Victims and Prisoners Bill (Tenth sitting)

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th July 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Edward Argar]

I will be brief. These amendments are part of a collection of minor and technical amendments that have been tabled across the Bill to ensure that consistent terminology is used in relation to data protection. These changes are primarily for the purposes of clarifying the provisions and ensuring that they work as intended; they do not constitute a policy change and are not intended to have substantive effects. The amendments in this group make changes to clause 12 to remove the term “disclosure” and insert

“within the meaning given by section 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018”,

to ensure consistency with existing legislation.

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

That is absolutely fine. The amendment seems fairly minor, so knock yourselves out!

Amendment 29 agreed to.

Amendment made: 30, in clause 12, page 10, line 37, at end insert

“within the meaning given by section 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018”.—(Edward Argar.)

This amendment and Amendment 29 give “processing” of information the same meaning as in the Data Protection Act 2018. Processing includes disclosure and other uses of information, so there is no need to refer separately to disclosure.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 43, in clause 12, page 10, line 37, at end insert—

“(8A) Collaboration under this section may include the co-location of services in accordance with the Child House model, as defined by the Home Office guidance entitled “Child House: local partnerships guidance”, published 6 September 2021.”

This amendment would include within the duty to collaborate the use of the Child House model, described by the Home Office guidance as “a multi-agency service model supporting children, young people and non-abusing parents, carers and family members following child sexual abuse”.

The purpose of the amendment is to promote the establishment of child houses as part of the relevant authority’s duty to collaborate in the exercise of its victim support function. Although the Bill seeks to collaborate between commissioners, it does not provide the firm direction needed to enable the joint multi-disciplinary service provision that makes such a difference to child victims. By rolling out the child house model, we can ensure that children are provided with both therapeutic support and support to navigate the criminal justice process all under one roof.

Too many children face a lack of support after experiencing sexual abuse. Young victims seeking justice are faced with extremely distressing delays in the justice system, as waiting times for child sexual abuse cases have surged in the past few years. Ministry of Justice data shows that the average number of days between a defendant in child sexual abuse cases in England and Wales being charged and the criminal trial starting rose by 43% in four years. That is from 276 days in 2017 to 395 days in 2021—a lot of time in a young life. For children already suffering with depression or post-traumatic stress disorder as a consequence of the abuse, the drawn-out process of waiting for a trial to start and end can be extremely distressing and compound the significant mental health impacts of the abuse.

In 2020, the Office for National Statistics found that around half of child sexual abuse cases did not proceed further through the criminal justice system, citing one of the reasons as being that victims worried that the process would be too distressing. Going through a police investigation and prosecution as a victim is often described as inherently traumatic—think of that for a young child. That is because during the process of a police investigation and trial, a child or young person often has to retell the experience of abuse multiple times, usually in an environment that is unfamiliar, intimidating and confusing.

NSPCC research found that support for child witnesses varied depending on location and that only a small minority were ever offered communication support through a registered intermediary. NSPCC analysis of freedom of information data revealed that in 2020-21, only 23% of the 119 local authorities that responded across England and Wales said they provided dedicated support for young victims in the form of independent and specially trained advisers. Research shows that children face an inconsistent network of agencies and services after experiencing sexual abuse. Instead, we could use the approach of a child house.

A child house provides a child-centred model in which the agencies involved in supporting young victims, including healthcare, social care, children’s independent sexual violence advisers—CHISVAs—the third sector and police, all provide co-ordinated services in an integrated, child-friendly environment. It is literally under one roof, and that supports children to give their best evidence. Currently, there is only one child house in England and Wales: the Lighthouse in London. They would love Members to go and visit them. It is a fantastic place and just a tube ride away—do go and see it.

In 2021, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime was commissioned to evaluate the Lighthouse. As part of its research, children were consulted on their experiences. MOPAC found that the model addresses concerns that children who reported sexual abuse often face—that is, multiple interviews with social workers, the police and other professionals. Children who had used the Lighthouse complimented the care and respect they received from the staff. Being able to go at their own pace with choice and control was described as valuable. Children emphasised the positive impact that the homely atmosphere had and said that the environment was created by the little things, such as being offered a hot drink and police officers not wearing uniforms.

One child spoke about their experience to the NSPCC, saying—I slightly paraphrase: “Looking back on the Lighthouse, even though obviously I wish I hadn’t had to go there, I think they just made the experience of having to go there a lot less harder than it had to be…And yeah, I did feel like almost loved there. I guess looking back I didn’t realise at the time how easier things were made for me with the Lighthouse being there.”

The child house model has been recommended by the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, the Home Office, NHS England, the Children’s Commissioner for England and the Government’s own tackling child sexual abuse strategy, as well as the British Medical Association. Despite those endorsements and a wealth of evidence that supports the effectiveness of the model, the Bill does not address the fragmented support landscape currently faced by children. I ask the Minister to listen to all the evidence, use the opportunity in the Bill and commit to rolling out the brilliant model of child houses across the country. We really can demonstrate what a difference that would make to all child victims.

[Jess Phillips]

I rise to agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham and remind the Committee that the Children’s Commissioner mentioned the Lighthouse what might be a record number of times; I am sure that Hansard would tell me one way or the other. The experts are telling us that the approach works and I have some experience of the alternative—when cases fall apart and children are completely unsupported. That still happens in the vast majority of cases, I am afraid, so I support the amendment.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful, as ever, to the hon. Member for Rotherham for the amendment, which would include within the duty to collaborate the use of the child house model. Co-located, child-centred support services, including those delivered in accordance with the child house model, do excellent work in supporting child victims of crime. Like other Committee members, I recognise the work done by the Lighthouse. I also take this opportunity to pay tribute to the work done by Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner, and her deputy Ellie Lyons, in campaigning for and highlighting the rights and needs of children.

The Government recognise the importance of the co-located child-centred support service, which is why we provided £7.5 million towards a pilot of the UK’s first child house, in Camden. Following that, we have published guidance for local partnerships that wish to introduce similar models for child victims in their area. The duty to collaborate aims to facilitate a more strategic and co-ordinated approach to commissioning and to improve the strategic co-ordination of services, so that all victims get the timely and quality support that they need.

The legislation requires commissioners to collaborate when commissioning services for victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and other serious violent offences. As we discussed this morning, it allows for flexibility for local commissioners to decide what services will best meet the needs of their population; that could include commissioning co-located services, exactly as the amendment suggests.

Listing in legislation the sorts of services that commissioners may or must consider is, I fear, slightly over-prescriptive—this goes back to the debates we have had about a number of amendments. I repeat what I said in those debates: it would risk excluding some of the other excellent service models that local areas may also want to commission, although I do not in any way diminish the huge impact that the child house model clearly has.

The duty also requires commissioners to consider any assessment of the needs of children when preparing their joint commissioning strategy. Statutory guidance will support commissioners in doing this, encouraging the co-production of services where appropriate and linking to the “Child House: local partnerships guidance” document. As the original draft Bill already allows local commissioners to adopt the approach where appropriate, we believe that it strikes an appropriate balance. I hope that the hon. Member for Rotherham might be persuaded to agree.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

I just want to draw a comparison between services—for example, in the health service—that we fund and do not expect to get to crisis point. The best example I can ever think of is diabetes services. Imagine if the scheme in our country was that 10% of all people who have diabetes could access insulin and the other 90% could access insulin only at the point that they were about to die. That is the current situation with community-based services in domestic abuse services. If you fund crisis, you get crisis. If you fund prevention, you get prevention. That is simply the case at the moment.

We ration provision. We literally have a form for it, called the DASH—domestic abuse, stalking, harassment and honour based violence—risk assessment. A DASH risk assessment will be undertaken and you will be given a score—almost like, “How good is your domestic abuse?” We will come to some of these issues when we debate independent domestic violence advisers. From that score, a decision will be made about what sort of service you can access—not you, Mr Hosie; rather what sort of service “one” can access. I have seen DASH risk assessments where a woman has been hit repeatedly with a brick in the face and was not given a high risk of harm on her risk assessment. To be given a high risk of harm on a risk assessment, someone basically has to be at imminent risk of death. It is a bit like high risk in children’s social care; in the vast majority of the country, a parent basically has to have a knife to the child’s throat for the case to reach the threshold for any sort of children’s social services care.

Imagine if people got that kind of level with diabetes and we said, “You can have the insulin. There may be a service for you, but not necessarily,” and to everybody else who we could avoid elevating to the risk level of having been hit around the face with a brick, we said, “Go on this waiting list. Come back later. We’ll manage you in the community,” which basically means, “Go away until he knocks on your door 17 times with a machete and even then we won’t consider you high risk of harm.” Those are literal cases that I have handled.

