Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Bill

Debate between Christine Jardine and Jess Phillips

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I will make only brief remarks. I could not agree more with the hon. Member for Walthamstow and the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North.

I was struck by what the hon. Member for Walthamstow said about her daughter being three. Before my daughter was born, a number of us at work found it immensely frustrating that we constantly had to face “banter” in the office. We were called unreasonable if we did anything about it, because it was just “reasonable banter”. We might miss the significance of the Bill and think it a small step. In a way it is, but in another way it is huge and important, because we have put it on record that such “banter” is not the reasonable thing; being offended by it is the reasonable thing. The reasonableness is with the women.

The hon. Lady’s mention of her daughter being three reminded me of the situation we faced daily in the workplace before my daughter was born. It struck me that my daughter is now 26. The workplace situation has improved, but the so-called banter continues. Those offensive statements and that harassment fall below the level of violence, but they are just as damaging because the issue is cultural. It affects women’s self-esteem, what we do and where we go in the evenings, even with our keys between our fingers. It is important to recognise today that we have to draw a cultural line, as the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North said. It is a cultural problem that we have to continue to fight daily. I hope that when the daughter of the hon. Member for Walthamstow is 26, we will have made more progress than has been made in the past 26 years.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

People always say this, but I actually mean it: it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I express my thanks and those of the Labour party to the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells for the opportunity to have this longed-for conversation and to start to build the legislative framework.

The right hon. Member was drawn out of the legislative lottery, which is an odd quirk of this place. At the time, I noted—I mean no offence to him—that there were more people in the top 10 called Greg than women on the list. Hearts sank somewhat for some of us in the room, as they did for charities such as Plan and Girlguiding that have been working on the issue and trying to find a sponsor, so it was a relief that the right hon. Member immediately and clearly wanted to do it. I thank him for allowing us to have this conversation and move the legislation forward.

As we have heard in today’s very reasonable debate, including in the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, the Labour party stands ready and willing to work with the Government before the Bill’s final stages so that we can all agree without dividing the House. Nobody wishes to divide the House on the issue; we wish to sing with the same voice. I make that offer to the Minister.

I am not blessed with daughters, unlike others who have spoken. I am blessed with sons—I have two teenage sons. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow made an important case about what people ought to know and how they ought to be reasonable. My sons know that you don’t shout at women in the street and that you don’t find your way into their heart by touching them up in a crowded place. My sons know that, not out of any spectacular parenting on my part but because they are reasonable human beings.

When our children were young teenagers—they are basically adults now, which I do not like to admit because it makes me feel old—my husband and I were in a park in south London. A woman was jogging past us. There were two men sat on a bench: it was 4 o’clock and they were drinking cans of lager, having a perfectly nice time. The woman jogged past and they started shouting at her about her arse and her physique. She was none the wiser: she had headphones in, though not out of design on her part, I should have thought.

I did not even notice that this bad thing was happening, because I am so used to it—I am so used to this sort of thing happening. My husband turned on his heels and absolutely blazed the two men, not even for what they were doing to the woman, but for doing it in front of his sons: “Don’t teach my children that this is the way to behave. Don’t ever do that.” Obviously they gave him some lip back, but the next time they go to shout at a woman, they will look around in that moment and they will stop. It is not reasonable, and they ought to know that it is not reasonable, but it made me feel incredibly sad that because that behaviour is standard, I did not even notice it.

On the reasonableness of men, I should mention that after the Sarah Everard case, women came forward and described all the stuff they have to do to keep themselves safe. They described the keys in the hands, the headphones in, the heads down on the train—“Don’t talk to me, don’t touch me.” We all know that; we have all done it. It is important to say that the huge weight of that burden falls on young women. A school uniform is a red rag to a bull, which is terrible.

When we were all saying that we did all this stuff—thinking about how we were going to dress and how we were going to get home, tagging our friends, calling each other—my husband said to me, “If you had the time back, and you had the level of detail that you have lived your life at since you were about 10, you could make a feature-length stop-frame animation film as good as ‘Wallace and Gromit’. That is the level of detail and time that has been taken off you as an individual.” That was labour that he did not have to do, as a man.

