Victims and Prisoners Bill (Fourteenth sitting)

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th July 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff North, and the hon. Member for Rotherham. Having set out the rationale behind our new clause, I will confine myself to addressing the amendments subsequently spoken to. I am grateful to Opposition Members for amendments that seek to ensure that before making a victim information request, the authorised person is satisfied that the victim has been informed of their rights in relation to the request for their personal records, and the rights of the victim are outlined in the victim information notes. I will turn briefly to some of the broader points made by the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Rotherham at the end.

The purpose of the Victims and Prisoners Bill is to put victims at the heart of the criminal justice system. The proposed clauses will ensure that law enforcement requests for victim information do just that. They will be further supported by the code of practice, but as we—and, indeed, the hon. Member for Rotherham—have made clear, we must seek to strike an appropriate balance while not compromising the right to a fair trial. The statutory code of practice will contain guidance on how to carry out the duties outlined by the legislation. That will include best practice around making requests and informing victims. The police must have due regard to the code when making requests.

Alongside the code of practice, we have developed a notice for law enforcement to use to inform victims about any requests for their personal records. This notice has been designed to ensure that law enforcement can meet their legal obligations regarding informing victims, outlined in the new duties. The code of practice will recommend authorised persons to use this notice. To accompany the notice, we have also developed a Q&A that law enforcement should provide to victims alongside the notice to enable them to understand the terminology and what is actually being asked for. That will include answers to common questions that victims and survivors might have, as well as information regarding their rights. It will be clear in the code of practice that it is best practice to use this notice and to provide the associated guidance to victims.

The resources above will ensure that victims are suitably informed of their rights and of the request. Officials will work closely with the National Police Chiefs’ Council to ensure that the police are fully aware of, and trained in, their responsibilities under the legislation with respect to ensuring that victims are aware of their rights.

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

I am not sure how many rape cases the Minister has personally handled, but as somebody who has handled thousands, I have to say that if the police just check a box by saying to a victim in front of them, “We’re going to have to ask for your medical records and any other counselling records,” she is likely to say, “Okay, okay,” without having any understanding of or guidance on exactly what that means.

Will the police, following this ABC guide, say, “If you have ever said anything about your sexual behaviour, completely separately from the fact that this person raped you, it will be used against you in court”? The police will not sit down with a rape victim and talk at length through exactly what might be used. The police do not know, for a start. Also, victims do not know what is in their counselling notes: they do not see them or have them. I want to put a burst of reality into a theoretical argument.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, who knows whereof she speaks, having worked extensively in this area. We believe that this is the appropriate approach. Our code of practice will ensure that victims are made aware of their rights and that the police are aware of their responsibilities under the new duty, including the responsibility to inform victims. We will publish the wording of the draft code of practice during the Bill’s passage, prior to its conclusion in this House and the other place, to enable colleagues to comment.

I turn to the specific points made by the hon. Member for Rotherham. I reassure her that new clause 4 will in no way replace the requirements of the Data Protection Act 2018, which will continue to apply for lawful processing once the police receive the material from a third party. The code makes it clear that the Act imposes additional legal requirements, over and above those in the code, and that when police make a request they are required to take those requirements into account to ensure that the processing of the data is compliant with the Act.

More broadly, may I gently push back on the argument that this is routinely asked for? The whole purpose of the clause is to ensure that it is asked for not routinely, but in specific circumstances.

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[Jess Phillips]

I cannot stress enough how disappointing it is that somebody has to stand up in this place every single time and say that there is not the data to tell us about these sorts of abuses. There is almost no proper data. In every inquiry, every domestic homicide review, every serious case review and every child sex abuse inquiry where we have all been through the wringer, the same thing gets said every single time, whether it is about Telford, about Rotherham or about the whole nation: “We don’t know the scale of the problem, because there isn’t a single data source.” That is no longer acceptable.

I don’t know how to say this without swearing—don’t worry, I will find a way. In my experience, the reason these things go wrong is usually a mess-up rather than a conspiracy: the lack of ability to collate data, or the problem being too big, difficult or complicated. But I have to say that on this point, I am starting to believe that there is actually a conspiracy not to collect the data. Knowing the full scale of child abuse would be terrifying for the country; Members of Parliament like my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham and I are certainly only too aware that there is child sexual abuse on every single street in this land. That is the reality of situation. I am starting to believe that the lack of a single solid data source is to try to hide that.

