestingly, about three quarters of child safeguarding cases are from homes where there is domestic violence. Often, women who suffer perinatal mental health problems and parent their children badly have themselves been victims, coming from parental homes where there was domestic violence. The matter is generational. Does the hon. Lady acknowledge that we need to do much more to make kids safe from domestic violence—not just the women who are in the front line of it?

[Katy Clark]

The hon. Gentleman makes his case powerfully and is of course right that it is difficult to quantify the cost of violence—to the individual and the country. However, there is no doubt that there is a vast cost to the country—millions, and probably billions, of pounds—in consequence of the effect of violence on individuals, whether they suffer it as children or in later life. A great deal of work has been done on the cost to business of people having to take time off as a direct result of physical violence in domestic situations, but, as the hon. Gentleman powerfully expressed, things are far more complicated than that. Government has an interest in addressing the matter, to ensure that all parts of society function as well as they can.

I am particularly concerned that the women’s aid services in North Ayrshire are currently out to tender. There is no guarantee that the service will continue to run as it has in the past if Women’s Aid does not win in the current tendering process.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

We experienced the same thing in Slough. Berkshire East and South Bucks Women’s Aid did not succeed with its tender; the process was constructed in such a way that it was not possible for it to win. The housing association that won has now withdrawn from providing the service. Berkshire East and South Bucks Women’s Aid has changed its name to Dash, and continues to provide a service using charitable and other funds. Those women will not allow women to continue suffering, and have carried on, but it is shocking that local government, and our tax money, are not backing an effective service. Instead there was investment in a service that turned out to be a paper straw.

[Katy Clark]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has illustrated the point I am attempting to make extremely powerfully.

Even if North Ayrshire Women’s Aid wins the tender, the impact will be a cut of 22% to its budget. My hon. Friend is correct to say that many such services began as voluntary services. Women provided them out of their convictions, in their own time. However, it is practically impossible to provide a service on a purely voluntary basis throughout a local authority area. There is a need for state support. My case is that women-led services may be the most effective among those provided for women and girls in this country. It will be a sad indictment of Members, irrespective of party, if we allow the current budgetary position and the tendering exercises that are happening throughout the service to lead to a situation in which services cannot continue operating in the way that developed over generations.

With a 22% cut in its budget, North Ayrshire Women’s Aid will no longer, if it wins the contract, be able to help with addiction or children’s issues, which are part of its core service at the moment. Workers have already been issued with redundancy notices. A cause for concern is that the tendering process is such that whoever wins the contract will have to operate differently from previously. The council will control opening times and decide the nature of the service provided to women. Historically, the service has been led very much by women. Women have been employed by it and run it, and there is a woman chief executive.

Previously, of course, it was a co-operative operation. However, pressures from the public sector have meant that Women’s Aid could not continue to work in that way, so a male chief executive could be appointed. He might be good at the job, but that does not accord with the ethos in which Women’s Aid developed—of a women-led project, with recognition of the fact that women are often best placed to provide the relevant services to women and children. Things might be different in the context of men suffering domestic abuse, which we have debated previously, but the debate today is about women. The council will decide on recruitment and selection, and there will be a more limited service dealing with housing and shelter, rather than the more holistic approach developed by Women’s Aid over a long time. That is just one example of how services are under threat as a result of budget cuts.

When the previous Administration were in power in Scotland, Women’s Aid budgets were ring-fenced; it was decided that they should be because it was recognised that when times are difficult, services of that kind are the first to go. Services that are there for the most vulnerable do not have big lobbying groups providing them with protection and so they will be the ones to go when times are tough. However, the decision was then taken in Scotland not to ring-fence budgets for such services, and we are now seeing the consequences.

As we debate the effect of these issues on women and girls throughout the world, it is important that we also remember what is going in our own backyards—in our constituencies and communities. We should make sure that we protect the kind of services that are required when women and girls are most vulnerable—the point in their lives when perhaps they are at their lowest and so need support—and that there are the resources, commitment and vision to develop better services in future.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—