In the arguments that my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow is putting forward, all I think we are asking for is not to make the victim do the labour. We have done enough labour and put in the work to provide security for women. As individuals, we have done the state’s work for generations. In every rape case and every sexual violence case, there is still the problem that the person doing the labour, both in the investigation and on trial, is the victim. We have an opportunity to take that labour away.

We all want to see this legislation on the statute book. Anyone who says it will mean loads of people ending up in prison has never been at a trial relating to violence against women and girls. Hope springs eternal that anyone will go to prison for anything! We have a real opportunity here, but as the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North says, we have to make sure that this legislation is the beginning and that we make it as good as possible. What we should not do is put the labour on the shoulders of the victims.

I think I have been positively manny in my response. People come back at me saying that harassment is “banter” and that boys will be boys, but I hate that idea because I think much more of men than that. I think men are capable, brilliant human beings who can make choices. When they make choices to do bad things, it is nothing to do with boys being boys. They are not base or inhuman. They can control themselves. They are cracking—I raised two of them! They are not without control over their own faculties. It is not “boys will be boys”; it is “abusers will be abusers”. That is the top and bottom of it. I thank all hon. Members, and we obviously support the Bill.

Domestic Abuse Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Debate between Christine Jardine and Jess Phillips

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 11th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 17th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Jess Phillips]

There is a lot of me today, Mr Bone. Today we will discuss the issue that has come up every single day that we have sat in Committee. It will come up every single day in between now and Third Reading. In the three years of the passage of this Bill, this issue has been raised pretty much every day. I do not want people to feel that this is my particular hobby-horse, although the issue of how migrant women are treated by our current system is something that I care deeply about, and we should not make laws that exclude them. It is not only my hobby-horse; it is a hobby-horse that I share with a number of hon. Members.

On Second Reading, the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), a one-time Immigration Minister, spoke up in favour of extending the domestic violence destitution funding that currently exists within the Home Office. The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire, who is here, said,

“I ask that the Government revisit there being no recourse to public funds for victims with certain immigration statuses.—[Official Report, 28 April 2020; Vol. 675, c. 285.]

The right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) said,

“there are currently no provisions in the Bill for migrant women facing domestic abuse”.—[Official Report, 28 April 2020; Vol. 675, c. 249.]

The hon. Members for Gillingham—I am not sure how to pronounce that; sorry, I have never been there—and Rainham (Rehman Chishti), for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), for Moray (Douglas Ross), and shockingly, but everybody has a good day, even the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) put their names to the Home Affairs Committee report, which stated:

“insecure immigration status must not bar victims of abuse from protection and access to justice.”

Alongside the right hon. Member for Basingstoke on the Joint Committee on the Draft Domestic Abuse Bill were the hon. Members for Chichester (Gillian Keegan) and for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), both now Ministers of State. They asserted:

“We recommend that Government explores ways to extend the temporary concessions available...to support migrant survivors of abuse”.

This is not some liberal elite, Guardian-led campaign just for people like me, who might be expected wave a banner. This week, The Sun newspaper backed the campaign to protect migrant women in this Bill. I am sure my father will be thrilled with this, but The Sun said:

“Jess Phillips is absolutely right. Domestic abusers don’t discriminate, so why should the law discriminate against their victims?”

I thank The Sun newspaper for its support.

Specifically on the new clause, which we have now established are not just part of my conspiracy, and before I begin talking about why it is so important, I will briefly explain what no recourse to public funds means. No recourse to public funds—NRPF—is a legal restriction that bars people on certain visas from claiming most benefits, tax credits or housing assistance paid for by the state. That means, for example, that someone could come to this country and stay on a student visa, but they would not be entitled to any benefits, most tax credits or housing assistance. That is all well and good, and well understood by the vast majority of people, but when a migrant woman or any migrant victim—many of whom are children—who has no recourse to public funds becomes a victim of domestic violence, the restriction hinders their ability to access life-saving refuge support and other necessary welfare provisions.

New clause 29 would remove the statutory exclusion that prevents migrant survivors from accessing the support and assistance that they need and would ensure that no survivor, whatever their immigration status, is treated as being in breach of immigration laws or immigration rules by accessing that support or assistance.

Research by Women’s Aid found that only 5.8% of refuge vacancies in England in 2018-19 could accept a woman with no recourse to public funds. Three out of every five referrals to refuge are refused because of a lack of availability, and 64% of all referrals to refuge were declined. That rises to 80% for black and minority ethnic women. The chances of a migrant woman being able to access refuge are slim, bordering on impossible.

