Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Report stage & Lords Hansard
Monday 8th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords, I spoke in support of my noble friend Lady Meyer’s amendment in Committee and do so again. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Cormack, for I agreed with his every word.

I continue to read, and I continue to listen. The arguments have been well made, and again I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Meyer for her courage and resilience. It is clear to me that there are difficulties, opinions and alternative views—all that is legitimate. What is not legitimate is that the experiences and feelings of those who have suffered from alienation are either denied a voice or told that this does not happen. It plainly does.

The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, made a sensible point about the danger of creating a hierarchy of abuse, which I agree with. Can my noble friend the Minister assure me that the genuine and real cases of parental alienation—of which, sadly, there are many—must be heard? It could be a severe form of abuse if mention of parental alienation is not made within the guidance.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I have no hesitation in supporting the aims of this amendment standing in the name of my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, and others. I feel very strongly that we will listen—I certainly will—to what the Minister is going to say, because there are difficulties. I have listened to some of the opposition to the amendment, although there seems to be a very general agreement on the principles. It has now become a very wide-ranging Domestic Abuse Bill, so I really need to be satisfied that the aims and principles of what we are trying to do in this amendment, and what the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, is trying to do, will actually be satisfied without the amendment.

I believe that we should use the Bill to protect children and their victim mothers or fathers from psychological abusive and coercive control. During my 30 years as a Member of Parliament, I had many cases of parents, male and female, coming to see me and telling me in harrowing tones what was happening. They did not use the words “parental alienation”—it is a very Americanised term, which I personally do not like. But I listened to the some of the ways in which they talked, very simply—[Inaudible.]

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I think we might have lost the connection to the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, so we will go to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss.

Windrush Compensation Scheme

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

As I said earlier, each case will be treated sensitively and each person who makes a claim will be assisted through that process—not to prove them wrong but to prove them right regarding the compensation they are owed. There is no cap on the level of compensation or indeed on the scheme itself. However, we need to encourage more people to come forward. There have been communications campaigns and money has been given out to community organisations to promote the scheme, but by this point we would have expected more people to have come forward for their claims to be processed.

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, does the Minister recognise that many of the Windrush generation who have been treated so badly for so long are actually quite frightened about approaching the Home Office because they see it as an institution that has been responsible for many unfair deportations? Will the Home Office think about being much more proactive about going out and talking to these people, many of whom are now in the last stages of their lives? If we do not get this sorted out soon, it is going to be a real travesty of justice for all those people.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I totally take that point on board. I agree with the noble Baroness that they might be frightened and that any notion of “state” might be frightening to them. As I have said, we have done quite a lot of outreach through church leaders, faith leaders and community leaders, but I shall certainly take that back. I know we will be reflecting on how far we have got with people coming forward and trying to make that process better, because clearly, more people should be coming forward.