I speak in absolute support of my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham. I also want to make a broader point about funding. The Justice Committee’s pre-legislative scrutiny report said that around £40 million, if not more—I think that figure is correct, but I am more than happy to correct the record if I have got it wrong—is being allocated to legal aid access for people who do not like their parole decision. The Minister has stood up a number of times today and said that the way to get money is by going to the Chancellor and doing it through the financial systems, which of course was not the case in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, because the money was allocated for the refuge assessment. The only money that is being allocated in this Bill is something that can be accessed by, for example, murderers but not by the people they would go on to murder.

[Edward Argar]

I fear that this is one area where I may not be able to bring the hon. Member for Rotherham with me. I will try but I suspect I may be out of luck on this one. I am grateful to her for the amendment and for the opportunity to debate this important matter.

To the point made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley about the Parole Board, my recollection of what the Committee and the assessment looked at was not additional new money being made available in the way she suggests for part 3 but not for part 1, but a recognition of the cost implications of those changes based on the current entitlements to legal aid and the way the process works.

[Jess Phillips]

The point stands.

[Edward Argar]

I take her point, but I add the nuance that it is not a case of new money being allocated. It is an assessment of the consequences of a legal entitlement that would exist in those circumstances.

To speak to the broader point, I agree with the hon. Member for Rotherham on the importance of sufficient funding for victims’ services and ensuring that, where we can, we also provide funding to commission services on a multi-year basis. That was one of the key pillars of the victims funding strategy. That reflected what I, when I was last doing this job, was told by the sector, and what the hon. Lady will have been told as well, about the challenge of small, short-term pots of money—a situation that results in a number of key staff spending most of their time not delivering the service but writing bids to try to collate enough to meet the financial needs of that service. The funding strategy recognises and reflects that, so the Government do recognise that, where possible, that should be the approach adopted.

Outside of legislation we are more than quadrupling funding for victims’ services—as a basket, as it were—by 2024-25. That funding is up from £41 million in 2009-10, and includes an additional £6 million per annum through this spending review period, which is provided directly to police and crime commissioners and ringfenced for domestic abuse and sexual violence services in response to increased demand. Through the Bill, we are creating a statutory duty on PCCs, integrated care boards and local authorities in England to collaborate when exercising their victim support functions for victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and other serious violent crimes. That will mean that support is better co-ordinated and more effective. Collaboration should also improve use of existing funds.

Monitoring of local need and provision provides Government with valuable intelligence and insights. To improve our understanding of demand and the impact of the services we fund, we have introduced through the victims funding strategy a core set of metrics and outcomes that are being collected across Government. The reality is, however, that this information is used to inform decisions made through the spending review process, which continues to be the right approach to setting Government budgets, as it recognises that there is a finite amount of taxpayers’ money and there are finite funds.

I would gently argue that individual Bills setting funding requirements in an unco-ordinated way is not the most appropriate or effective way to consider Government spending and prioritisation of funding in the round. I was going to say, “as a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury,” but I only did that job for 11 days—maybe that still counts. I would nevertheless argue that considering funding in the round during the spending review process is the right approach. Continued flexibility is required when considering funding levels, and I do not believe that fixing funding in primary legislation is the right approach in that context. I fear I may not carry the hon. Member for Rotherham with me on this one occasion, but it was worth a try.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

I do not have much more to say, as I made most of my comments around clause 12 in its entirety when moving amendment 80. We recognise the good intention of the provision, but feel it has some way to go to not just be words on goatskin, which is what I am always concerned about. Words on goatskin are all well and good, but when it comes to how this legislation acts in people’s lives on the ground, I think it still has some way to go—but the intention is obviously one that we would support.

[Edward Argar]

I commend the clause to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 12, as amended, accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 13

Strategy for collaboration in exercise of victim support functions

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

Both amendments seek to ensure that the strategy for collaboration takes into account victims’ needs. Amendment 87 would require the relevant authorities to begin the strategy of preparing an assessment of victims’ needs. That must include a specific requirement to assess the need of child victims and those with other protected characteristics, who are particularly vulnerable and must be subject to additional considerations by the relevant authorities. It is a logical place to begin and, as I stated when arguing for the joint strategic needs assessment, it would fail to be an effective collaboration if needs were not evaluated to begin with.

Amendment 88 would require the relevant authorities to consider the needs assessment when putting together the strategy to collaborate. Some partnerships may do that once the Bill is passed, but we must ensure that every region has the same standards and processes so that the needs of all victims, and particularly child victims, are met across the country. The amendment would enable the strategy to collaborate and be more cost-effective and ambitious when fulfilling the duty the Minister wants it to achieve.

[Jess Phillips]

I do not have much to say other than that I entirely support the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful, as ever, to the hon. Member for Rotherham for her amendment, which would require the relevant authorities in a police area in England to assess the needs of victims in their area and then take that assessment into account when devising strategies under the duty to collaborate. I already touched on that when debating an earlier amendment, so I will seek not to repeat myself—at least not too much—although, I am afraid that some of the arguments will be the same.

The Government agree that needs assessments are vital in informing local commissioning decisions, and relevant local needs assessments that indicate the needs of victims already happen regularly as part of good practice. The Ministry of Justice provides police and crime commissioners with grant funding to commission practical, emotional and therapeutic support services for victims of all types of crime in their local areas. In order to achieve that and to know which services are required, PCCs are expected to carry out needs assessments that will allow them to target the funding and ascertain the level of need and demand in their area.

There are also several other needs assessments that local commissioners carry out, which give an assessment of the needs of victims. They include, but are not limited to: the serious violence joint strategic needs assessment, which indicates levels of serious violence and the volume of victims in an area; the public health joint strategic needs assessment, carried out by local authorities and health and wellbeing boards, which sets out social care and public health needs; and safe accommodation needs assessments, which give an indication of the number of domestic abuse victims requiring safe accommodation in an area.

We have been clear with commissioners in the victims funding strategy that needs assessments are a central pillar of commissioning victim support services. To do that, the victims funding strategy sets out a clear expectation that commissioners carry out regular needs assessments using all the data required to commission appropriate services for victims in their areas, including victims with tailored needs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

I entirely endorse and support the amendment. As someone who was in charge of fundraising for a small community-based organisation, I know that the amount of money wasted getting in human resources experts is significant. It happened to me on a number of occasions: it would roll around to December and people would be put on notice just before Christmas—because of the financial year, staff can be given three months’ notice at Christmas, which is always a really cheerful thing to have to do as a boss of one of these organisations.

I also point out that the problem has been exacerbated by the current delays in both the policing and the court-based systems. That adds a new flavour for domestic abuse community-based services or sexual violence community-based services. Yesterday, I was interviewed by police in a case. Hilariously, the police officer said to me, “Are there any dates you might be on holiday?”, and I said, “Well, I’m going away in August,” and I thought, “Hope springs eternal—it will be August 2025 before I see the inside of that courtroom.”

The situation is that a victim could come forward, go through the process with the police and the charge could take a year, let alone the court time taking another two years. The lack of continuity of even the same service, let alone the same person, still being in place because of the way short-term contracts in this space work is exacerbated by delays in the system. We have to skin the cat we have, and that cat is one of delay in this process. Three years from complaint to end on anything that would be seeing the inside of a Crown court is standard at the moment, so the very least we should seek to do is ensure that at least three-year contracts are provided in this space.

[Edward Argar]

We touched on a number of the elements that I am going to talk about when we debated amendment 83, which the hon. Member for Rotherham moved earlier, so I will be relatively brief. I agree with her on the importance of sufficient funding for victims’ services and ensuring that, where we can, we provide the funding to commission services on a multi-year basis.

The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, is right to highlight the challenges: not only the demand pressures on a charity or a service provider but the fact that those most experienced at meeting that demand and providing the service are often the people who have to sit writing the responses to the invitations to tender or bids. I say that as someone who, before coming to this place, was a trustee of an environmental-regeneration employment charity. The challenge is having certainty of income and also a diversity of income streams, so that the charity can insure itself against any one of them suddenly saying it will no longer provide funding.

It is absolutely right to highlight the fact that individuals invest not just money but time, and that the work is often done outside office hours because they are at work during working hours and spend their evenings doing it. I visited a project in north-west London a little while ago and had exactly that conversation with some of the trustees and the senior staff there. Without a degree of certainty on funding, where that is possible, the challenge is not only the effort of constantly bidding for it but the risk of losing good people who, however passionate and however much of a vocation it is for them, often want at least a degree of predictability in their lives so that they know they can pay their bills.