In very simple terms, in order to escape abuse, an individual needs to have somewhere to go—a safe, warm place, a bed, food, and travel for themselves and their children. All the new clause seeks is to ensure that if someone is a survivor of domestic abuse, they can access those most basic necessities, regardless of where they were born. Surely, in 2020, we can agree that we should not be turning away victims of horrific crime from refuges because of what it does or does not say in their passport. We should not look the other way when we hear from survivors, as we did in our first session, who tell us that they were left sleeping on the streets with a nine-year-old child because they had been brave enough to leave an abusive relationship.

What was clear from the testimony of survivors and from written case studies provided to us is that migrant survivors often have complex situations and face multiple barriers to finding safety. They are often too scared to report. They can be investigated and even detained if they do. They cannot access safe accommodation, and their abusers use their immigration status as a tool of coercive control against them. These are complex cases, but I am pleased to say that they have straightforward solutions. The new clause provides one of those straightforward solutions.

Refuges cannot take women with no recourse to public funds because they cannot access housing benefit. Isn’t the most straightforward solution to give them access to housing benefit?

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that this country stands at a pivotal point in its race relations? If we accept the new clauses and recognise that women should be entitled to the protection of the law, regardless of where they were born, it would make an important statement about what the Government and this place are prepared to do and prepared to change in our society’s attitude to race.

[Jess Phillips]

Absolutely. I will no doubt come on to the issue of discrimination, but all I would say on that matter is that we have a chance in the Bill to say that all victims and all lives should be included. We could certainly pass comment on the lives that matter and those that do not.

Women without access to public funds cannot support themselves and their children independently from the perpetrator. As is often the case, the perpetrator is in control of the income and the bank accounts. Isn’t the most straightforward solution to that to ensure that survivors can access welfare support?

Women without secure immigration status are prohibited from renting accommodation, so refuges find it difficult to take them. Most refuges want to take these people, but if they cannot get somebody out of the refuge because that person cannot rent somewhere afterwards, refuges are left knowing that the move-on options are incredibly limited. Isn’t the most straightforward solution to that to let survivors rent?

According to Southall Black Sisters’ estimates, we are talking about a group of individuals numbering in the low thousands a year. We are not talking billions of pounds, but for each of those women, the impact on their lives would be immeasurable. At the most vulnerable, scary point in their lives, they need to be believed and they need to be told that they can be helped When their abuser tells them, “You can’t leave, you have no access to public funds, no one will help you, you’ll be on the streets,” they need to know that he is lying. At the moment, he is right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christine Jardine]

The hon. Lady mentioned a whole list of organisations. It is fair to say that all of us in this place, and all those organisations, have been on a journey for the past three years since this Bill was originally placed before Parliament. It is important. We have come a long way in those three years, and the importance of the Bill cannot be overstated, especially with covid-19 —but we need to get it right. Can we sum it up as, “We cannot leave anyone behind”? We should not leave anyone to face domestic abuse alone, regardless of gender, race, sexuality, age or religion, or because there might be some dispute about their immigration status. That is where we are now, and the Government have to bear that in mind.

[Jess Phillips]

I absolutely agree. We have a duty in this place to remove the most pernicious barriers that survivors face in escaping abuse. We can ensure that, in an emergency, every survivor of abuse is treated by the services in the same way at the point of need. We can make it so every victim faces what we in this room would face if we came forward.

I urge the Government to consider the amendments and to make the Bill truly transformative. Currently, the Bill discriminates. In the era of Black Lives Matter, how can we have a groundbreaking Bill that ignores victims based on where they were born?

--- Later in debate ---

[Christine Jardine]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. I hope she will forgive me, but I would accept any number of false claims in order to save one person who has been through domestic abuse. I do not think it is enough to say that people could abuse the system. We have to make sure that we have a good system that is not easily open to abuse, but its prime focus has to be on supporting victims of domestic abuse, whoever they are, wherever they come from, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or immigration status.

[Jess Phillips]

It would be perfectly reasonable for the Government to put in safeguards for evidence in any case, just like the evidential base that we currently have for legal aid in the system for victims of domestic violence, where tests can easily be met. Do you know what? I have spoken enough and I will get another chance.