I cannot understand why the Government would not address IICSA’s most basic ask. The Government claim to have undertaken 19 of the 20 recommendations, but the advisory board run by survivors who gave evidence has counted three. The Government have agreed to three of the 20 recommendations made by IICSA, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, at a huge cost to the nation. A previous Prime Minister was really kind about the amount of money that was spent on it.

We count what we care about. Throughout the passage of the Bill, we have debated the difference between criminal child exploitation and child sexual exploitation. At the moment I am afraid to say that foggy data is kept by the Home Office: all children who are being exploited get talked about as one big anomaly. The result is that when we do Redthread interventions in police stations around knife crime because of criminal exploitation in places such as Birmingham and London, we do not have any specialised policy for the girls involved in gang activity who are sexually exploited, because we not demark the data. There are all sorts of practical reasons why that is harming children who are being sexually abused, because we do not have a proper response in those circumstances.

[Sarah Champion]

It is about the victims and survivors, but it is also about preventing crime. To do that, we need to know who the perpetrators are.

[Jess Phillips]

I absolutely agree. So much attention is given in our country to who exactly the perpetrators of sexual abuse are, but it is often not based on data. We need to know where our children are safe. I want to know where my children are safe. I just want to know where the best places are for me to allow them to go— institutions, for example. No one is asking for it to be historical; we are all asking for today to be the point at which we say, “This is the standardised form, like we all have an NI number. If you see child abuse, this is the form you fill in and the information goes into a national data source.” It would not be that onerous.

I commend all my hon. Friend’s work and support her new clause 6.

[Edward Argar]

It is important at the outset to highlight IICSA’s hugely important work on this issue. When any large inquiry conducts its work, it remains for the Government, whatever their complexion, to be the arbiter and decide which recommendations to accept, rather than automatically accepting all the inquiry’s recommendations.

I know that a lot of thought has gone into the Government response. That is evidenced not least by the nudges from the hon. Member for Rotherham at various points to say, “So when is it coming?” Although I appreciate her frustration, the length of time reflects the amount of thought and consultation across Government because it goes to the point made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, about the breadth of the organisations and Departments involved.

New clause 6 reflects recommendation 1 in the final report of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. In the Government response to the report and its recommendations, as the hon. Member for Rotherham said, we set out an extensive programme of work, including our response to the recommendation of a single dataset on child sexual abuse.

As set out in our formal response, we accept that robust data collection on the scale and nature of child sexual abuse is critical to underpinning and driving a more effective response to child sexual abuse. We have made a number of improvements on data collection. Crucially, we will make further improvements to performance data.

The Department for Education is driving forward an ambitious agenda to improve the use of data in safeguarding and children’s social care and will deliver a report to Parliament in the summer. It will set out ways to improve information sharing between safeguarding partners—as required by the Health and Care Act 2022, which I had the pleasure of taking through this Committee Room, among others, at length—and, crucially, how that data will be better brought together. It may not go all the way to what the hon. Member for Rotherham would want, but I hope that it will give her a degree of reassurance. I know that she will interrogate the report carefully when it is published.

The Department for Education will also publish the first part of its children’s social care data strategy at the end of the year. It is working to develop it with the sector and experts to deliver a statement of strategic intent and, crucially, a road map that sets out the departmental vision for children’s social care datasets and how they can be brought together. The Department is also learning best practice from local authorities and others on how they are using existing child exploitation data to inform future practice through predictive analytics.

The Home Office is another key element of the picture. It funds the independent Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse, with which I know the hon. Member for Rotherham is familiar. The centre produces a report on the scale and nature of child sexual abuse and trends in official data. The Home Office is also working with the Office for National Statistics to improve data collection and granularity on child sexual abuse.