Amendment 84 seeks to ensure that commissioned services are given contracts or grants for a minimum of three years. As I just alluded to, I recognise the importance of sustainable funding for victim support services and how it can affect the reliability and consistency of services. We listened to service providers, who told us that single-year funding presented the biggest challenge to them in delivering support for victims, and we have already committed to multi-year funding, where possible, outside legislation. We have committed £154 million per annum of our victims budget on a multi-year basis across this spending review period, totalling a minimum of £460 million over three years.

Multi-year funding will allow for greater staff retention, opportunity for services to innovate and invest for the long term in the services they are able to provide, and— to the point made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley—allow victims to receive a greater degree of consistency and continuity in the support they need, particularly when they have begun to build up a rapport and trust with those with whom they are working. That is why we have put multi-year funding at the centre of our victims funding strategy, in which we reaffirmed that commitment and set out an expectation for all commissioners to pass multi-year commitments on to their providers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

Apologies for getting overexcited, Mr Hosie.

Amendment 81 is supported by London’s Victims’ Commissioner, Claire Waxman, and it is worth reminding the Committee that Claire started campaigning for a victims Bill in 2014 or 2015. I pay huge tribute to her for never giving up. The fact that we are here debating it is in no small part due to her campaigning. Amendment 85 is supported by the NSPCC, to which I am grateful.

Amendment 81 would simply require that the relevant victims are engaged and consulted when authorities prepare the strategy for collaboration. We must ensure that victims themselves are engaged in the strategic planning for victim support services, because they know best. Amendment 85 seeks to make it clear that we must ensure that organisations that provide support to child victims are similarly consulted. As I have already made clear, children have very specific needs as victims. There must be a link between recognising children as victims and the duty to deliver a strategy for collaboration in the exercise of victim support functions, to ensure that commissioners include support services for children when preparing their joint commissioning strategies.

Considering children’s support needs as distinct from those of adults is vital. It is crucial for commissioners to reflect children’s needs effectively when they prepare their joint commissioning strategies. It is especially key at a time when child abuse continues to rise. At least 500,000 children a year are estimated to suffer abuse in the UK, one in 20 children in the UK have been sexually abused, and an estimated one in five children have experienced severe maltreatment. Last year, for the first time more than 100,000 cases of child sexual abuse were reported. NSPCC freedom of information data found that police in England and Wales made nearly 700 referrals a day to children’s social services about domestic abuse in 2021, totalling 245,000 cases that year.

Recognition of children in the relevant authorities’ victims’ needs analysis is welcome, and I welcome what the Minister has previously said, but the relevant authorities must have a duty to consult the providers of children’s services to ensure that those services are included in commissioning strategies. Simply including children in the victims’ needs analysis is not enough to ensure that support is in place. NSPCC freedom of information figures demonstrate that many local authorities are not accessing readily available information about child victims of domestic and sexual abuse. When asked, 50% of local authorities did not have any records of the number of child victims who had experienced either sexual or domestic abuse in their area, despite their statutory obligations to undertake a joint strategic needs assessment to improve the health and wellbeing of their communities.

It concerns me that the Bill risks undermining the important recognition that child victims must come within scope of the Bill if the duty to deliver a strategy for collaboration in exercise of victim support functions—I would love it if it could be called something snappier —does not include a duty to consult the providers of children’s services. I hope the Minister recognises that risk and therefore accepts the amendment.

[Jess Phillips]

I completely support the amendment and just wish to say that although I and others will talk about the lack of available support services for victims of domestic and sexual violence more broadly, there is no group more populous and more poorly served than children. The idea that children’s services would not be included seems bizarre, and the argument has been eloquently put.

[Edward Argar]

I thank the hon. Member for Rotherham for her amendments, which would require the relevant authorities to consult victims who are or may be receiving support services when they prepare their strategies. I also take the opportunity to pay tribute to the work of Claire Waxman, whom the hon. Lady rightly mentioned. I have a huge respect for Claire Waxman. We do not always agree on everything, but she is a formidable and passionate campaigner in this space and she manages to do that and achieve results while being an incredibly nice person as well. She is incredibly successful in what she does and I wish her continued success—albeit perhaps not in every aspect, because sometimes she will push me a little too hard. We should all be grateful to her for her work.

Amendment 85 would require the relevant authorities to consult providers of support services for child victims, as well as victims directly, when they prepare their joint strategy. I will address the two parts of the amendment in turn. I agree that engagement with the providers of services for child victims can provide valuable insight into local decisions, including on how commissioning is likely to impact victims, communities and the capacity of organisations to provide support. Our view is that the Bill already meets that objective. Clause 13(2)(b) requires the authorities to consult

“persons appearing to the relevant authorities to represent persons providing relevant victim support services”.

I am happy to make it clear to the Committee that that includes the providers of services for child victims.

Furthermore, we intend for statutory guidance to set out in more detail how relevant authorities can ensure that child victims’ needs are met. That is intended to include how they can engage directly with victims if they consider it appropriate to do so, and take into account the views of providers and experts in the sector. I am happy for the hon. Member for Rotherham to give her thoughts on what that statutory guidance should contain, based on her work with the NSPCC and other organisations; as on other aspects of the Bill, I will work with her to see whether we can create something that works. Although I agree with the objective behind the first part of the amendment, we do not consider it necessary.

The second part of the amendment would require the authorities to engage directly with victims. I agree that they should take into account the views of victims when they prepare their joint strategy. That is why clause 13(2)(a) requires them to consult those representing the interests of victims and clause 13(2)(c) gives scope for them to engage directly with victims if they consider it appropriate to do so. Again, we intend for the statutory guidance issued under clause 14, which we will turn to shortly, to make that clear and set out in more detail the considerations that should be taken into account by the authorities when deciding who they should engage with, as well as our expected standards and process for consultation.

In addition, clause 13(3) requires authorities to have regard to any assessments of the needs of victims, including child victims, and the relevant victim support services that are available in the police area. The measures in the clause, taken together, ensure that the voices of victims and the expertise of victim representatives will be considered when the joint strategy is prepared. I do not believe that the second part of the amendment is necessary, given the extant clauses and subsections.

Amendment 81 would require the relevant authorities to consult victims who are, or may be, receiving support services when they prepare their strategies. I agree that is an important issue. Clause 13 already sets out that the relevant authorities—police and crime commissioners, integrated care boards and local authorities in England—must consult persons who represent the interests of victims, those who provide relevant victim support services and other persons the relevant authorities consider appropriate. That not only requires consultation with those who represent victims’ voices but gives ample scope for the relevant authorities to engage victims directly when they consider it appropriate to do so. We intend for the statutory guidance issued under clause 14 to set out in more detail what commissioners may want to take into account when they consider their duty to consult, including how to engage with victims effectively and, importantly, in a trauma-informed manner.

Engaging with victims to better understand their experiences in accessing services is undoubtably beneficial to the improvement of commissioning and outcomes for victims. Alongside allowing for direct engagement with victims themselves, clause 13 requires the relevant authorities to consult persons who represent victims. That is because some victims may prefer to be represented by another body—an advocate, a campaigner, a charity or a service provider—and we believe the legislation should be flexible enough to allow for that. We do not want to disadvantage victims who do not have the resources, autonomy or confidence to speak up for themselves. We should also recognise that there are organisations that are experienced in taking views from a representative spread of victims, feeding back to commissioners, and ensuring those views are heard and are useful in the commissioning process.

I hope I have given the hon. Lady some reassurance that we believe the clause already covers what she seeks to achieve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

I beg to move amendment 90, in clause 13, page 11, line 19, leave out paragraph (b) and insert—

“(b) any assessment of the victim support services consulted in carrying out their duty under section (12).”

This amendment would ensure that when preparing the strategy for collaboration, relevant authorities must have regard to any assessment of the victim support services consulted under section 12.

This is a probing amendment, which seeks to strengthen the strategy for collaboration by requiring relevant authorities to consider any assessments made under the duty to collaborate. Currently, clause 13 (3)(b) says that when preparing the strategy, relevant authorities must have regard to

“the relevant victim support services which are available in the police area (whether or not provided by the relevant authorities).”

As we have discussed, it is vital for victims’ needs to be considered, and that will take place under subsection (3)(a). However, the strategy must also take into account any review of support services that the relevant authorities may undertake under the duty to collaborate. That is key in preparing the strategy as it will help them to identify gaps in services and where local need for services is stronger.