[Christine Jardine]

Sorry, I am just getting over the shock of that!

It is incumbent on all of us to make sure that the Bill is good strong legislation and that its primary focus is on supporting victims of domestic abuse, regardless of their race, religion, ethnicity or immigration status. We should remember, in all of this, that it could be, at any point, not just someone we do not know, but our sister, our friend or our colleague. It could be any one of us and we should put ourselves in that position and ask ourselves what we would want the Bill to do to defend us.

Domestic Abuse Bill (Tenth sitting)

Debate between Christine Jardine and Jess Phillips

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

[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.

Domestic Abuse Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Christine Jardine and Jess Phillips

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 9th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 16th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Jess Phillips]

I thank the Minister. If anyone in this room were faced with an employee—and I have been in this situation a number of times—going through a court case, I cannot imagine that anybody, no matter whether they were working here or elsewhere, would expect that person not to be paid or even to be paid statutory sick pay for that period. However, that is the reality for the vast majority of people. Victims of domestic abuse need access to a specific sort of leave. That would change the culture in an organisation, and including information about it in the big pack that people receive on their first day would be a real sign that they could speak to their boss about it.

Asking for sick leave or compassionate leave because you have been raped is completely different from doing so because your mother has died. It is much easier for someone to ask their boss for leave because a relative has died than to do so because they might have been raped the night before. If someone’s house was broken into, they would ring their boss in the morning and say, “My house has been broken into. I can’t come in today because the police are coming.” That is a different conversation from, “My husband beat me up last night. I’m sorry I can’t come in, but the police are coming over.” It is not the same. We need to change the culture from the top down, to make sure there is a marker that shows people that if they have to go to court—which can take weeks and weeks—and if they need to flee, something can be done.

The Minister mentioned different guidance. The TUC says that its guidance on domestic abuse is the most downloaded piece of guidance ever from its website. Let us hope that culture is changing and that the review mentioned by the Minister shows real courage on what needs to change in the workplace. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I beg to move amendment 47, in clause 66, page 49, line 42, at end insert—

“(2A) The Secretary of State must issue separate statutory guidance on domestic abuse that also constitutes teenage relationship abuse and such guidance must address how to ensure there are—

(a) sufficient levels of local authority service provision for both victims and perpetrators of teenage relationship abuse,

(b) child safeguarding referral pathways for both victims and perpetrators of teenage relationship abuse.

(2B) The guidance in subsection (2A) must be published within three months of the Act receiving Royal Assent and must be reviewed bi-annually.

(2C) For the purposes of subsection (2A), teenage relationship abuse is defined as any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive, threatening behaviour, violence or abuse, which can encompass, but is not limited to psychological, physical, sexual, economic and emotional abuse, including through the use of technology, between those aged 18 or under who are, or have been in a romantic relationships regardless of gender or sexual orientation.”

This amendment would place a duty on the Secretary of State to publish separate statutory guidance on teenage relationship abuse. The statutory guidance would cover not just victims of teenage domestic abuse but extend to those who perpetrate abuse within their own teenage relationships.

This cross-party amendment addresses teenage relationship abuse. It would place a duty on the Secretary of State to issue separate statutory guidance on how to support teenagers who either experience or may display abusive behaviour in their relationships. To be clear, the amendment does not advocate lowering the age limit for domestic abuse or criminalising anyone. We have to acknowledge that domestic abuse is not like a driving licence or a coming of age, because we know that it does happen to people before they turn 16. The amendment acknowledges that teenage abuse is a reality, and calls for the production of separate statutory guidance and recognition that young people, whether victims or perpetrators, need special referral pathways and service provisions that are appropriate for them and for their age.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christine Jardine]

It is a world of difference, but talking about this sort of consent, I find my mind is thrown back 20 or 30 years to the original arguments about rape and consent. Does the hon. Lady share my disappointment that we have not moved on?

[Jess Phillips]

I absolutely share the hon. Lady’s frustrations. The truth of the matter is that we are talking about specific cases where this defence could easily be leaned on, and we are trying to shut those loopholes. There are only really three defences in a rape case. One is mistaken identity: it was not the accused, but someone completely different. Another is that it just did not happen, full stop—luckily, science has moved quicker than social science. The final one is that she or he consented. That is usually the one that is leaned on, because, unfortunately, it is much more difficult to prove than it is to rape.