At the policing end of the lens, we are working with the police to drive improvements in the collection, analysis and use of data on child sexual abuse and exploitation, including factors such as ethnicity data and how forces record data for the annual data requirement consistently. The Home Office is funding dedicated child sexual abuse analysts in every policing region to help to bring this data together; funding the tackling organised exploitation programme to bring together local, national and regional data so that it can be shared and interrogated to help police uncover exploitation; and a national policing vulnerability knowledge and practice programme to improve policing’s overall response to vulnerability and to identify and promote best practice between forces.

In addition, the Home Office works with police forces to improve the consistency with which, and the way in which, they record data for the annual data requirement. For example, through the national data quality improvement service computer-assisted classification programme—now there’s a mouthful—we are working to improve and refine the identification of child sexual abuse crimes in police-recorded crime data consistently across police forces and datasets.

The Government continually add to and develop a suite of analytical outputs according to guidance from the code of practice for statistics. As part of that effort, we added additional variables into the criminal court outcomes by offences data tools in 2017, to include identifiers such as the ethnicity of defendants, and subsequently updated age variables to provide greater detail. The Government remain committed to bringing child sexual abuse further out of the shadows. We know that, as the shadow Minister said and the hon. Member for Rotherham has campaigned on since she was first elected in 2010, child sexual abuse is under-identified and under-reported, and in the past was under-recorded and under-reacted to by the police, if I can put it that way. That is why one of our core objectives is to see year-on-year increases in the volume of police-recorded crime for such offences and in the volume of successful charges.

The Government are also determined to provide proper support to all victims and survivors and to deliver real and enduring change. That is why we are working to strengthen the collection of data and how it is used, the consistency in that respect and the ability to pool or share data to increase awareness of child sexual abuse. Crucially, we need to understand what is working to respond to and address it and—to the hon. Member for Rotherham’s point—seek to prevent it where possible.

The Government’s position is that we are meeting the spirit of the inquiry’s recommendation through the numerous improvements that I have set out and enunciated for the Committee, and we will continue to drive further improvements to police performance data. We will endeavour to continue to engage with victims and survivors, child protection organisations, the hon. Member for Rotherham, I suspect, and Professor Alexis Jay in her work.

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[Jess Phillips]

Has my hon. Friend, like me, found that when councils and sometimes health authorities are dealing with adult victims of domestic abuse, they feel they should commission specific services, yet when children are victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse or other crimes, the authorities feel that responsibility should immediately fall to children’s safeguarding, which provides absolutely no service unless the threshold of imminent risk of death is met?

[Sarah Champion]

Sadly, I completely agree. I have deep sympathy for the local authorities that are trying to provide these services without the resources and with ever-increasing need placed on them. I really welcome the fact that children are now regarded as victims under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, but support services need to be rolled out on that basis.

Sexual abuse has a far-reaching impact on society. It is estimated to cost more than £3.2 billion per year. In 2021, calls to the NSPCC helpline about child sexual abuse and exploitation reached a record high. The victims code of practice already enshrines

“the Right to be referred to services that support victims…and to have…services and support…tailored to meet your needs”.

Those responsible for upholding the code include police and crime commissioners, the Crown Prosecution Service and police witness care units, so ideally we should already be seeing sufficient and specific support being commissioned across England and Wales. In reality, however, provision is patchy and victims are being left with no support. A legal duty to commission sufficient and specific support for children and young people would push responsible parties to act in the best interests of all children.

It is concerning that the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse found that some statutory agencies responsible for commissioning support services

“have conflated the concepts of actual harm and risk of harm”,

leading to a failure to identify and support children who have been victimised or are at risk of being victimised. In conflating the two, commissioners improperly resource and fund support services, minimising the likelihood that victims will be able to process their trauma and recover from their experience. A duty must be placed on the Secretary of State to commission a review of the current volume, need, provision and investment in special services for children who have been victims of crime.

Currently, data on the provision of services is collected by police and crime commissioners. However, PCCs do not have the authority to mandate that other commissioners share that data with them. As a result, the understanding of the national picture on support for children who are experiencing harm is unclear. The Secretary of State could require all commissioners to share that data and thereby improve the national understanding of the volume of, need for, provision of and investment in special services for children.

New clause 10 would also require the Secretary of State to lay the review’s findings before Parliament and outline the steps he would take in response. That is vital to ensuring that all children receive the support they need, and to ending the postcode lottery that they currently face.