We cannot simply suggest that authorities consider the support services available; we must ask them to be more ambitious than that. By requiring them to consider any evaluations of services, we can enable them to strengthen the options available for victims and ultimately improve the outcomes of the Bill. Wherever possible, we must ensure that the services available to victims are as strong as they can be. The best way to make that happen is by local partners taking into account local need. However, for that to take place consistently across the country, we must improve the wording of the clause so that all assessments of services are always taken into account.

[Jess Phillips]

I do not have anything to add to what has already been said. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for her amendment, which, somewhat like amendments 87, 88 and 89, would require relevant authorities for a police area to conduct a joint strategic needs assessment to inform the strategy for commissioning victim support services as part of the duty to collaborate. I am also grateful to her for highlighting that she has approached this as a probing amendment. I will respond to it in that vein, noting again the context of my previous comments about her broader calls for a JSNA.

The Government agree it is vital that relevant support services fit the local needs of victims, and that victims’ needs form the centre of any commissioning decision. Current systems are created so that commissioners place the victim at the heart of commissioning, enabling a bespoke approach rather than a one-size-fits-all approach set nationally.

PCCs are able to allocate the grants and funding supplied by my Department based on relevant needs assessments, which already happen as part of good commissioning processes. Those assessments enable PCCs to target funding into practical, emotional and therapeutic support services for victims of crime, where it is most needed in their area. PCCs, local authorities and integrated care boards are also required to carry out a joint strategic needs assessment under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which should indicate the level of serious violence and the number of victims affected.

Both domestic abuse and sexual abuse are now considered forms of serious violence—and in my view, rightly so. Local authorities and integrated care boards also already carry out separate assessments that indicate the needs of victims, including the needs assessment under part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which sets out the needs of victims in accommodation-based services, and the JSNA that informs the public health and wellbeing strategy.

Clause 13(3) requires PCCs, local authorities and integrated care boards to have regard, when preparing their joint strategy, to any needs assessments that they have already carried out and that reflect the needs of victims. Statutory guidance will state that relevant authorities should then set out in their joint commissioning strategy how they have had regard to the relevant needs assessments and how commissioning decisions aim to reflect and to meet the identified need.

--- Later in debate ---

As ever, I try to provide an answer for the Minister. This measure seems a simple and straightforward answer, so I am very interested to hear his opinion of it.

[Jess Phillips]

I was the chair of the west midlands police and crime panel, so I suppose I will say that in that role I would have been more than happy to undertake this particular piece of work. The truth is that we count what we care about and we try to ignore everything else. If I were to think about all the different strategies and timeframes for schemes that were meant to be better for victims that I have come across in my 20 years in this area, I would say that they are just sitting on a shelf gathering dust and have meant absolutely nothing on the ground. It would be a very high number—more than the number of amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham, but only just. The truth is that unless we have a proper scrutiny function, albeit from the Victims’ Commissioner nationally or through a local situation—as my hon. Friend said, she has basically designed a system that could work perfectly well—my worry is that we will get a lot of nice words saying, “Of course we are going to ensure that all our mental health services are trauma-informed.” It is just words; it does not mean anything on the ground. We need some level of scrutiny on specific outputs, key performance indicators, timeframes, what is improving and what needs to be improved.

This is not about criticism. Domestic homicide reviews, serious case reviews and all the systems we put in to scrutinise post-something terrible happening to somebody or some terrible crime have become a bit of a blame game that, at times, can freeze people into inaction. It should be a process of scrutiny for the good and the bad, for a genuine conversation and for Government to be able to say, “This doesn’t seem to be working. What needs to happen across the country for it to work?”, so I absolutely support the amendment.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham, as ever, for her amendments. Amendment 86 would require the relevant authorities to publish an annual report about the implementation of the strategy and their compliance with the duty to collaborate in the exercise of victim support functions. New clause 9 would establish a review of compliance with the collaboration duties in clauses 12 and 13 and add a layer of accountability to oversee the new duty by requiring police and crime panels to keep under review how the relevant authorities that provide services in their area are doing so in accordance with their collaboration duties under clauses 12 and 13.

I seek to reassure the hon. Lady that the existing requirements of the duty to collaborate will achieve a high level of transparency and the Government have a plan for an effective system of oversight for this duty, which I will set out. The relevant authorities—police and crime commissioners, integrated care boards and local authorities in England—will already be under an obligation to publish, review and revise their commissioning strategies, including publishing any revised versions or revisions. This is to ensure transparency, as the strategies must contain information on how they consider they are fulfilling or intend to fulfil their duty under clause 12. We intend these strategies to be assessed by the national oversight forum, about which we have spoken previously in Committee and which was announced in our consultation response in 2022. This ministerial-led group will scrutinise the local strategies, assess the effectiveness of collaboration and how well the duty is executed. It will have an ongoing role in monitoring the performance and outputs of local strategies against the objectives that local areas have set.

Under clause 13, local areas must review and revise strategies from time to time so that they reflect the changing commissioning landscape and emerging local need. We expect strategies to be reviewed annually and revised fully approximately every four years. That is an expectation we will test in practice when we consult formally on the statutory guidance in due course. At the point of review and revision, the oversight group will have oversight responsibility to consider whether the next set of objectives set by local areas are ambitious and deliverable. I therefore contend that requiring an additional annual report as intended by amendment 86 is to a degree duplicative of the extant intentions under the clauses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

Yeah, I’ll do it.

[Jess Phillips]

We’ll do it.

[Edward Argar]

In that context, I will gently say—and this may be a little less consensual than what I would normally say—that one of the people on the group will be the relevant Minister, but I fear that Opposition Members may have a long wait before that will necessarily apply to them. They may take a different view. On new clause 9, I agree with the hon. Lady—

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

Just until the next election.

[Edward Argar]

Not on that! I agree with the hon. Member for Rotherham on the importance of ensuring appropriate and robust oversight and monitoring of the duty to collaborate. I hope to reassure her that many of her proposals are satisfied by our existing clauses and the Government’s existing plans. Where we have taken a different approach from her recommendations, I will explain our reasoning.

The purpose of the duty is to create a framework that facilitates local collaboration and leads to more targeted and joined-up local commissioning that meets local needs. The measures we are introducing to achieve that are as framed in clauses 12 and 13. As I have said, we will be setting out plans for that clear system of oversight, which we think is essential to ensuring that it meets its aims. The details of that will be set out in statutory guidance. That oversight group will have an ongoing role in monitoring the performance and outputs of local strategies against the objectives that local areas have set. As I have alluded to, under clause 13 local areas must review and revise strategies from time to time.

I turn briefly to potential membership of that group, to put a little gloss on it that might help to inform any feedback the hon. Lady subsequently wishes to give. It needs to have a representative membership that represents and scrutinises the relevant authorities—police and crime commissioners, integrated care boards and local authorities. Those people will need to have the right seniority to discuss and take decisions on issues relating to the three crime types included in the duty: domestic abuse, sexual abuse and other serious violent offences.

As well as Ministers and senior representatives from the relevant delivery authorities that have the ability to scrutinise local plans, it is important that we are able to bring different perspectives to the discussions. In the case of police and crime commissioners, that could include representatives from police and crime panels or, for example, the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners. We continue carefully to consider what representation may be required and I am open, as ever, to working with the hon. Lady on that.

The statutory guidance will set out clear advice on what form the national oversight structure will take and how the relevant authorities can participate and engage with it. I believe that this national oversight system will be effective, proportionate and less complex than alternative models. I am afraid I do not share the perspective that police and crime panels should take on oversight responsibilities to keep the relevant authorities under review in relation to the duty, and prepare and publish the annual report. I will set out my reasons and rationale for that.

First, the bodies that the hon. Lady would like police and crime panels to scrutinise are subject to different individual accountability arrangements. Under this duty, the Secretary of State will issue guidance to integrated care boards, PCCs and local authorities in relation to their collaboration duties under the Bill. While PCCs are scrutinised by those panels, and can be in respect of any of their functions, they, together with local authorities, are ultimately held to account at the ballot box—I suspect we would all hope to see higher turnouts in elections for those important offices, given the functions they perform, but it is of course the choice of our constituents as to whether they vote.

Secondly, it is important to stress that this is a joint statutory duty placed equally on police and crime commissioners, integrated care boards and local authorities. Victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and other serious violent crimes typically access a range of services across health, local authority services and policing provision. That is the primary reason why our duty to collaborate is a joint one.