Pre-existing case law, R v. Brown, makes it clear that a person cannot consent to injury or death during sex. However, in 45% of cases where a man kills a woman during sex and claims she consented to it, this defence works. We cannot let that continue.

If a man can convince police, prosecutors, coroners, a judge or even a jury that the woman was injured during a consensual act, he may see the following outcomes: he is believed; police do not investigate it as a crime or no charges are sought by prosecutors; prosecutors opt to pursue a manslaughter charge, ensuring a far shorter sentence than for a murder charge; mitigation in sentencing due to no intention to kill. Extreme sexual and sadistic violence is not treated as an aggravating factor in sentencing because it is accepted on his say so that she consented to it. All those outcomes are entirely acceptable today.

Domestic Abuse Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Christine Jardine and Jess Phillips

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 11th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Jess Phillips]

I will not speak for long. We have already gone over lots of what is in this amendment, including in the large and wide-ranging debate we had on part 4 of the Bill. Some of what the Minister has said gives me hope that we will get more detail on how this will be administered. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 56 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 57

Interpretation of Part 4

Amendment made: 36, in clause 57, page 37, line 1, after “London” insert

“in its capacity as a local authority”.—(Victoria Atkins.)

This amendment clarifies that the reference to the Common Council of the City of London in the definition of “local authority” for the purposes of Part 4 of the Bill is to the Common Council in its capacity as a local authority.

Clause 57, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 58

Special measures directions in cases involving domestic abuse

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I beg to move amendment 54, in clause 58, page 37, line 32, at end insert—

“(3A) In cases where it is alleged that domestic abuse is involved, Chapter 1 of Part 2 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 (special measures directions in case of vulnerable and intimidated witnesses) applies to proceedings in the family court as it applies to criminal proceedings, but with any necessary modifications.”

This amendment extends statutory eligibility for special measures to the family court in cases where domestic abuse is involved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christine Jardine]

That is the next clause, I believe. There is no measure we can take in the Bill that goes too far, or that could be regarded as being in any way sufficient, until we can do no more. No length is too great when it comes to protecting women. Banning cross-examination by perpetrators of domestic abuse is valuable, but it must be written in the legislation that special measures are available. It is not just women themselves who will be cross-examined; it might be their children. It is about coming in and out of the court. It is about having to face the person who has abused them—often for decades—in a corridor because they did not have a special entrance. We need to look at all these things. I cannot imagine what that would be like. No step is too far.

In 2018, Women’s Aid found that 24% of respondents had been cross-examined by their abusive ex-partner in the family court, and that was traumatising for them, so I do agree with the hon. Lady. Victims can feel that their experiences have been minimised in proceedings, and if protective measures are not granted by courts, they will be exacerbating that and letting these women down.

Christine Harrison from the University of Warwick has concluded that domestic abuse was and is persistently minimised and dismissed as irrelevant in private law proceedings. Lesley Laing from the University of Sydney in Australia has also found that accounts of engagement with the system often mirror domestic violence narratives. That is known as secondary victimisation, and it is not acceptable.

Resolution, the family justice charity, has said that although there have been changes to the family procedure rules, it is widely recognised that current special measures facilities in family court hearings—such as video and audio link, and screen facilities—are not satisfactory or on a par with the facilities available in the criminal courts. Resolution’s members, who are family lawyers, have raised their concerns.

We have talked about the Bill for three years as landmark legislation—a once in a generation opportunity to tackle domestic abuse. However, if we exclude the family courts from the Bill, we will miss a valuable opportunity to tackle domestic abuse in an area where it has perhaps been minimised and overlooked in the past, which is not acceptable. I therefore ask the Committee to consider the amendment.

[Jess Phillips]

I will speak to new clause 45, which has been grouped with the amendment. I support everything the hon. Lady has just said. I will not repeat much of what she has said about the number of victims who find they cannot actually access any of the facilities that are said to be available in the family courts. In one recent case—I will not cite the case here, but I have the details in front of me—the victim was denied special measures, even though the perpetrator had been arrested for battery, coercive control and sexual assault by penetration. The victim was also living in a refuge. However, she was denied special measures in the family court.

