Domestic Abuse Bill (Tenth sitting)

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 10th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 16th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I thank the Minister for her detailed response. This is a probing amendment, which I am happy to withdraw. The only thing that I want to say comes from the London Assembly, and from cross-border issues arising within the boroughs of the Met. Dauntless Plus, which deals with 600 or so of the most dangerous repeat offenders in London, reaches 1% of repeat offenders. Present arrangements seem not to be achieving what I am sure we would all wish them to achieve. I hope the Minister will keep a close eye on their effectiveness in future. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 17

Local Welfare Provision schemes

“(1) Every local authority in England must deliver a Local Welfare Provision scheme which provides financial assistance to victims of domestic abuse

(2) The Secretary of State must issue guidance on the nature and scope of Local Welfare Provision schemes and review this biannually in consultation with the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and other such individuals and agencies he deems appropriate.

(3) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must provide local authorities with additional funding designated for Local Welfare Provision, to increase per year with inflation.

(4) For the purposes of this subsection “domestic abuse” is defined in section 1 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2020.”—(Christine Jardine.)

This new clause would allow victims of domestic abuse to access a local welfare assistance scheme in any locality across England.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

I would like to apologise to the Committee in advance: as luck would have it, for the first time in two years of printing things too small for me to read, I do not have my glasses with me. Bear with me and I will do my best.

[Alex Chalk]

I think the notes say that you wish to withdraw the new clause.

[Christine Jardine]

No, that is not what they say. I would like to speak to this cross-party new clause tabled in my name, which would ensure that emergency financial support was available to victims and survivors of domestic abuse across England, in the form of effective local welfare provision. It is supported by the crisis and destitution sector, from the Children’s Society to the Trussell Trust, as well as financial experts, including the Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales, Smallwood Trust and Surviving Economic Abuse.

The Bill, for the first time, acknowledges economic abuse, which creates economic instability and often prevents women in particular from being able to leave an abusive situation, as they lack the financial resources to do so. Defining economic abuse is just the first step. It must be possible to enable those who find themselves in that situation to militate against this form of abuse. The Committee must look at whether we can provide a welfare safety net for all survivors that empowers them.

Local welfare assistance schemes often offer financial assistance to applicants in emergencies. At their best, this type of crisis support works in partnership with other organisations and provides a kind of wrap-around holistic support that other types of welfare cannot, but they are underfunded and underused, and consequently get forgotten.

Without question, cuts to local authority services and changes in the social security system have disproportionately impacted women. That social security system should act as a financial safety net for survivors of domestic abuse, but it does not. Too many survivors are still having to take out payday loans and rely on food banks or, if they are lucky, grants from charities.

Research from Women’s Aid recently found that a third of survivors who left their abusive partner had to take out credit to do so. Smallwood Trust estimates that 70% of their applications for financial assistance are received from women who are fleeing, or have fled, domestic abuse. Given that the Trussell Trust’s most recent food bank figures found an 89% rise in need since the same time last year, with 107% more children needing support, there can be no question but that the welfare safety net for our most vulnerable has gaping holes in it.

Before the creation of local welfare provision, the discretionary social fund, run from the Department for Work and Pensions, was often seen as an essential form of financial support for victims of domestic abuse. Community care grants were often used to enable survivors to establish a new home after a period in refuge accommodation. Since responsibility for those grants has shifted to hard-pressed local authorities, which do not have any statutory obligations to provide this form of support, getting them has become a postcode lottery.

The Children’s Society found that one in seven local authority areas in England now has no local welfare support provided by the council, and that in too many other areas, local welfare provision is far too difficult to access. Some 60% of local authorities had put in place stipulations about routes that had to be taken first before applying for local welfare assistance, including borrowing from friends or family, taking up a commercial loan or using a food bank. That is not acceptable.

Even when a local authority does provide an assistance scheme, Smallwood Trust has suggested that access is often dependent on what time of year one applies for help, and whether the pot is already empty. Analysis of council spending on local welfare provision by the Children’s Society found that in 2018-19, local authorities spent only £41 million on local welfare assistance schemes, out of a possible funding allocation of £129 million for local welfare provision. At their best, those schemes can offer assistance where universal credit cannot. They can be a further source of support while survivors wait for their first universal credit payment, or they can support those not on universal credit who need emergency support, perhaps to buy a new fridge, or a bed for their child, in their new home away from abuse. During the pandemic, some local authorities are even using creative methods to offer emergency financial assistance to vulnerable applicants with no recourse to public funds.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

Local welfare and assistance is important to meet the needs of the most vulnerable people in our communities. That is why, in 2013, the national social fund crisis loans and community care grants were abolished and local authorities were empowered, with maximum flexibility, to deliver services as they saw fit, according to local needs. The hon. Member for Edinburgh West will agree, I hope, that local authorities are best placed to determine what support is required for the most vulnerable in their area, given their expertise in the local communities that they serve. That was set out by the then Work and Pensions Secretary in 2014, when he found that local authorities delivered support more effectively than was the case under the social fund, as help was targeted at those who needed it most and joined up with wider social care.

