Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Gale Excerpts

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

[Baroness Gale (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am pleased that this Bill is finally before us. Although I welcome the Bill, as it stands there are gaps, which many noble Lords have mentioned today and which will become evident when we come to Committee.

The Minister said that, once this Bill becomes law, the Government will be able to ratify the Istanbul convention. Bearing in mind that the full title of the Istanbul convention is the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, the words “women” and “girls” do not appear in the Bill. The Istanbul convention is all about women and girls, and the majority of domestic abuse victims are women, yet there is no mention of them in the Bill. I hope this will be changed.

Is the Minister certain that this Bill will comply with the convention, as the charity Refuge says that the measures contained in it are not compliant with the Istanbul convention, which states that

“provisions of this Convention by the Parties … measures to protect the rights of victims, shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as … national or social origin … migrant or refugee status”?

As such, the Bill leaves women with insecure immigration status, including asylum-seeking women and those who are appeal-rights exhausted, without the protection required by the convention. This should be a Bill for all survivors of domestic abuse, regardless of their immigration status. All migrant survivors should be able to access financial support and other benefits, regardless of immigration status or visa type. Women with no recourse to public funds must be able to access the specialist support they need.

The Government’s report of October 2020 on progress to ratify the convention states on page 8 support for a migrant victims pilot scheme that

“will help to obtain the evidence needed to develop sustainable solutions for all migrant victims of domestic abuse over the longer-term.”

However, it also records that Articles 4 and 59 are under review. This is crucial to the ratification of the convention, so does the Minister know when the review will be complete?

I trust that the Minister will take the opportunity to ensure that this Bill will give full compliance to the convention, to provide greater protection for women with insecure immigration status, including asylum-seeking women. Organisations working with migrant survivors of domestic abuse have shown for many years how the current system excludes these women from life-saving services and how its interaction with immigration enforcement inevitably leads to survivors avoiding asking for support.

The Domestic Abuse Bill is an historic opportunity to ensure that Britain’s domestic abuse services are available to all survivors. Without these changes, migrant survivors will continue to suffer violence and abuse without being able to access support. The Government should recognise this and ensure that all survivors are treated equally. Only then will the UK be able to ratify the Istanbul convention. So will the Minister do all she can to ensure that the United Kingdom complies with the convention in order for it to be ratified?

Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Gale Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 10th February 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Gale]

173: After Clause 72, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty of the Secretary of State to take account of matters relating to gender
It is a duty of the Secretary of State in performing functions under this Act to take account of the evidence that domestic abuse affects women disproportionately and is a subset of violence against women and girls.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause establishes the gendered nature of domestic abuse in statute.

[Baroness Gale (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am pleased to move Amendment 173 in my name in this group of amendments.

It is a fact that domestic abuse disproportionately impacts women. More than one in four women in England and Wales will experience it at some point in their lives, compared with one in eight men. When we take a closer look at these statistics, we see that it is clear that the relationship between gender and domestic abuse is much deeper than the present statistics indicate, as the data on domestic abuse collected and published by the ONS does not take into account coercive and controlling behaviour. These are the best statistics that we have at the moment, but academics working in this field estimate that the gender disparity of experience of domestic abuse would significantly increase if coercive control were considered in these statistics.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I understand what the noble Baroness says. She made a point about VAWG versus DA. Of course, domestic abuse is a type of violence against women and girls, although violence against women and girls goes far wider than domestic abuse. We are going to be bringing forward a domestic abuse strategy later this year. I can see the noble Baroness shaking her head, and I do not think I am going to convince her at this stage.

[Baroness Gale (Lab) [V]]

I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I also thank Refuge for their briefings and support. As the Minister said, I think we have got the right balance in our debate today. I totally agree with my noble friend Lady Lister, the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester speaking in support of Amendment 185. They were criticising the Bill for being a non-gendered one, or gender neutral, when most people have spoken in support and said we should recognise that.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, first for being the only male voice—although my noble friend Lord Hunt was able to put his views in, and I thank him for that. I agree with a lot of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said. He said that it is not anybody’s intention to say that men do not suffer from domestic abuse and are not victims, because they are, and we know that women can be perpetrators. I do not want to undermine that in any shape or form. The noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, was raising this issue very strongly and was absolutely right: we should recognise all victims of domestic abuse.

The purpose of the amendments today was to illustrate that it is a gendered crime. Women are the majority of victims and men are the perpetrators, but that does not exclude recognising that there are male victims and female perpetrators. We have had a very good debate today. I am pleased with everyone who has taken part and put their views forward. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 173 withdrawn.