There is not only an absence of legislative guidance. It is clear, as some of the reports the hon. Lady referred to show, that facilities such as video and audio link are not as readily available as they are in the criminal courts. I absolutely welcome what the Bill attempts to do in formalising in legislation what largely exists in the criminal courts for most criminal court cases. In fact, I think that in every single domestic violence case that I have ever been to court about, special measures have formed a part of proceedings, or at the very least have been on offer. I myself have been offered special measures in cases that I have personally been involved with. Sometimes, victims do not want to use them; they want to sit and face the accused. I cannot remember a case in the criminal courts where special measures were not on offer; sometimes the video links leave a little to be desired, but they were none the less available.

It is great that the Government wish to formalise the special measures in our criminal courts in the Bill, and we support that. We simply wish to see those measures extended to court facilities where family law and civil law matters are discussed.

Stay Safe East, the disability charity that focuses on domestic abuse, has advised us that in the local family courts in its area, only one out of the 12 courtrooms has a video facility. I am sure I am teaching Ministers to suck eggs when I say that someone does not always get to decide which courtroom they go into when they get to court. It is therefore a sort of “luck of the draw” situation at the moment.

Automatic eligibility, which new clause 45 and the amendment would allow for, would place special measures on a statutory footing and ensure that family and civil courts make structural changes to safeguard victims, thereby removing the burden on victims to have to request special measures. We want a situation similar to the criminal courts, where such measures are offered in a very proactive way. In fact, long before someone even knows that they will ever be in court or has been given a court date, they are asked about special measures. The amendments are just about equalising that system across our justice estate, to reduce the variation in judicial approach and provide much-needed predictability for victims.

That is especially important because in lots of the cases we are talking about, victims go through a criminal case and a family case at the same time. It is unusual that they can be in one courtroom on a Tuesday and another on a Wednesday, and have completely different safeguards in place. Their case is exactly the same. The perpetration that they have suffered is exactly the same, yet they are safe in one courthouse and not safe—or do not feel safe—in another. There are, I am afraid to say, some terrible examples of women being attacked by their perpetrators in the toilets of family courts, which were written about in Women’s Aid’s “Nineteen Child Homicides” report for the Child First campaign. We just seek to equalise the situation.

Domestic Abuse Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Christine Jardine and Jess Phillips

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 11th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I hope that this does not move us away from the text, but on the hon. Lady’s point, it strikes me that a national overview that allowed women to move to different parts of the country might be particularly relevant for migrant women, who do not have any roots in any particular part of the country. If there were a bed that was appropriate for them in, say, Lincolnshire, Carmarthen or Birmingham, they could go there.

[Jess Phillips]

Absolutely—the hon. Lady makes an important point. Constituents of mine, because of the accommodation that is provided under the contracts for refugees in this country, have moved overnight to different areas. They have pulled their children out of school and been sent to different areas as part of what we used to call NASS—National Asylum Support Service—accommodation. The terminology changes quicker than the weather in this country. That is absolutely the case and, currently, it is exactly what happens in a different part of the Home Office.

In 2017, a joint report by the Work and Pensions Committee and the Communities and Local Government Committee concluded:

“It is essential that refuges are able to operate as a national network, unrestrained by admission restrictions imposed by individual local authorities and with appropriate coverage across the country.”

That national network of services cannot be assessed, planned, commissioned or funded on the basis of local need alone. I am not for one second saying that local needs assessments are not needed, because they absolutely are, but not on their own, which leaves a deficit in the Bill.

Although the Government have stated that they will establish a ministerial-led national steering group to monitor and evaluate delivery of the new duty, that is not set out in the Bill, and we do not consider it robust enough to oversee this life-saving national network of services. On the point made by my hon. Fried the Member for Hove, I have absolutely no doubt that the Minister would seek to have quarterly meetings on national oversight. The Minister sat in front of me is a diligent one who cares just as deeply as me about those services—of that I have absolutely no doubt—but she may not always be in her post. It is very easy for Ministers, because they have a lot on their plate, to sigh when they see in their calendars that this or that particular meeting is next week. I want it stated in the Bill that those meetings must be in those calendars. Basically, I am blocking Ministers’ calendars—consider the Committee the invite list.

New clause 48 would establish a national oversight group that included the domestic abuse commissioner to undertake a national needs assessment for refuge services, including a review of their provision for victims with protected characteristics. The national oversight group would ensure that local authorities and local partnership boards were effectively discharging their duties, including

“monitoring compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty and implementation of Equality Impact Assessments for relevant commissioning and procurement processes”.