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[Sarah Champion]

I completely agree. People talk, and that sends out a chilling message to the whole community, keeping people with their abusers. I urge the Minister to consider this new clause, because unless we get the firewall in place, we allow perpetrators of violence and abuse to continue their unique and specific reign of terror.

[Jess Phillips]

I do not really need any notes, because I am about to make a briefer than normal speech that I have made what feels like a hundred times. One day, what we are asking for will happen.

I cannot stress enough the importance of the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham about the need for a firewall between immigration services and the police. At the moment, we say, largely to women, “If somebody tries to kill you, tries to rape you or does rape you and you call the police, we are going to call enforcement on you,” so what happens is that they do not call the police and I read out their names in March.

My brilliant constituent was part of the super-complaint. She faced a very real and credible threat to her life by a man who had abused her horrendously to the point that she had to be moved into a safe house because he was such a danger to her. She does not speak very good English. The police came round to her house; I had called them to go there because her husband had sent violent and threatening letters to both me and her, saying what he was going to do to her and to her family in Pakistan. The next thing I knew, I got a phone call from her and she kept telling me she was in Bradford. I did not understand because she did not speak very good English. She was in Bedford, because she had been put in Yarl’s Wood detention centre.

My constituent had not said anything about her immigration status, which, by the way, was completely legal. She had every right to be in our country. She now has indefinite leave to remain and is working towards British citizenship. The man who attempted to kill her was a British citizen. She had not said anything about her status, but the police had seen the papers on the side from the Home Office and thought, “I know, let’s detain this woman.” The next time her husband tries to kill her, she will not bother calling the police, will she? And neither would I—and it was me who called them in that instance.

The way we behave in this country is a disgrace. The idea that someone could come in and say they had been raped, and we would ring immigration enforcement—that the first thought is “We’ve got another one!”—is unbelievable, yet it happens. But there is a perfectly good, well practised and well measured way of stopping it happening. The Government’s response on this particular issue—which, unfortunately, I have also heard a hundred times—is that sometimes we have to speak to immigration for the benefit of the victim. Now, I speak to immigration on behalf of victims all the time. It is par for the course that I might help a victim with their immigration status. In fact, I helped the woman in the constituency case I just described. She now has indefinite leave to remain and is working towards becoming a British citizen.

It is not that I do not speak to immigration; what I do not do is ring immigration enforcement to cart these people away. There is this idea that the police are helpfully getting in touch with immigration. Well, they do not do that in other cases. When I call the police, nobody asks me, “What’s your immigration status.” Nobody asks me whether I am a British citizen when they come to my house when there has been a crime against me. Why on earth are we doing this? I am afraid that it is part of the very hostile environment towards migrants in our country. How low must we have to be to get our low-hanging fruit from a rape victim or a domestic abuse victim who has every right to live in our country?

The Government’s mealy-mouthed response is no longer acceptable. I hate to change the tone of our debates, but I am so cross about the slow progress when every expert—the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, everybody—has said again and again why the policy is dangerous. The Home Office response is weak, woeful and immoral. I support the new clause.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for her amendment, and to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley. I say this in a nice way: the shadow Minister has not nothing that I have not heard from her before, as I think she acknowledged in her remarks.

The amendment would prevent the sharing of victims’ data between organisations and individuals providing services under the victims code and those enforcing immigration laws. As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley knows, that is a matter for the Home Office, but of course we are all one united Government, so I am responding as the Bill Minister, but I highlight my gratitude to the Home Office for the input that it has provided today.

The Government are fully committed to protecting all victims of crime, regardless of their immigration status. We are also duty-bound to maintain an effective immigration system, to protect our public services and to safeguard the most vulnerable from exploitation because of their insecure immigration status. Immigration enforcement will always seek to protect and safeguard any victim before any possible enforcement action is taken. Indeed, the Home Office routinely helps migrant victims by signposting them to legal advice to help them regularise their stay.

It is important to remember that every case is different and that an insecure immigration status does not automatically mean that somebody will be detained or removed. The decision on what may be the most appropriate course of action is based on many factors that require a full assessment of the individual circumstances. Evidence of vulnerability is an essential part of that assessment and is necessary to ensure effective safeguarding plans to protect victims from harm.

