Secure Tenancies (Victims of Domestic Abuse) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Debate between Heather Wheeler and Jess Phillips

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 27th March 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Stella Creasy]

I do not think this is about good councils; it is about how we deal with domestic violence cases in this country. Still too often, we require the victim to put the pieces of her escape route together. I say “her”, and I recognise that men are victims as well, but it is overwhelmingly women who we ask to try to work through a system based on service provision rather than their needs.

I want to give the Minister an example—which I hope will explain why Opposition Members are concerned about future-proofing this legislation—of one of the cases I dealt with in Walthamstow, near the boundary with Redbridge, because in London the difference between 33 boroughs can be the difference between life and death. It is the example of a woman whose secure tenancy was ruined because her abusive partner set fire to their flat. She fled to Redbridge, but as soon as she left the borough, a mere 10 minutes by car, everything fell apart for her. Suddenly, she was simply someone from another borough seeking housing, not a victim of domestic violence—as he stood on the balcony of the property that she had managed to find, tapping on the window and telling her that he had found her.

We could not keep that woman safe. I took to calling the borough commanders in my borough and in Redbridge every single day about her, because we could not get housing and could not get the police forces to work together, merely because they were 10 minutes apart by road. They were two different boroughs and two different housing departments. She started getting chased for her council tax and rent arrears on a property that was a burnt-out shell. If she had gone back to that property, he could have found her there, too. Every single day, that woman was on my conscience, all because bureaucracy could not see the victim, only the housing service and the policing requirements. The police in Redbridge said to her, “Close your windows, then he can’t knock on the windows,” not understanding what was going on, because we did not put the victim first.

The challenge is that that case is not unusual. It is not about London boroughs or co-ordination; it is simply that there are two different housing departments, one of which recognises that there might be a domestic violence case, while the other simply sees somebody whose postcode is in the wrong district.

I share the Minister’s desire to get secured tenancies right. She says that is already written into the legislation, but why not make it certain that it can be beyond a degree of reasonable doubt with any housing authority? That way, when MPs are faced with somebody who has come from a mere 10 minutes away, who is desperate for help, in fear of their life and has made that difficult decision to leave, there is no doubt that they will be housed. There should not be a point at which a housing officer says, “I’m sorry, this postcode isn’t in our borough and therefore this person is not our responsibility. They need to go back into the system.”

We have all seen the person who does not leave—the person who recognises that bureaucracy is going to be another hurdle and who, with everything else going on their life, does not want to take the risk. Each of us has had that conversation with that resident, pleading with them to talk to the independent sexual violence adviser and not go back. All too often, it has been a housing officer who has not understood their obligations and said to them, “I’m sorry, if you leave, you’re making yourself intentionally homeless.” That is the phrase we have to deal with, and that is why amendment 5 is so important. It changes the conversation and says that if someone is recognised as a victim of domestic violence—I appreciate that we also need to get some later clauses and amendments right—that person is more likely to get help.

The Minister does not look impressed. There are countless examples that I am sure other Members will give her. That is the lived reality of trying to get this right. We all want the best councils, the best police services, the best healthcare providers, the best social workers and the best MASH—multi-agency safeguarding hub—teams, who do not say, “Well, for the needs of the child we’ll try to keep the family together,” even though they have had perpetrators who put their partners into hospital and near death. The lived reality of trying to deal with these situations means that we have to make sure the legislation is belt and braces. Even if the Minister thinks the point is covered, I urge her to include it, to put it beyond reasonable doubt, because those cases, such as the person who moved between Redbridge and Waltham Forest, are not unusual.

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Rosindell. I also welcome the Bill. As somebody who worked in the field for many years, it is revelatory to see this put into law. I am really pleased and feel that we are constantly surging forward, and 99% of the time that is done on a completely cross-party basis, with total consensus. When I first started working in domestic abuse services, that was not something I necessarily would have said or experienced, but times are changing. I am very pleased to say that this is no longer the bastion of noisy feminists such as myself; it is everybody’s business, which is great to see.

The concerns on this side of the Committee stem from memories of how localisation under new welfare rules after the 2010 general election changed the way that people moved across boundaries. It was not a willing Government, or even the Opposition, who changed the ruling about whether people could cross borders and seek tenancies; it was a woman who lived in the refuge where I worked and the Child Poverty Action Group. They took the case to court, on a judicial review, to stop local councils—in this instance Sandwell Council—being able to say, “You have to have lived in a local authority area for five years before you can have access to the housing list and be put on priority.”

It was not even five years ago that that was the case. Councils all over the country—certainly Birmingham and Sandwell—were saying, “Unless you have a link to this local authority area, you cannot come and live here,” regardless. There was no exemption for victims of domestic abuse. Thanks to brilliant victims of domestic abuse and brilliant charities that support them, that was overturned. Councils were told by the courts, not by any Government policy, that they had to allow victims of domestic abuse to be exempt from those rules. I had some personal issues with that, which I raised with my council in a public forum—when I was told by the then MP for Birmingham, Yardley, in a moment of horrendous dogwhistling, that I was trying to encourage anybody to come and claim benefits in Birmingham—so I have some form on arguing for this issue.

What we are trying to get across in the amendment is that that cannot happen again—that there should be no room for the Child Poverty Action Group and local authorities to have to go up against each other with individual victims’ cases. As my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow has said, there will be cases that come to light where there is difficulty, and we do not want the courts to have to be the place that makes the right decision.

We should remember there are lots of local authorities that are rubbish on this. We are living in a total postcode lottery. I remember a mantra where I used to work was, “Don’t get raped in Dudley,” because there were no services for rape victims in Dudley. We had to somehow give them a postcode for another area, so that we did not turn away children who had been raped, for example. Not all councils are brilliant on this stuff. It seems like a painfully political point to make, but the Prime Minister’s own council, where her seat is, does not fund a single refuge bed. There is good and bad—

[Mrs Wheeler]

Neither does Southwark.

[Jess Phillips]

As the Minister says from her sedentary position, nor does Southwark fund a single refuge bed. That is not a case I have ever heard. However, if it does not, it should—absolutely it should. This is not said with a Labour cap on; we took a Labour council to court. I do not give a toss what colour the council is; I care that the law protects the victims when they cross the border. I do not think anyone who might be watching this, either in this room or outside, thinks I am afraid of criticising the Labour party. Some of us are more than keen to point out problems wherever they arise.

The issue is ensuring that councils that are hard up do not have any excuse. That is all we seek. If we do not do it in these rooms, if we do not get the legislation right, you can bet your bottom dollar that somewhere a judge will.