The group would also oversee the delivery of funding by local partnerships and local authorities and would sanction ineffective or inadequate provision and practice—that is my favourite bit; I like a sanction. It would ensure compliance with the Istanbul convention and the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, or CEDAW, as well as ensuring ongoing liaison with relevant monitoring bodies. It is all very well to place a duty on local authorities—it is a good idea—but another issue entirely to ensure that they discharge that duty effectively. There is no provision for that in the Bill. If safeguards are not in place, there is no guarantee that provision will improve. Vulnerable women will remain in precarious situations. The national oversight group is merely a safeguard and I do not think it is a lot to ask.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christine Jardine]

Does the hon. Lady agree that one of the prominent features of our debates on this Bill, over its long life in Parliament, has been the desire on all sides of the House to protect migrant women and to ratify the Istanbul convention? That that has not been done for eight years is a failure that cannot be excused, but these new clauses and amendments could go some way to ensuring that the convention was ratified and that those migrant women, and their children, got the attention that is obviously desired for them by Members across the House and people across the country.

[Jess Phillips]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady from Scotland, which is not currently covered by the Bill. The Home Office is, of course, in charge of the policy that covers Scotland with regard to this area of immigration and the destitution funding that is put in place in those circumstances. She is right that there are hundreds of voices—nay thousands, according to the petitions on this—on one side of the argument, with regard to the need for access to support for all migrant victims of domestic abuse. It seems that there are some in this place, on the other side of the House, who do not agree. However, on Second Reading and in the Joint Committee, every specialist agency, all the commissioners and every expert involved—I have not asked Chris Whitty, but I imagine he might fall on my side about this—stated that the Bill needs to do more and that it needs to look at specific issues around migrant women.

This is not some radical left-wing approach, unless the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) could be considered a radical left-winger. Indeed, the issue was raised by the onetime Immigration Minister on Second Reading. We will speak to the issue in far greater detail next week, but without such provision the ability to ratify the Istanbul convention is null and void. I cannot understand why we would put together a Bill about domestic abuse victims that did not explicitly support every single one of them. That is the simple fact about what we have at the moment.

Throughout the amendment runs the thread of non-discrimination, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh West pointed out. We cannot pass a Bill that discriminates or has a blind spot on the effects of domestic abuse on young children. By providing an inclusive and holistic approach—by working with all those affected—we can truly tackle domestic abuse. These new clauses provide an opportunity for us to make changes now, not in 12 months’ time, and ensure that all victims of this horrific crime are supported.

Domestic Abuse Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Christine Jardine and Jess Phillips

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 9th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Jess Phillips]

These clauses all relate to the powers of the domestic abuse commissioner; there is a huge area of the Bill about her powers and how this role is going to work. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hove and the Minister have said, we all welcome the commissioner.

I want to make some brief comments about the issue that clause 4 deals with, which is funding. It arises from a constructive concern that I had during the evidence sessions and on Second Reading, which is that it appears that if there is something that the Government have not yet got an answer for, possibly for a completely good reason, there is a tiny bit of a willingness for them to say, “We’re going to ask the commissioner to do this thing for us.”

For example, on Second Reading, there was a push from all sides of the House, as there was from the sector and from the commissioner herself, around the provision of community-based services. Off the top of my head, the statistic is that 70% of all domestic violence victims are supported in community-based services. The vast majority of people will never end up in refuge accommodation, and that is something that we should continue to facilitate; refuges are absolutely not for everyone.

What concerns me and what we heard from some in the sector—I think it came from the voice in the room that was Suzanne from SafeLives—is that what was announced on Second Reading related to a mapping exercise rather than a duty. In the Bill, we see—it seems like we will see it in many weeks’ time—a duty on refuge accommodation, which we certainly all welcome, but there is definitely a desire, which I share, to see a similar duty on community services.

It seems that rather than a duty, the Government are proposing a mapping exercise—they proposed it on Second Reading—by the commissioner, to understand what community-based support exists. As Suzanne told the Committee in her evidence—I have to say, I think I could probably do it here now. If I did not come to the Committee tomorrow, I could probably map out community services, because droves and droves of evidence have been gathered about what community-based support services exist. I feel for the Government, because people like me put in questions such as, “How many bed spaces are there?”, when I know full well what the answer is. I understand the concern and the need to map services, and to make sure that we are funding things.