I assure the hon. Member that we fund local authorities to deliver such important duties. In 2016, just over £129 million was included for local welfare provision schemes as a notional allocation within the English local government financial settlement. That allocation was increased to £131.7 million in 2020-21. In response to the coronavirus, we have also announced £3.2 billion of un-ring-fenced funding for local government to meet additional pressures arising from the pandemic and continue to deliver frontline services.

The hon. Member rightly focused on the overall economic situation of the victim. We included economic abuse in clause 1 because we accept that it is not just about bank accounts or money in the purse; it can take many forms. Similarly, the economic situation of the victim includes not just payments that she may be receiving by way of benefits, wages or salary, but her overall situation. That is why the statutory duty for tier 1 local authorities in England to provide support to victims of domestic abuse and their children in safe accommodation is part of the picture. Local welfare assistance schemes enable support in such circumstances, such as support for victims of abuse in women’s refuges to become established in the community. The work that the domestic abuse commissioner will undertake to explore in depth the provision of community-based support is part of the economic picture as well.

A principle that I think we all share and are working towards is that we all want victims and survivors to be able to stay in their homes with their children—if anyone has to leave, it should be the perpetrator. That is what we are trying to get to, but of course I appreciate that there will be situations in which that is not possible, and we are attempting to address that through the Bill.

We are committed to working with the commissioner on community-based services and on the range of services and needs that she will address during her tenure. We believe that it would be a little premature to look at that before she has the chance to undertake that work.

I thank the hon. Member for raising the issue. I hope that the indications that I have given of the Government’s overall approach to helping victims will help to reassure her.

[Christine Jardine]

I thank the Minister for her reassurance. I know that the issue is of concern to a lot of people; all of us in this House deal with constituents every week for whom it is a barrier to safety that they simply cannot afford either to leave or to get the abuser to leave—it works against them either way. However, I accept the Minister’s assurances. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 18

Guidance: Child maintenance

“(1) The Secretary of State must issue guidance relating to the payment of child support maintenance where the person with care of the child is a victim of domestic abuse.

(2) Guidance issued under this section must take account of—

(a) the potential for the withholding or reducing of child support maintenance to constitute economic abuse under section 1(4) of this Act;

(b) the need for enforcement action to prevent non-payment; and

(c) the difficulties faced by victims of domestic abuse in obtaining evidence to support an application for a variation of a child support maintenance calculation.

(3) The Child Maintenance Service must have regard to any guidance issued under this section when exercising a function to which the guidance relates.

(4) Before issuing guidance under this section, the Secretary of State must consult

(a) the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, and

(b) such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.

(5) The Secretary of State must publish any guidance issued under this section.” —(Christine Jardine.)

This new clause would require the Secretary of State to issue guidance to the Child Maintenance Service to tackle the problem of abusers continuing economic abuse by withholding or reducing child maintenance payments.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Christine Jardine]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

I am sure that we have all had constituents who have come to us because their relationship or marriage has fallen apart and their child maintenance agreement is being used against them by their former partner as a form of manipulation and abuse. New clause 18 aims to address that situation.

Withholding or artificially reducing child maintenance payments can be a way for abusers to perpetuate economic abuse. It can be especially hard for survivors to get the evidence necessary to succeed in getting the Child Maintenance Service to increase the amount that the abuser has to pay. We tabled the new clause to require the Government to issue guidance on child maintenance payments to survivors of domestic abuse that would have to address their specific concerns. Often, for survivors of domestic abuse, using the statutory child maintenance system is not a matter of choice; it is a matter of safety.

The Government must surely understand that the reality of domestic abuse is not confined to one area of people’s lives. It needs to be addressed across all services and Departments, including child maintenance.

Child maintenance, which is sometimes referred to as child support, can be vital for separated families and the wellbeing of the children, particularly in single-parent families. It is impossible to overstate the importance of child support for some survivors. It helps with the cost of raising a child, from the day-to-day expenses of food, clothing and school expenses to the cost of running a child’s main home and giving a child a decent quality of life. It is vital, as we have said often in Committee, for children who are often damaged by witnessing domestic abuse in homes.

Child maintenance arrangements can, as we know, take different forms. They can be made privately between separated parents, through the Government-run Child Maintenance Service, or, more rarely, through a court order. The statutory child maintenance system has seen big reforms, but there are still concerns over its effectiveness. In 2017, the Government introduced a fee waiver for survivors of domestic abuse who applied to the Child Maintenance Service. Although the reform has been welcomed, the way in which it works leaves many trapped in a dangerous dilemma: get financial support at the risk of abuse, or avoid abuse and face financial hardship.