There can on occasion be benefits to sharing information, such as preventing perpetrators of domestic abuse from using a person’s insecure status against them as a means of coercion and control. But I note the counter point put by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, and the hon. Member for Rotherham. According to Home Office figures, of the 211 migrant victims of domestic abuse referred by the police to immigration enforcement between April 2020 and March 2021, none has been detained or removed as a result of that referral.

With regards to support services, the Government are clear that victims of crime are victims first and foremost, and must be able to access support, regardless of their immigration status. There is no mandatory requirement for victim support services to disclose the personal data of victims to immigration authorities; nor is data routinely requested from such services for the purposes of maintaining immigration control.

[Jess Phillips]

I just gently point out the reason that I think nobody has been detained or deported in that period. It is because there is nowhere to detain them; there is no space in the detention estate.

[Edward Argar]

I take the hon. Lady’s point, but I would say “or removed” as a result of that referral. Support is provided to migrant victims of domestic abuse in the UK through our destitution domestic violence concession, which enables victims who have entered the UK on a partner or spousal visa to access public funds for three months, which can be used to fund safe accommodation.

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[Edward Argar]

I will make two points again. First, the data sharing and what is required of the officers is clear. If an action is not taken subsequently to detain or remove someone, that does not mean that the officer was wrong in sharing the information; it is not necessarily for them to make that judgment. Secondly, on the hon. Lady’s request, I am happy to ensure that the Immigration Minister, who is probably on his feet in the House at the minute, is made aware of her point.

[Jess Phillips]

He is aware.

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“The four boys need new passports. He is going to take as long as he can to agree to the boys having passports. Medical conditions, he’s got a right to know. He’s recently asked for photos of the boys and it’s the boys who have said no to that.”

[Jess Phillips]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if we were to walk up to anybody in the street and ask them whether a murderous father could decide whether his children could go on holiday, they would think we were mad? Yet that is so clearly the case.

[Ellie Reeves]

I have spoken to countless people about this situation and frankly, when I say that a dad can retain from his prison cell parental responsibility when he has killed the kids’ mum, they look aghast. They cannot make sense of it; it does not make sense. That is why this new clause is so important.

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As has been alluded to, the overarching principle of the Children Act 1989 is that decisions by the family court should always be made in the best interests of the child. That is an incredibly important principle, which we should seek to protect. The introduction of a provision requiring the automatic suspension of parental responsibility potentially runs counter to that, without some judicial engagement or role. Decisions about removing or restricting parental responsibility are, rightly, extremely serious, so it is vital that judges can engage in that process, in whichever form, to make decisions that are specific to each child and their circumstances. We need to ensure that any change to the law in this area does not override that principle, or potentially breach the rights of the child or children concerned under the European Convention on Human Rights. More work needs to be done to assess the potential implications in the light of the recent court judgment, which I will come on to.

[Jess Phillips]

It is good that the Minister is referencing European human rights law, which parts of the Bill seek to undermine. It is good to see that he does not want to dissociate from this part of that law.

I cannot bear to hear the excuse that this is going to take more time. The first case of a murderer who was given parental responsibility was raised in this House in 2016 by my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) in a debate on what was then the Prisons and Courts Bill—if anyone can remember that—before Parliament was prorogued, which was then blocked. It was promised that the issue would be put into that Bill in 2016, which fell at an election; it was then promised that it would be put in the Domestic Abuse Bill, which then again fell because Parliament was prorogued. After the harms review in 2019, we were promised that it would be coming down the line. I am sorry, I cannot sit here and hear “This needs more looking at.” We have been looking for years.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister, but I will go on to explain why I believe the drafting is not necessarily appropriate. I assure her that there are no plans to prorogue or dissolve Parliament in the immediate future that I am aware of.