Police and crime panels are rightly focused on scrutinising the relevant PCC on any decisions and actions taken in connection with the commissioner’s role—again, including this new addition to their obligations—but they do not have scrutiny powers over local authorities or integrated care boards. The proposed clause would therefore require going beyond the role, function and powers of the panels. It would also potentially infringe the independence and respective scrutiny arrangements of the other bodies under the duty. The Government currently have no plans to review the role and powers of police and crime panels or to change their remit.

I turn to the hon. Lady’s recommendation for police and crime panels to publish and prepare an annual report setting out

“how the relevant authorities are fulfilling their duties under section (12) and (13)”,

in particular how they are assessing the needs of victims, meeting the needs of victims and collaborating to represent the interests of victims. The new clause asks police and crime panels to publish that annual report setting out how relevant authorities are fulfilling their duties, in particular addressing those key points that I have highlighted. I would argue this additional layer of oversight is, again, not strictly necessary, given the extant obligation on these authorities to publish their commissioning strategies, and given the statutory duty for those strategies to contain information on how they consider they are fulfilling, or intend to fulfil, the collaboration duty under clause 12.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

The purpose of clause 13 is to improve how support services for victims are planned locally. Clause 13 requires the relevant authorities to undertake certain activities as part of their duty to collaborate, as set out in clause 12.

Police and crime commissioners, integrated care boards and local authorities within a police area are required, first, to prepare, implement and publish a joint local strategy, setting out how they consider that they are fulfilling, or intend to fulfil, their duty to collaborate in relation to victim support services. Crucially, by ensuring transparency and a better understanding of the aims and approaches of each commissioning area, the strategy will be expected to demonstrate how commissioning areas work together, what their approaches are to commissioning and how their decisions will meet the needs of their community.

Secondly, the strategy must be informed by certain activities, including existing assessments of victims’ needs—including children and those with protected characteristics —and the views of those representing the interests of victims and service providers, ensuring that strategies are developed with the necessary information and the right expertise. Importantly, more effective use of existing joint needs assessments should help to build an improved understanding of local need, and therefore more targeted commissioning activity and better decision making.

Thirdly, the strategy will be reviewed and revised from time to time so that it reflects the changing commissioning landscapes and emerging local need. By increasing collaboration, we expect that local strategies will lead to changes in commissioning processes, including reduced duplication through increased joint working; a common understanding of local need and effective provision; and transparency, including on how decisions are informed by consideration of needs assessments. As a result, victims should experience a more joined-up pathway, resulting in quality support enabled by better co-ordinated and targeted local use of resources and interventions, and timely support facilitated by better joining up so that victims can more seamlessly move between services.

Clause 14 requires the Secretary of State to issue guidance that will support PCCs, integrated care boards and local authorities in carrying out the duty to collaborate. It requires them to have regard to this guidance when discharging their duties under clauses 12 and 13. The guidance will cover topics such as how collaboration is expected to work in practice, information on strategy development and content, and how we expect areas to monitor the impact of the duty.

The clause also requires the Secretary of State to consult relevant stakeholders, such as local commissioners and providers, when drafting the guidance, so that it is useful and reflects the operational reality. The clause is important because it ensures that commissioners are clear about what is expected of them and can carry out activity in a consistent way across England. We anticipate that persons who interact with the bodies subject to the duty will also look at the guidance to understand the expectations for the bodies. Following parliamentary passage of the Bill, we expect to formally consult on the guidance and plan for implementation as soon as practically possible. I commend that clauses 13 and 14 stand part of the Bill.

[Jess Phillips]

Clause 13 says that relevant authorities will collaborate on a strategy on aims and approach to commissioning, and that they must engage victims and those who represent victims; again, this must mean specialist service providers for victims—and by that, I mean that those service providers must be specialist. The clause also states that authorities must base their strategy on the needs of victims. We would clarify that this must be according to need. In order for areas to understand their local need, they must consider the volume of victims, the cohort and characteristics of victims, and the impact on victims. The authorities must have all that information, as a needs assessment can only truly be made if we know the facts first; otherwise, it is based not on any understanding, but on perception.

When it comes to gendered violence, the lack of data is a massive issue. It is an issue that is beyond the parameters of this debate, but as we make new law, as we are doing today, we should try to address it. Data is really important to how we do a needs assessment because, I am afraid to say, so much is missing. Take, for example, the outrageous lack of data accessible to fully investigate and comprehend the relationship between protected characteristics and gendered violence. The Femicide Census tells us that in 79% of cases where a woman was murdered by a man during the period of 2008 to 2018, the ethnicity of the victim was not recorded. Although the Office for National Statistics provides an analysis of homicide offences by “ethnic appearance”, the data is not broken down by gender. This must change. We need to make sure that when we are putting together strategies and needs assessments, they are based not on assumptions but on facts. I fear that the current data collection situation, both nationally and locally, does not allow for that process to be as good as it could be.

We are fine for clauses 13 and 14 to stand part of the Bill.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister, particularly for her comments on data. I may not quite be Mystic Meg, but I sense some possible future amendments or at least a debate on this matter when we reach Report stage. I am happy to engage with her on this in the interim, and I am grateful for her support for the clauses.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 13 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 14 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 15

Guidance about independent domestic violence and sexual violence advisors

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

In support of amendments 56 and 57, I say gently to the Minister that a one-time Back Bencher who is now Secretary of State for Justice introduced legislation that put stalking protection orders in place. That was undoubtedly based on a harrowing case he came across as the Member for Cheltenham. In my experience of working with him on stalking, he has always been a true and brilliant ally in this space, so I could imagine him moving the amendment. We could go back to him gently for his agreement to it.

One important thing to mention is that stalking is distinct from the crimes of sexual violence and domestic abuse. Normally, I am on my feet complaining that people do not understand that stalking happens as part of domestic abuse and that someone can be a victim of domestic abuse and coercive control but then, following separation, go on to be a victim of post-separation stalking. That is largely misunderstood by criminal justice agencies.

It is important to put stalking specialists into clause 15 because there are lots of cases where people are stalked by strangers, work colleagues and housemates. When we debated the Domestic Abuse Bill, an amendment tabled by Liberal Democrat members of the Committee was about whether abuse in a student house share could be considered domestic abuse. Stalking sits distinctly in many cases involving strangers, colleagues and house shares.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I want to highlight the brilliant point made by my hon. Friend, as well as by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham. Does she agree that children—girls especially, but boys as well—are often stalked, which is extremely frightening and scary for them, and that that also needs to be highlighted and addressed in the Bill?

[Jess Phillips]

Absolutely. For any hon. Member who has experienced stalking themselves—unfortunately, we are a prime category for some of this stalking behaviour—it will not come as a surprise that, from my experience, the first threat place that people go to is to antagonise me about my sons, where they go to school and that sort of information. Children are undoubtedly used, often completely unawares, as part of a pattern of stalking, creating further stress and multiple victims in that instance. Children are often targeted and used in circumstances to attack an adult. As somebody who has run IDVA and ISVA services—in fact, the organisation I used to work for now has specific stalking advocates—I know that stalking is distinct, specific and different. The element of post-separation domestic abuse, as well as the important fact that it is a stranger-based issue, makes the argument for the need for that specialism.

[Sarah Champion]

The Minister argued that IDVAs and ISVAs both engage with the criminal justice sector and therefore need to be recognised as such in the Bill. In my hon. Friend’s experience, is it the same for stalking advocates?

[Jess Phillips]

Absolutely. A case that I handled very recently was a post-separation issue, but was not at the relevant risk level. As I said earlier today, a person has to be at incredibly high risk of harm to be allocated an IDVA who will take them through the criminal justice system, or they have to be going through the criminal justice system.

In the case that I handled, a person broke up with somebody who, six months later, started turning up at her place of work. The victim then went to the police station and said, “This is my ex-partner,” but she could not point to any particular history of abuse or anything that had been criminal at the time. She said, “He’s now turning up at my place of work and sending me messages on Facebook,” but that is not at the level that will get anyone access to an independent domestic violence adviser. I immediately said, “Do you have a stalking protection order in place?” She said, “What’s a stalking protection order?” She had been to the police, but she did not have a specialist advocate with her, or even just somebody telling her what question to ask. She now has a stalking protection order in place, because she knows what one is.

