Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 5th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will make two extremely brief points. First, I will address Amendments 80 and 107, affecting individuals facing domestic abuse who have an immigration status of “no recourse to public funds”. I strongly express the Green Party’s support for these amendments. We are essentially forming again a collation—across the Committee in total, and with full political breadth—as was put together during the Domestic Abuse Act. The Government need to get the message that this coalition is not going away and will keep hammering away on this point.

Secondly, on Amendment 75, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, I am aware that it refers to the education of the CPS. I think we have to look at the very recent context. In a discussion on violence against women and girls with the Culcheth & Glazebury Parish Council, the Cheshire police and crime commissioner, John Dwyer, was quoted as saying:

“I notice school girls in my area are all wearing very short skirts and this did not happen in the 1960s”.


There is an evident need across the criminal justice system for a great deal of education. It is possible we might think some people are beyond education, but we need it to be happening anyway. We need it to deliver confidence to the victims of crime, so that they feel they can come forward and be treated properly.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I was there in the 1960s but that is not quite the object of this debate.

I was struck during the previous group of amendments, and it has continued in this one, by the question of training. What everyone involved in these issues needs is professional curiosity and an ability not to compartmentalise people’s reactions. Older people’s vulnerabilities—I have come across Hourglass, and I admire it—can also be found in younger people, so training needs to be thorough, with no cliff edges in how it is delivered. We are all different people and we all exhibit a variety of traits, which at different ages and in different circumstances may rise higher up the list than at other times. I was glad to hear my noble friend say that she could see a single wide amendment coming, because I think it is needed.

The Istanbul convention has been debated in this House before, as has the reputational damage of the country in this context. However, I put it in again today.

There is an important debate to be had on data collection and the argument about consistency. However, it is a very wide debate and not something that can sensibly be addressed in a Bill which is about a discrete area of work.

My name is to Amendment 107, which may not give it a very good prognosis, since I opposed paragraph 4 of Schedule 2 to the then Data Protection Bill all the way through its passage through the House and led a vote against it. The paragraph says—this is not verbatim—that the exemption for personal data does not apply, fit to prejudice, to immigration enforcement. I never succeeded in my opposition, but I hope that might change.

On the detail of the amendment, there is one thing I need to say in making the case for it. It is not only a matter of information about someone’s immigration status being given where, in the views of all speakers, it should not go, and immigration officers turning up on the doorstep; it is the deterrent effect of an abuser telling a victim, “You’re not entitled to be here. I’ve got your papers, and there’s nothing you can do about it. If you complain, you’ll be thrown out”. Abusers have been known to lie and, from what one hears from the organisations working in the sector, that happens a great deal in this situation.

I suppose that “domestic abuse” is the correct term, but this situation does not apply only to people who are in a personal relationship; domestic workers are very vulnerable to this abuse. The deterrent effect on them complaining about the appalling treatment that some of them suffer is very notable. On behalf of these Benches, I hope we manage to make some progress on this issue during the course of the Bill.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate; it has been interesting, if slightly wider than we expected. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for introducing it. I put my name to Amendment 75. This is the first time that we have talked about women and girls at all; the noble Baroness was right to initiate that. I also tabled Amendment 80, which we on these Benches feel strongly needs to be addressed in the course of the Bill.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred to Amendment 107, which the Government will also have to address, because it is clearly about a very serious issue. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is completely right about the importance of the UK’s reservation on Article 59 of the Istanbul convention, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, is right about the reputational damage it does to our country. I hope the Minister will be able to respond to that.

I thank Southall Black Sisters for the excellent brief it produced about seeking to ensure that victims of domestic abuse who do not have the recourse to public funds are still entitled to be provided with services in accordance with the victims’ code. It was thorough and I hope that a Minister will respond, even if it is not this Minister. It is very nice to be opposite the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for the first time in quite some years; we faced each other for about seven or eight years on health matters. Of course, we have two Fredericks on our Front Benches, which is probably worth noting.

Southall Black Sisters has done extensive research on the effect of having no recourse to public funds. It has made a very serious record of the hardship and cruelty that this can lead to. I very much hope that the Minister will look at that evidence and that we will be able to take this forward. I will not say anything further, because we have had a very thorough discussion about the amendments.