I would also like to make clear that the courts do have the power to seriously restrict the exercise of parental responsibility when it is in the child’s best interests. I heard the points made by the shadow Minister in respect of that process. I draw hon. Members’ attention to the recent Court of Appeal judgment in the case of Re A, regarding parental responsibility. In that judgment, the President of the Family Division confirmed that Parliament has already given the court the power to empty a father’s parental responsibility of all content and prevent them from making any future applications to the court, regardless of the marital status of the parent or how parental responsibility was acquired. Courts can and do make use of that power when it is appropriate to do so, but crucially, they are able to do so considering all the unique circumstances of the individual case, with the child’s best interests at the heart of their decision. The new clause potentially would remove that ability. However, I take the shadow Minister’s underlying point about how retraumatising and traumatic going through the family court in that context can be.

As I said earlier, I have huge sympathy for the aims of the amendment, particularly in respect of the processes and procedures that bereaved families have to go through in order to achieve the result they desire. We are committed to taking action to address this issue, as the Lord Chancellor has unequivocally set out. In response to the Ward family’s calls for reform, we have asked the Family Procedure Rule Committee in the interim to make the court process less time-consuming and more straightforward for families applying for special guardianship orders and other orders to restrict the exercise of parental responsibility in these or similar circumstances. The committee is actively considering what changes can be made to deliver that. Also, as of 1 May, the Government have extended the scope of legal aid for making special guardianship orders. That means that in private family proceedings where an individual wishes to become a special guardian, they can receive legally aided advice and representation to help them do that, subject to a means test.

I agree that there is more that can and should be done. That is why we are actively working on what changes could be made to the law on parental to rectify the position that the Ward family have highlighted through their campaign, while avoiding unintended or perverse consequences from those changes. We need to fully consider the recent Court of Appeal judgment in the Re A case as part of that.

I am very concerned about the risk that an automatic suspension of parental responsibility could be deemed to breach the child’s rights under articles 6 and 8 of the European convention on human rights, potentially leading to legal action or undermining what we are all trying to resolve here with minimal legal challenge. It is better that we take the intervening months to carefully consider what is the right approach in the light of that judgment, and return—hopefully swiftly—with a fully drafted and carefully considered proposal that guarantees the core principle of the Children Act that the family court should always have the best interests of the child at heart, but that also seeks to address the underlying point, the underlying intention, of the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge.

This new clause has, as I hope everyone can agree, an entirely noble and uncontroversial aim. We all have huge sympathy for families in these circumstances and want to do as much as possible to support them. I am happy to work with the hon. Lady on this if she so wishes. I will repeat the words of the Lord Chancellor, which set out the Government’s position:

“It should be presumed that when one parent murders another, denying their child…a loving parent, they should not have the right to make decisions on that child’s life.”

I have to say in response to the final point made by the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge, with whom I tend to agree—not all the time, but a lot of the time—that on this, I disagree with her. Voting against the new clause is not a vote for doing nothing or a vote to reject a solution that works. It will be a vote for taking the time to get it right.

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[Sarah Champion]

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

In effect, I am trying to help the Minister to reach out to all victims, because some are currently unable to access his excellent new code. Evidence suggests that migrant victims are more vulnerable to experiencing serious crime and, at the same time, less likely to receive redress. Migrant victims encounter multiple barriers to protection and safety. The immigration system and the hostile environment policy create structural obstacles to justice. Migrant victims of domestic abuse often face a stark choice: staying in a violent relationship, or deportation and destitution if they leave. Because of their own or their parents’ insecure immigration status and the no recourse to public funds condition, children may also be trapped in those situations.

Improved legal rights are therefore crucial to enabling migrant victims to access lifesaving services and support to escape abuse and rebuild their lives. Southall Black Sisters have been leading a 30-year campaign, to which I pay tribute, to ensure that migrant victims and their children are able to access safety and support. The campaign is calling for the no recourse to public funds condition to be lifted and for victims of domestic abuse to have the right to stay in the UK. That is critical, so that they can obtain welfare benefits and housing from the local authority to escape abuse on the same basis as those with secure immigration status.

I acknowledge that the new clause does not go that far, but it would ensure that, at the very least, migrant victims can access support services under the Minister’s victims code. The current situation is untenable. Many cannot even enter a women’s refuge if they cannot pay their rent or living costs. Many cannot seek help without the fear of being removed from the UK. Many women risk being sent to countries where women face particular ostracism, harassment and honour-based abuse due to the stigma of being separated, divorced or unmarried.