There is a need for specialist advocacy in cases that will never breach the criminal space of domestic abuse or the risk level that would allow for an IDVA. That is very important, because those cases can still be criminal without ever touching the desk of one of those agencies. I therefore totally support my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham, and I imagine that the Secretary of State for Justice may agree with us.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for amendments 56 and 57 and grateful to her and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, for this debate. The amendments would expand the Bill’s requirement for the Secretary of State to issue guidance on ISVAs and IDVAs so that it also included independent stalking advocacy caseworkers. Specialist stalking services, including independent stalking advocacy caseworkers, do vital work to identify risk and provide practical guidance and safety advice for victims. They can help victims to navigate the criminal justice system. The hon. Member for Lewisham East was right to highlight that this crime can affect children as well as adults, and we should not forget that.

The Government are committed to protecting and supporting victims of stalking. The hon. Member for Rotherham was right to highlight the huge impact that stalking can have and the trauma that can result, and the shadow Minister was adroit at gently reminding me of my boss’s views and work on this subject in the past. For example, the Government introduced stalking protection orders in 2020, and almost 1,000 were issued in the first 23 months. The Home Office also continues to part-fund the national stalking helpline, which is run by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, to which I pay tribute, and provided £160,430 between April 2022 and March 2023. We have also provided funding for police-led projects to tackle the behaviour of stalkers and thereby provide greater protection to victims. In May, we announced awards to 10 police and crime commissioners to fund perpetrator interventions, wholly or partly, between April 2023 and March 2025.

In the Bill, we have chosen to focus on guidance for ISVAs and IDVAs because the consultation highlighted that greater consistency and awareness of ISVAs and IDVAs was particularly needed, especially given the number now working across the sector. We believe that that can best be addressed through statutory guidance. I agree that independent stalking advocacy caseworkers, or ISACs—I may just stick to the full wording—are important and can be just as effective, but we are not yet convinced that Government intervention by way of statutory guidance is necessary on the basis of the evidence that we have seen thus far. We do not feel that there is the same pressing need to drive further awareness and consistency of the roles, given the degree of consistency that exists.

I am, however, open to working with the hon. Member for Rotherham—and with the shadow Minister if she wishes to join, as I suspect she might—to continue to reflect on and consider how and whether Government support to independent stalking advocacy caseworkers can be improved. But I also believe that it will be important to assess the impact and effectiveness of the guidance on ISVAs and IDVAs, subject to the passage of the Bill, before considering whether to extend it to other groups in the same format. As I say, I am happy to engage with the hon. Member for Rotherham in that respect.

On the point about hierarchy or the lack thereof, I reassure the hon. Lady that guidance for ISVAs and IDVAs should not be taken to indicate any sort of funding or other hierarchy of them over independent stalking advocacy caseworkers or any other type of specialist support. Funding decisions for different types of support are made by local commissioners based on their assessment of the local need, and the guidance on ISVAs and IDVAs will be explicit that there should be no presumption of a hierarchy when it comes to those funding decisions.

--- Later in debate ---

Previously, positions of trust were defined in legislation; that made sense and it future-proofed things. Members then went on to define the specific roles, which, at that point, were all statutory, public service roles. As time moved on, and the public sector tended to get taken over by the private sector, that part of the legislation no longer stood the test of time, so we had to amend it. By putting specialist services in the Bill, and hopefully the resulting Act, the Minister will future-proof it against what might happen. For example, we do not know how deepfake abuse will play out, or the other forms we have spoken about, such as fraud. By putting just specialist services in the Bill, any future need of victims will be catered for.

[Jess Phillips]

I rise to speak to new clause 18—is that where we are at? Yes, because Sarah spoke to all the provisions together. I will make some remarks too, although I imagine they are relatively similar. I should not have called her Sarah; I meant my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham—I apologise for using her name. I did not say “you”, but I did break that particular protocol. It has been a long day.

[The Chair]

Try sitting up here. [Laughter.]

[Jess Phillips]

In his remarks, the Minister said that consultation highlighted the need to define IDVAs and ISVAs, and that may well be true in the purest sense of what they were initially intended to be—certainly much more with IDVAs than ISVAs—which was about specific guidance. We had court-based IDVAs when we used to have specialist domestic abuse courts everywhere, and it is absolutely right that it becomes about the criminal justice system.

I have to say that ISVAs were not about the criminal justice system originally, and their services took a much more holistic approach. The term became what we called anyone who supports someone who comes forward about sexual violence and abuse. In domestic abuse services, of course, there were both; we had floating support, housing support and refuge support workers, as well as people who may be going through the courts, so it made sense to have a different name. That is just a potted history of IDVAs and ISVAs.

The consultation may have said that it was important to identify and define IDVAs and ISVAs and to ensure that criminal justice agencies—specifically judges and the courts—take them seriously. Who could disagree with that? However, if we were to consult any agency that runs IDVA or ISVA services, or domestic abuse and sexual violence services, not one of them would think that it should be exclusively about IDVAs and ISVAs. If we are going to lean on consultation in one regard, then the evidence here is that the sector is not against the definitions, but rather the narrowness of the definitions. Throughout the day, the Minister has talked about the danger of narrow definitions—I just point out that irony.

New clause 18 follows on from the previous debate about community-based, specialist domestic abuse services, which come in a variety of forms. Women and children seek support and help in different ways, including outreach support, floating support, formal counselling and support groups—the list goes on. By only formalising the IDVA models, we risk creating a tiered hierarchy and adversely affecting other models of community-based specialist provision. Once again, that then poses the risk of more generic services, or services that are run in-house.

What is to stop Birmingham City Council saying, “We have a load of ISVAs that work in our service. We are going to train a load of ISVAs and we will take any funding in-house”? I have great respect to Birmingham City Council—I was a member of the council for some years—but it is not a specialist domestic abuse service, and nor should it ever be trusted to be one. It is not independent; they are the people who run the housing; they are the people an ISVA will sometimes have to help a victim take to court—that happens quite regularly. Regarding Victim Support, with the greatest respect to it as an organisation, it is not a specialist sexual violence service, and yet, across the country, it does have ISVA services.

I find the creep towards the generic a worry. Actually, it is not a worry; it is a fact. I have seen it; it is happening, and it has been happening in a new commissioning environment for some time. I have outlined the evidence of the trend already, and the same warnings apply here. Crucially, victims with protected characteristics value and need access to holistic support and intersectional advocacy from organisations led by and for black and minoritised women and those providing specialist advocacy for LGBT+ and for deaf and disabled victims, and I also mentioned specialist services for victims of forces-based violence. Those organisations commonly sit outside the IDVA model but are crucial to the provision of support for such groups.

Another thing that worries me concerns allowing somebody to go into court, be that a family court or another civil court environment for non-molestation orders or other domestic abuse protection orders—there are various different orders, which are currently not worth the paper they are written on, but they exist, so let us pretend they are a solution. If someone does not have an IDVA qualification and is a floating community-based support worker from the local LGBT specialist support service, a judge will not allow that person into the court, because of the idea of that qualification. Also, how do we know that people do not call themselves IDVAs and ISVAs without the qualification? It is not like having a degree; it is a different thing. So there are some real dangers in this. I have seen these things happen. Even though I am qualified in this space, I was not allowed to sit with a rape victim in court recently, because I was not an ISVA. That seems like a—

[Sarah Champion]

Hierarchy.

[Jess Phillips]

It does seem like a hierarchy. Obviously, I won the argument on that, but that was what I was initially told. There are many examples of why this is a problem.

Studies have shown that disabled women are twice as likely to experience domestic abuse. They are also twice as likely to suffer rape and sexual assault. Yet, the charity SafeLives’s multi-agency risk assessment conference data shows that, nationally, only 3.9% of referrals are disabled victims. Disabled women are four times more likely to report abuse by multiple perpetrators and to experience abuse for longer. Disabled women are more likely to experience abuse by a family member than non-disabled women. Stay Safe East is a user-led specialist organisation supporting disabled victims, and its experience with clients mirrors those harrowing statistics.

Disabled victims may also face specific forms of domestic abuse or their circumstances or impairment being weaponised against them—for example, control of food or drink or medication, withdrawal of care, restricting access to disability equipment, restricting access to other professional advice or help, theft of benefits, and the threat that they will be put into care or have their children taken away from them. Those specific experiences and intersecting discriminations mean that organisations that can provide tailored and holistic care are crucial and wanted by victims. Likewise, in research by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, it was found that people wanted specialist services. Those services, such as Stay Safe East, are small—I do not want to speak out of turn, but I think four people work there, so it is not a big organisation. However, it is one of the only specialist domestic abuse organisations; those people are not all IDVAs, yet this is absolutely the specialist agency.

