Domestic Abuse Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Gillian Keegan and Huw Merriman

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th October 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Gillian Keegan]

Q It is fascinating to hear all about the services, and the people of Newcastle are obviously very lucky to have them. We heard in other evidence sessions that not having services such as these is often a barrier to women going further to seek out more services, because they do not think their children will get the services required. Do you have a view on how widely available they are across England and Wales? What difference will the role of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner make in ensuring that when she and her team are mapping all these services, it will help to improve the availability of such services across the country for children affected by domestic abuse?

Eleanor Briggs: The research that we did with Stirling University looked at 30 local authorities and at where services were available and where they were not. It varies a lot. In two thirds of local authorities involved in the study, there were some barriers to accessing services. In 10% of areas, there were no support services available. In a third of areas, access to services was restricted by postcode. We know it really varies, which relates to the lack of duty and the instability around funding being an issue.

We really welcome the role of the commissioner, and it is fantastic to see that. We welcome that she has a specific remit on children and that she will have a child advisor as part of her office. We would really like to see children included in the statutory definition, just to strengthen it and ensure that it is absolutely clear. We would also like to see a bit more clarity in the wording—when she looks at the provision of services, it should include children’s services as well, because it could be a real tool if it was absolutely clear that she is going to look at that.

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

Q Thank you very much for the interesting evidence. Can I just come back to your point on people under 16 being victims? The Bill states:

“Behaviour of a person (‘A’) towards another person (‘B’) is ‘domestic abuse’ if…A and B are each aged 16 or over”.

Are you suggesting it should be the case that, in that scenario, B does not have to be aged 16 or over? Is that what you were driving towards?

Eleanor Briggs: No.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Merriman]

Q Clearly, this is an area that you would think needs addressing. Did you consider whether there are other vehicles to address that point or is this neatly fitting?

Emily McCarron: I do not think that it is ever neat—I do not necessarily think that anything fits neatly into this area. There are other opportunities beyond the Bill. There are opportunities to look at the guidance for the Care Act and how we address that. There are also discussions around the definition of coercive control and whether that is always in the domestic setting. The Bill provides an opportunity to improve the lives of older people who are experiencing domestic abuse. That is why we are focusing on this as a vehicle to make some change and have some relevance to the lives of older people who are experiencing abuse.

[Gillian Keegan]

Q There is no doubt that this is a very big area that is relatively new in terms of our considering it. As you say, older people are definitely much more vulnerable, particularly with regard to intimate care. They are much more isolated, and I guess they are more conscious and concerned about loneliness too, which could be the consequences of taking any action. I have encountered a number of distressing cases involving either carers and the abuse of elderly victims, or other residents abusing people’s relatives in care homes. Obviously, the Government want to ensure that we get this right and make domestic abuse everybody’s business in order to try to identify and help victims, and I suppose that is even more critical with elderly people. What do you think needs to change to ensure that the response to older victims is as good as it can be? How do you see the role of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner in helping us on that journey?

Emily McCarron: The first step is the need to correctly identify that this is happening. A budget of £100,000 was allocated to support older people experiencing domestic abuse. While we are certainly not arguing for resources to be diverted away from younger people, that indicated to us that this is not recognised as an issue. In part, as I have explained, that is a data issue: we just do not quite know how many older people experience domestic abuse. We have quite a stark figure that one in four victims of domestic homicides are over the age of 60. We believe that is a consequence of the fact that older people are not accessing the services they need.

Really, this is about recognising that this is an issue for older people, that it is quite a hidden issue, that more needs to be done and that their particular needs must be recognised in terms of the response. The response should not just be a criminal justice response; it should also be about healthcare, social care, housing and the provision of services. On asking the commissioner, this is about recognising the issue and allocating resources—or the Government response—in accordance with the number of older people who experience it. It is quite a stark issue, but it is still very hidden.