Over the years, Southall Black Sisters have achieved some major reform to immigration policy and rules for those on spousal or partner visas. The introduction of the domestic violence indefinite leave to remain scheme in 2002 and of the destitution domestic violence concession in 2021 has benefited over 1,000 victims every year. However, the provisions do not cover those on other types of visa or those without documents who may be subjected to domestic abuse by partners or family members: they remain unprotected and vulnerable to domestic abuse within the home or to economic and sexual exploitation outside it, as they become destitute and homeless as a consequence. Undocumented victims are particularly vulnerable to the weaponisation of their status by the perpetrator; they can become overstayers through no fault of their own, because they have few rights in this country.

In April 2021, the Home Office introduced the support for migrant victims pilot scheme to provide support for victims of domestic abuse who have no recourse to public funds. The scheme, which is being delivered in a UK-wide partnership led by Southall Black Sisters, has now been extended for another two years to March 2025, pending a longer-term solution. The extension clearly indicates that the Home Office recognises the vital importance of providing financial support to migrant women with no recourse to public funds. The pilot assisted about 400 victims in the first year and 560 in the second.

The first year of the pilot scheme has been externally evaluated by the Home Office, but the results have not yet been published. However, Southall Black Sisters commissioned the child and woman abuse studies unit at London Metropolitan University to evaluate the pilot for the same period. The unit’s report “Living at the Edge” shows that although providing assistance under the scheme is essential, victims need more money for longer, as the current rates are below those for universal credit, despite a recent rise to deal with the cost of living crisis.

Many victims are still unable to access a refuge in areas where there are high rents. Instead, they are housed with their children in unsuitable accommodation such as bed and breakfasts or hotels. Also, some refuges are reluctant to accept referrals if funding is available for only a short period, particularly in complex spousal/partner visa cases, non-spousal/partner visa cases and undocumented cases.

The evaluation recommends an extension of the destitution domestic violence concession and the domestic violence indefinite leave to remain scheme to protect all migrant victims of domestic abuse. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner also recommends the simple extension of those two schemes, which should be available for six months for all migrant victims, pending longer-term solutions. The commissioner’s report estimates that the social gains of supporting migrant victims in that way would be about £2 billion over 10 years, with about 7,700 victims likely to need refuge or other accommodation. That small amount would not place a significant burden on the public purse. More importantly, it would provide crucial safety and support to vulnerable victims and their children.

Based on all the evidence, an extension to the current provision for those on a spousal or partner visa to all victims, irrespective of their immigration status, would be the most simple and effective way of improving access to vital lifesaving services and support for migrant victims. The new clause would help to end the discrimination and the two-tier system that currently exists between migrant and non-migrant victims. I also ask the Minister to commit to ensuring that all migrant victims can access support services under the victims code and that tailored services for migrant victims are funded and resourced.

[Jess Phillips]

Again: please see other debates from the past eight years about how important this issue is. At least my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham and I do not have to keep redrafting the amendments. I thank the people in the drafting office for all their help over the years with drafting the same amendment over and over again to put into Bills.

The Government’s response to this amendment, based on previous experience, has been to carve out parts of the Istanbul convention, which they claim to have proudly signed up to, because it will not allow them to renege on helping migrant victims. I recognise the Minister’s point about the previous firewall amendments; I also heavily recognise that he is from the Ministry of Justice, not the Home Office. It is a bit like I am having an argument with a cloud, because the person I am actually cross at is not here to represent themselves. I feel they know I am cross.

I am afraid to say that one of the things that is problematic about the scheme run by Southall Black Sisters in partnership with Birmingham and Solihull Women’s Aid, where I live, is that the Government have never released the documents assessing it. They repeatedly said that they would, but we have yet to see them—another piece of paper that we are waiting for from the Home Office.

I absolutely support new clause 26. I know that the Minister has already quoted The Sun today, and I will simply say that this is not some sort of woke, woolly liberal concern: it was The Sun that backed the campaign to ensure that when a victim of domestic abuse comes forward, we ask not what stamp is on their passport, but what we can do to help. That is the standard we should set, and not keep on having a pilot that is now in its fourth year of existence.