Crime: Women's Safety

Baroness Gale Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gale]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Desai for giving us the opportunity to debate the report tonight. It throws up some interesting statistics on sexual offences. On average, 473,000 adults are victims of sexual offences per year, and the majority are female. About 90% of the victims of the most serious sexual offences in the previous year knew the perpetrator. That comes up in every study. For example, victims of rape are often raped by people they know.

One paragraph in the report which struck me was that, of females who were victims of the most serious sexual offences in the past year, as my noble friend Lord Desai said, only 15% had reported such offences. The reasons that they cited why they did not report such incidents were that they were embarrassed, or did not think that the police could do much to help, or saw it as a private family matter, not police business. There is much to be done to encourage victims to report. Otherwise, there is not much chance of ever bringing the perpetrators to justice and they will carry on committing offences.

We know that such offences are prevalent throughout the world. Thursday marks the One Billion Rising Day, which is a global campaign calling for the end of violence against women and girls. The campaign highlights the fact that one in three women world wide will be raped or beaten in her lifetime. That is a terrible statistic. The One Billion Rising campaign deserves our support, which I hope that we will all give it on Thursday.

International agencies such as the UN, the Council of Europe and the European Parliament have policies to deal with violence against women and girls, as does our UK Government. Whatever Government we have in office in the United Kingdom, they all address that issue.

I wonder whether noble Lords are aware of the policies of the Welsh Government on violence against women. They published a White Paper last year, and the consultation ends on 22 February. Following the consultation, they plan to introduce a new Bill, the ending violence against women and domestic abuse Bill. The Bill does not address the criminal justice issues, as the Welsh Government do not have the power to do so. It proposes that Welsh Ministers should have the power to appoint an independent ministerial adviser for ending violence against women. If the Welsh Government do that, that would be a first in United Kingdom. They wish to legislate to require local authorities and public service partners to collaborate on a local and regional level to develop and implement strategies to reduce violence against women.

The Welsh Government will commission an independent review of violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence across Wales to inform future strategic direction and funding. The Welsh Government want to ensure that all children and young people understand the key concepts of respect, fairness and consent, which are the cornerstones of healthy relationships. They believe that such knowledge and awareness will help inform and drive their everyday decisions and underpin their expected standards of interpersonal relationships.

Although that is primarily the responsibility of parents, the Welsh Government believe that schools also have a role to play in delivering those outcomes. The personal social education framework provides some direction. They believe that more should be done to ensure that schools work actively to support and promote healthy relationships. The Welsh Government propose to ensure that education on healthy relationships is delivered to all schools in Wales. They propose to place a duty on local authorities to identify a regional champion for educational settings on ending violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence, who will support schools and promote a whole-school approach.

These are exciting and great measures by the Welsh Government, and I believe that they are relevant to tonight’s debate. Now that we have devolution, different parts of the United Kingdom can do different things. In Wales, in a sense it is quite easy for us to experiment and try out new measures, because we are a small country. We have 3 million people, all in close contact with each other, and can debate these issues. Does the Minister agree with the Welsh Government on their proposals, and will he hold discussions with Welsh Ministers to see how those proposals could be implemented in England? Again, with devolution, we can all learn a lot from each other where there is good practice. We created the first Children’s Commissioner in the United Kingdom, and all the nations of the United Kingdom now have one. I hope that the Minister will agree that this is a good example for the UK Government to look at.