What concerned me a little on Second Reading and in the evidence sessions was that there were a huge number of questions from Members asking the sector what they felt the commissioner should be doing: “What is the commissioner going to do for my group of women? What is the commissioner going to do about this and that?”. They were completely reasonable questions to ask, although largely they were asked not of the commissioner, but of the voluntary sector aides and the victims. With the greatest respect to Nicole and her position, I am not sure most victims of domestic violence are too concerned with who the commissioner is, but the sector is.

What concerns me is the commissioner’s funding model. I know that there was some argy-bargy and push and pull about the number of days, which letters presented to the Committee on the previous Bill said would be increased. What worries me on staffing, which is dealt with in the next clause, and funding is that the commissioner will end up with all these jobs because, rather than taking direct action, we do another review or more mapping. It starts to ramp up the amount of funding that somebody will need to take on all this extra responsibility.

I want to be absolutely certain and to understand from the Minister what the mechanism is if the commissioner says: “I cannot afford to do this exercise that you have said I should do because I no longer have the funding.” What I do not want to see is Parliament scrutinising the domestic abuse commissioner—she and whoever takes the role after her will undoubtedly many times in their career sit in front of the Home Affairs Select Committee—and her being forced to answer: “I couldn’t afford to do this exercise or this report into x because we just didn’t have the budget.”

There seems to be a tendency to push things on to the commissioner that would once upon a time have sat with civil servants in the Home Office. I want an understanding of how the review process and funding will be taken forward and what grounds it will take to make a case to increase the budget, including increases that might be needed for the local boards that are associated with this part of the Bill. I therefore seek reassurance from the Minister.

There is a game that gets played—although certainly not by the Ministers in this Committee—of the devolution of blame. We devolve power, whether it is to Wales or Scotland or to local authorities, whereby the Government hold the whip hand. I am certain that all Governments of all flavours have done this. The Government hold the whip hand in deciding the funding formula or within what constraints that money may be spent. When problems arise we say, “Well, that’s Birmingham City Council’s fault because they are rubbish.” Again, if I was given £1 for every time I heard the invocation of the Welsh NHS, I could fund all community services. What worries me and what I do not want to see is an underfunded commissioner, with the Government saying, “That is the commissioner’s responsibility,” given that ultimately all this policy—everything that flows from the Bill and everything that happens in every single one of our local authorities—

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

We have heard several times today already that the Bill is landmark legislation and that we should be future-proofing it in certain ways. Do I understand from what the hon. Lady says that we have to future-proof it against undermining public confidence, through arguments about whether it has been sufficiently funded and who is to blame for that—and should we take the opportunity at this point to make sure that that argument cannot arise?

Domestic Abuse Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Christine Jardine and Jess Phillips

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 9th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution. Does she, like me, believe that if we do what is proposed, we will have a completely different concept of what domestic abuse is and we will begin to tackle it in a way that prevents it from happening in the first place, because—as she so eloquently said—we see children become abusers and abused and the key to tackling it properly, although we will never wipe it out, is including children not only in the definition but in the care and the approach that we take?

[Jess Phillips]

I absolutely agree. If we are going to write a ground-breaking Bill, let us make it break ground. If we do not genuinely think, as a Committee and as a House, that it is worth putting children in, “because what difference will that make?”, what is the point in any of it? That is the question I would ask. What is the point in having a definition at all if we do not see the reality of domestic abuse?

As I have said, in moving this amendment, I absolutely feel that I have the ear of the whole House, so I feel that, on Report, there will be huge support. Across this House, no matter the colour of our rosettes, people have spoken up for children in our debates. That sends an immense message that we might not realise; and we have a chance, with this amendment, to send the same message again.

Domestic Abuse Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Christine Jardine and Jess Phillips

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 4th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

Q Actually, before I say anything, I would like to hear the witness continue to respond to hon. Members. Her story is important, and it is important that we hear it.

[Jess Phillips]

Q We only have a short space of time, and we need to make sure that those of us who have to scrutinise the Bill get the message about what needs to change in it. So you had to sleep rough in London—is that what you are saying?

Gilmara Garcia: Yes.