Research commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions in 2017 supports Gingerbread’s concerns that new charges in the CMS prevent parents and children from accessing maintenance. The findings also suggested that survivors of domestic abuse, who are perhaps most in need of a Government service to help ensure maintenance is paid, are some of the worst served by the barriers created by the charges and the dilemma that I mentioned.

Domestic violence can be a barrier to setting up a maintenance arrangement at all. It is estimated that one in four receiving parents cited domestic violence as a reason for not setting up an arrangement after the Child Support Agency case had closed. People who are already survivors are being asked to try to survive something else.

In 2017, Women’s Aid told the Work and Pensions Committee that the Child Maintenance Service had a

“rigid focus on incentivising collaborative arrangements between parents”.

It had

“the potential to increase survivors’ risk of abuse, including financial coercion and control.”

We need to publicise the fee waiver. It places an emotional burden on parents to voluntarily disclose their experience of domestic abuse in order to receive their exemption. It is simply not fair. Those who do not do that miss out.

Similarly, the Government have reassured parents and campaigners that processes would be in place to avoid the risk of abuse as a result of having to request payment and share personal details to set up direct payment arrangements. However, parents often discover that even CMS staff and banks can be unaware of provisions such as non-geographic bank accounts, where the receiving parent’s location would not be identifiable from a bank account sort code. Researchers have found that although one in five receiving parents surveyed said domestic violence had made it difficult to set up a direct pay arrangement, just 2% reported using a generic or national bank account. They also found that many parents reluctant to share details did not know that the CMS could help with providing this information.

A Gingerbread helpline example was of a single parent with a history of domestic abuse. The last incident had involved hospitalisation. She was told that she had to have a direct pay arrangement, and was given the option of using a non-geographic bank account or using a pre-paid card. However, both those options would reveal her new name, which was adopted to make her harder to trace. She felt at risk and was now considering dropping her case.

Ensuring payment can also be difficult when receiving parents fear domestic abuse, and the murky interactions between direct pay and collect and pay services does not fill parents with confidence. The Government argue that when direct pay is not working, parents can report the paying parent and come into the collect and pay service. In reality, some parents are wary of flagging non-payment for fear of rocking the boat or inflaming tensions with ex-partners who face hefty collection charges if the CMS steps in. Economic abuse of survivors of domestic abuse is unacceptable. Too many of us see too many of these people in our offices every week. This new clause would address their situation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Chalk]

I have. I am perfectly prepared to accept that no organisation always works precisely as one might like. That is inevitably the case, but I am not suggesting that that is my usual experience. By and large, we have been able to deliver for my constituents in Cheltenham, while recognising, as I do, that there is always room for improvement. Perhaps we shall leave it there.

The Government have gone further and extended the powers to cover joint and certain business accounts, removing the opportunity for paying parents to put their money beyond reach. Where appropriate, the Child Maintenance Service will use enforcement agents to seize goods, forcing the sale of the paying parent’s property. The Child Maintenance Service may also apply to a court to have the paying parent committed to prison or disqualified from driving. In addition, we have introduced the ability to disqualify non-compliant parents from holding or obtaining a British passport, which we believe will act as a strong deterrent.

The impact of all that is important, and this goes to the point made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley. Of course, we have our anecdotal experience—mine, by and large, has been pretty good, but I accept that other colleagues will have had different experiences—but it is important to look at the data. Compliance with the CMS Collect and Pay statutory scheme has increased from approximately 57% in the quarter ending December 2017 to 68% in the quarter ending December 2019, according to Child Maintenance Service statistics to December 2019. In addition, 723,500 children are covered by Child Maintenance Service arrangements, reflecting an increase of 158,300—almost 30%—since the quarter ending December 2017. That is from the same statistics source.

Given all those measures, the central point is that, while the new clause seeks guidance, what is already in place is guidance and training, and that training is informed by Women’s Aid, as I said. In the circumstances, our view is that no new clause is necessary at this stage, because the Child Maintenance Service already has sufficient enforcement powers and has further strengthened its procedures, training and processes to support customers who suffer domestic abuse.

We will, however, continue to monitor the impact of Child Maintenance Service enforcement powers, as well as the support provided to help domestic abuse victims to use the service safely. The hon. Member for Edinburgh West, who clearly takes a close and principled interest in this matter, will watch that closely but, with that assurance, I hope she feels able to withdraw her new clause.