The new clause and the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham are to try to ensure that judges and police forces—judges more so, but police forces too—will understand. They are quite rigid about who is allowed in, who is not and who they can take advice from. I really worry that we are about to undermine vast swathes of very professional and learned specialists just on the basis of a qualification they do or do not have.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to hon. Members for their amendments, and I will seek to respond to them all in turn.

Amendments 62 and 61 would expand clause 15 so that the Secretary of State would be required to issue guidance about specialist community-based services for victims, in addition to ISVAs and IDVAs. I understand the concerns that the clause’s focus on ISVAs and IDVAs alone could result in the Government being seen to place their focus on them above other forms of community-based support. I recognise that there are mixed views in the sector about that, and concerns have been expressed. Let me reassure the Committee that that is not the case and that the intention behind the amendments can be addressed through other means.

--- Later in debate ---

I turn now to new clause 18, which would require the Secretary of State to issue guidance about community-based specialist domestic abuse services, in a similar way to how clause 15 requires guidance for ISVAs and IDVAs. Again, I recognise the probably unparalleled expertise of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley on this issue, and I am grateful for the brief, potted history of the evolution of a number of these roles.

[Jess Phillips]

Under a Labour Government.

[Edward Argar]

I will refrain from biting—I almost did.

To help ensure that women and girls are safe everywhere, in July 2021, we published our cross-Government tackling violence against women and girls strategy. That was followed by a cross-Government tackling domestic abuse plan in March 2022, investing more than £230 million of cross-Government funding into tackling this hideous crime, including more than £140 million for supporting victims and more than £81 million for tackling perpetrators.

Through the commitments set out in those strategies, the Government aim to transform how systems and society respond to violence against women and girls. That is in addition to the increased funding for support services and the increased numbers of ISVAs and IDVAs that I have already referenced. I hope that that demonstrates, to some extent, how we are taking action to further support the sector.

We have chosen a narrower focus for the Bill’s measures to issue guidance than new clause 18 would. IDVAs are a particular type of community-based specialist support service for victims of domestic abuse; our focus on them is in response to the victims Bill consultation. I know that, as the hon. Members for Rotherham and for Birmingham, Yardley set out, IDVAs are only one part of the domestic abuse support landscape, as they predominantly support high-risk victims. However, as I have said in relation to similar amendments, we do not believe that Government intervention through guidance issued about all community-based specialist domestic abuse services is the right approach.

The hon. Member for Rotherham said in our debate on new clause 19 that these services offer a vast range of support, including counselling, advice, advocacy and helplines. We want to get the balance right: we want Government intervention only when it is needed and will yield a positive benefit to support services. Our general approach is to set national commissioning standards and then allow local decision making by local commissioners. National guidance, such as the victims funding strategy and the national statement of expectations, sets standards but empowers commissioners to fund services of a quality and type that meet their local needs.

Our view is that additional guidance for ISVAs and IDVAs is necessary, given the growing number of roles and the lack of consistency. However, given the wide variety of roles within all community-based services, it is less clear what guidance about their roles, training and qualifications would bring, except possibly additional complexity and work for them. The key point is that ISVAs and IDVAs are particularly involved with the criminal justice process.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley highlighted the judicial discretion in this space and the approaches adopted by judges in their courts. I will not stray into that. Although we cannot direct or guide judges because they are quite rightly independent, we can improve their confidence in the professionalism and the work of ISVAs and IDVAs through this guidance, because of that particular intersection with the criminal justice process.

I always welcome further discussion with the hon. Member for Rotherham, as I hope I have made clear in the past few days, but I encourage her not to press the amendment to a Division.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

I rise to speak to new clause 8, which is a slender amendment and my last, so I hope the Minister will look favourably on it.

For years, as we know from our debates in Committee, victims and survivors have faced a postcode lottery in support services, but access to sexual violence advocates, domestic violence advocates and stalking advocates varies hugely around the country. For the Bill to be successful, we need an accurate picture of what such services look like now. If we do not know where the gaps are, how will we fill them sufficiently?

The Domestic Abuse Commissioner has done excellent mapping work across the country and shown where the gaps are in provision for domestic abuse victims, but victims of all crime face patchy services. Support services differ greatly, depending on where in the country victims access them. As my hon. Friends and I have outlined, stalking advocates are crucial for women all over the country but are rarely accessible for most victims, even though they dramatically increase the chance of prosecution.

ISVAs and IDVAs provide crucial services, but if not all victims can access them, not all victims can have their rights met. The criminal justice system is incredibly difficult to navigate. An advocate is crucial for justice to be achieved and support to be received. I urge the Minister to accept that there are huge gaps in the provision available and, by accepting new clause 8, to require the Secretary of State to carry out a review.

[Jess Phillips]

It would be lovely to know how many ISVAs and IDVAs there are across the country, and what that means, because we also have hospital IDVAs who do not necessarily interact with the criminal justice system at all, but are responsive in accident and emergency. It would be lovely to know that, so I agree with new clause 8—I had ticked it off eagerly and could not see the number for a moment.

I have some real concerns about the clause standing part of the Bill, in particular about the hierarchy. I will not push the clause to a vote today, as I imagine that this is an area that will evolve. I want to see the professionalism of the sector that I worked for, but perhaps the professionalism of the job that I once had should include something about the levels of pay. I guarantee that writing the level of professionalism into a particular job title will not mean that anyone who does it breaches being paid more than £30,000 a year, if they are lucky. On one side, we want professionalism, but on the other side we are happy to allow a group of, frankly, quite low-paid women to do this very difficult work that we respect enough to write into our law. I have concerns about the clause as a whole, but I will agree that it can stand part for now.

[Edward Argar]

I will respond briefly to new clause 8, tabled by the hon. Member for Rotherham, which seeks to require an assessment of the Secretary of State and that that assessment is published annually.

As the hon. Lady pointed out, understanding the needs of victims and the provision available to them is crucial to ensuring that future services are commissioned and designed to support victims adequately. However, that needs to be appropriately balanced to ensure that processes are not burdensome on the services themselves, which is routinely of concern to them.

Our approach recognises that the needs of victims, and the provision currently available, will differ locally. We therefore devolve responsibility for commissioning and funding to local bodies that can appropriately assess and consider local needs. That ensures a tailored approach to commissioning services for communities. I am pleased to reassure the hon. Member for Rotherham that there are already a range of mechanisms in place for monitoring victims’ needs and the provision of services.

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Ninth sitting)

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th July 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Edward Argar]

I reassure the hon. Lady that if she allows me to develop my point a little, I will address her specific JSNA point before I conclude.

As the hon. Lady will be aware, we published our victims funding strategy last May. I am pleased that that was published, not least because I set it in train back in 2018 when I was last a Minister in the Department. I am pleased that it has seen sunlight. The strategy provides a framework for how agencies should work together to best resource the victim support sector. Within it, there is a clear expectation that commissioners carry out regular needs assessments, using all the data required to commission appropriate services for victims in their areas, including victims with tailored needs. The duty to collaborate in the Bill, which the hon. Lady touched on, is clear that relevant agencies must work together to ensure that services that meet local needs are commissioned and provided for.

Clause 13(3) requires relevant authorities to have regard to any assessment of the needs of victims that they have already carried out when preparing their joint strategy. We will be issuing statutory guidance to accompany that duty. That will set out clear expectations for how the duty should be carried out, as well as good practice, including around data and consistency of data. The guidance will set out that relevant authorities are expected to explain in their joint commissioning strategy how they have had regard to the relevant needs assessments, and how commissioning decisions meet those needs.

I understand the points made by the hon. Lady, both in her opening remarks and in her interventions. I share her view that support services have to be commissioned in line with, and reflect, genuine need. That is why we have created the duty. To a degree, it reflects the duty created under the Health and Care Act 2022 for integrated care boards and integrated care systems in that context. We should allow local flexibility in the services that are offered but seek to avoid duplication and gaps where multiple agencies commission the same service in some spaces and nothing is commissioned in others. It is a cornerstone of the duty that local needs must be assessed and considered. For those reasons, we do not believe that the amendment is required to clearly state that a joint needs assessment must be considered, but I have a few more remarks to reassure the hon. Lady.

Subsection (1B) of amendment 89 would require the Secretary of State to provide a statement every three years on the current support available for victims of domestic abuse, including the volume of provision, levels of need and investment. The Department receives regular monitoring returns from PCCs and the support services that we commission. The returns include data that indicates how many victims are seeking support, and provide insight into demand and levels of need across England and Wales, which informs national commissioning decisions.

We are committed to improving our understanding of need and the impact of funding at a national level. To do that, we have introduced core metrics and outcomes to be collected from all victim support services that are commissioned through Government funding streams as part of the victims funding strategy. We will also establish an oversight board to monitor them.