[Christine Jardine]

I thank the Minister for his reassurance but, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley said, he describes the ideal—it is not how we find it works. If we could get closer—just closer—to the ideal, we might all be satisfied. However, given his reassurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 21

Duty of the Secretary of State to take account of matters relating to gender

“It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State in performing functions under this Act to take account of the point that domestic abuse is a subset of violence against women and girls, which affects women disproportionately.”—(Jess Phillips.)

This new clause establishes the gendered nature of domestic abuse in statute.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Jess Phillips]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

We all know that domestic abuse disproportionately impacts on women. I think pretty much everyone who has stood to speak in Committee has at one point said that—we always add the caveat that of course we know it mainly happens to women. One in four of us in England and Wales will experience it at some point in our lives, compared with one in eight men. Women experience domestic abuse in far greater numbers than men—that is just a simple fact.

When we take a deeper look into the statistics, however, gender is clearly intertwined with domestic abuse in a much greater way than bald prevalence stats first indicate. To start with, the stats on domestic abuse collected and published by the Office for National Statistics, while being the best we have, do not take into account coercive and controlling behaviour. Academics working in the field estimate that the disparity in experience of domestic abuse between men and women would increase significantly were coercive control taken into account.

Abusers will use any tool at their disposal to control and coerce their partners, which in far too many cases includes rape and sexual assault. More than 1.7 million women in this country have experienced domestic sexual assault and rape. That is more than 12 times the number of men who have experienced this trauma. Last year, five times more women than men were killed by their partner or their ex. Over the past few years, over 96% of women killed in domestic homicides—almost all of them—were killed by men. Of the men who were killed in domestic homicides, more than half were killed by other men.

None of this means that men do not experience domestic abuse; I have never suggested that, and nor would I ever, no matter what somebody might read about me online. What that means is that domestic abuse is a form of violence against women and girls, with women making up the vast majority of victims and survivors of domestic abuse, particularly when it comes to rape, sexual assault and murder at the hands of their partner or ex, and that men make up the overwhelming majority of perpetrators.

However, domestic abuse as a form of violence against women and girls is not just about the numbers, as stark as they are. Domestic abuse is, in the words of the Istanbul convention—you know, I was meant to be in Istanbul this week. Sad times. I would have walked around citing parts of the convention, which I am sure the people of Istanbul know very little about, other than that it is their namesake. Anyway, the Istanbul convention says that domestic abuse is

“a form of gender-based violence that is committed against women because they are women.”

It is about the patriarchy that instils in abusive men the belief that they are entitled to control, abuse, rape and murder women because we are lesser. Gender inequality is a cause and consequence of domestic abuse. It is used to keep us controlled and silenced, and it happens to us because we have a lesser position in society.

The nature of domestic abuse as a gendered phenomenon has to be understood, not just by feminist academics, thousands of individuals working on the frontline in domestic abuse services, or those of us working in Westminster, but by all those whose job it is to respond to domestic abuse survivors and perpetrators. Too often, the nature of domestic abuse is not appreciated by professionals who need to understand what it is. According to Refuge, the largest specialist provider of domestic abuse services in the country, it is becoming increasingly common for local authorities tendering for domestic abuse support services to rely on a complete misapprehension about the nature of domestic abuse and the needs of survivors. Time and time again, I have seen commissioning rounds go out that just say, “Domestic abuse services”, without any suggestion that some of those need to be women-only services, for example.

Refuge staff have also told me that when the police attend domestic abuse call-outs, their misunderstanding of the nature and dynamics of domestic abuse, including the role gender plays, leads to them arresting the survivor rather than the abuser; asking perpetrators to translate what survivors are saying; and referring survivors and perpetrators to completely inappropriate support services, for example.

Within the Westminster bubble, it is easy to labour under the false belief that a critical majority of people have enough of an understanding of domestic abuse as a form of violence against women and girls that those responses to survivors are anomalies. That is not the experience of organisations such as Refuge, and Members need only look at my Twitter feed after I have mentioned gender or domestic abuse to see that we cannot assume that the majority of people understand domestic abuse as a form of violence against women and girls. There was a discussion about misogyny earlier today, and I invite members of the Committee to look at what my online experience will be tonight after I have said this about women. I imagine that, for many, it will be shocking, and some of it will almost certainly be a hate crime, but one that would never be collected in the data.

It is critical that every effort is made to ensure that domestic abuse is understood as a form of violence against women and girls. It is my view, in addition to that of Refuge, Women’s Aid, the End Violence Against Women Coalition, Southall Black Sisters and virtually every other domestic abuse service provider, that the best way of raising awareness of domestic abuse as a form of violence against women and girls is to include that definition on the face of the Bill. The Government’s consistent response is to say that they agree that domestic abuse is a form of violence against women and girls, that both men and women experience it, and that they are committed to including this in the statutory guidance accompanying the Bill.