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

The trouble with the data that the Minister is describing is that it will not be all the data in a local area if it just comes from a PCC, because the vast majority of community-based services for victims of domestic and sexual violence come from a local authority. Unless that data is all pulled together with a joint needs assessment, the Minister, up here in this ivory tower, will get only a tiny fraction of the reality.

[Edward Argar]

The shadow Minister highlights one of the issues that we grappled with in the course of drafting the victims funding strategy. I pay tribute to the Domestic Abuse Commissioner for her work in trying to grapple with this issue as well. I am talking about trying to get an understanding of what is provided in a given locality, not just from the money provided by central Government—we can track that and see what is commissioned—but through local authorities and, in some cases, although I suspect it is not a huge amount, elements of NHS service provision.

[Jess Phillips]

Not enough.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

I will not test your patience in that way on a Tuesday morning, Mr Hosie.

The duty to collaborate will further improve our understanding of both local need and the services commissioned for victims of not only domestic abuse but sexual abuse and other serious violence offences. The publication of the joint commissioning strategies will give valuable insight into the levels of service that victims are receiving in each police area across England and an assessment of how areas are making improvements against local objectives or key performance indicators. An oversight forum will then scrutinise those strategies, assess how well the duty is executed nationally, share best practice and help to devise plans for improvement.

A national statement every three years focused solely on domestic abuse would not in itself hugely build on the understanding that the Secretary of State already has through existing mechanisms or necessarily better help local areas to understand need. The strategies published under the duty to collaborate will instead provide information of the type, or a large amount of it, that the hon. Member for Rotherham is asking for—that is, on the volume of provision, levels of need, and investment—for not only domestic abuse but sexual abuse and other serious violent offences more broadly, and with the important local context that is useful for commissioners. I therefore encourage the hon. Lady not to press the amendment to a Division, as the Secretary of State will in effect have access to all the information that she asks for. However, although I am—

[Jess Phillips]

Will the Minister give way?

[Edward Argar]

I give way to the shadow Minister, but let us hope she does not dissuade me from what I am about to say.

[Jess Phillips]

I do not wish to dissuade the Minister. In my local area, there is a “by and for” service that is run specifically for Afghan women, that is completely funded, usually, by the will of volunteers, and that is dealing every year with hundreds of cases of Afghan women who are victims of domestic abuse, and it does not get its funding from any of these sources. How will the Secretary of State know that that is an issue?

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady did not quite succeed in dissuading me from what I was about to say, which is that although I am unable to accept the hon. Member for Rotherham’s JSNA amendment at this time, I will reflect very carefully on its import and what she said, and particularly on the words of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner in the oral evidence we heard, and in the context of the points made by the hon. Members for Birmingham, Yardley and for Rotherham about the challenges in understanding service provision when that is not funded through a national or a public funding stream.

I cannot commit further than that, but I will commit to reflecting very carefully, between Committee stage—as this is a carry-over Bill, we will have a few months—and before it returns to the House on Report, on the points that the hon. Members and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner have made very eloquently.

[Sarah Champion]

I apologise for testing your kind patience, Mr Hosie. While the Minister is in a reflective mood, I hope he will also reflect on the financial and time commitments that might be placed on organisations, and try to ensure that we get the data we need with the lightest of touches. I am grateful for his movement on the issue, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Jess Phillips]

I beg to move amendment 80, in clause 12, page 10, line 16, at end insert—

“(3A) In discharging their duty under this section, relevant authorities must collaborate with specialist women’s community-based domestic abuse and sexual violence support services within the police area, as commissioned under section [Commissioning of specialist women’s community-based domestic abuse and sexual violence support services].”

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 19—Commissioning of specialist women’s community-based domestic abuse and sexual violence support services—

“(1) It is the duty of relevant local authorities to commission specialist women’s community-based domestic abuse and sexual violence support services for victims in accordance with need.

(2) The services provided under subsection (1) must include, but are not limited to—

(a) counselling and other psychological support,

(b) advice and advocacy support in relation to welfare benefits, debt and access to financial support,

(c) support for children affected by domestic abuse,

(d) legal advice,

(e) victims helplines,

(f) support for victims of domestic abuse, sexual violence, trafficking or modern slavery who offend as a result of that abuse,

(g) perpetrator programmes with a priority outcome of increased safety and freedom for victims,

(h) support for victims of elder abuse,

(i) support for victims of stalking,

(j) support for families where a relative has died by suicide following domestic abuse,

(k) support for victims of modern slavery and trafficking,

(l) support for so-called ‘honour-based’ abuse victims,

(m) outreach and education initiatives aimed at raising awareness of domestic abuse and sexual violence, and

(n) ‘By and For’ services that support individuals with protected characteristics.

(3) In discharging the duty under this section, the relevant local authorities must have particular regard to the need for such services provided by, and for the benefit of those with protected characteristics.

(4) The Secretary of State must by regulations—

(a) define ‘specialist community based services’ in collaboration with the violence against women and girls sector, and

(b) set out how providers are to be regulated.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

I apologise for my lateness, Mr Hosie. I am suffering from a weird bout of dizziness, which I have never had before in my life.

[The Chair]

If the hon. Lady needs to sit down, that is not a problem.

[Jess Phillips]

I will attempt to stand, but should I need to sit down I will. I am fine if I just stand still.

Unsurprisingly, I will follow on from the theme of my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham regarding exactly how the very welcome duties around domestic abuse and sexual violence will work in practice. I am afraid that the Bill runs the risk of having a good title—obviously I preferred it when it just had the word “victims” in it—but not much else in this space. No one is not on the side of victims. Everyone wants them to be looked after and cared for. The problem, as is so often the case, is that the devil is in the detail. The support, care and provision of services that victims need are specialist, tailored guidance and support in the face of tragedy, abuse, exploitation, fear, anger and loss. I tabled the amendment and new clause in recognition of the specialist services that are needed if we are to truly deliver on the promised principles of the Bill.

My commitment to specialist services and my desire to get specialisms written into the law is, and will be, lifelong, because I have watched as generic services have taken over from specialist support-based services. In my constituency, I have seen a case where the perpetrator is being supported by the same service as the victim, which is both unethical and dangerous. That happens because there are all-encompassing, non-specialist victims-based services rather than specialist women’s services. I gently point out to all Government Committee members that there is a huge desire from the Government to talk about women-only spaces. I notice that it is politically expedient to talk about women’s specialisms in some aspects of our politics; if only putting women’s specialisms into the law were such a hot topic. I notice that much less debate goes on about that.

The amendment and new clause would clarify that police and crime commissioners, local authorities and health bodies must commission specialist women’s community services that will provide the support, care, prevention and guidance that victims need. Without specifying the types of services that should be commissioned to best serve victims, the duty will undoubtedly incentivise large generic contracts and not local specialist services—a real risk to which I will return.

First, though, I will make the argument for specialist provision and pay homage to the providers that deliver it. It is easy to make such an argument when we hear of the need, experiences and injuries of victims, and the sheer scale of crimes suffered. We know that such services are currently available to victims. For example, community-based domestic abuse services are life-saving and, crucially, life-building for victims of some of the worst crimes, but an estimated 70% of domestic abuse victims and survivors who seek support rely on community-based services.

In previous Bills such as the Domestic Abuse Bill, the Government have sought to have protections from on high, not from local commissioners. They decided it was more important to make sure that refuge-based accommodation services were provided in all areas. However, they did not put the specialisms in, as I will come to in a minute. Currently, 70% of people are seen by community-based services, so we are touching only a fraction. Refuge, the UK’s largest domestic abuse charity, states that 80% of its thousands of service users access some kind of community-based specialist service, but inconsistent provision across the country means that many survivors are not able to access such support. In 2022, less than 50% of those who wanted to access community-based services were able to.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

We all have female constituents who have been victims and who need community-based services. I have had constituents contacting me who are on a very, very long waiting list. Those specialist services are not there at present. Not only do we need them, but we need the funding to be in place for them.

[Jess Phillips]

I absolutely agree. In my local area, we have had to shut down waiting lists, and not just because of their length: there have been cases of domestic homicide, where women have been murdered while on a waiting list for services. Those agencies that were not able to provide specialist services then feel the hand of blame coming from the state: because people were dwindling on waiting lists, the agencies get a level of blame for the murder of those women. In the worst possible circumstances, we cannot even operate waiting lists any more. They just shut them.

The care and support that victims and survivors need are specialised and wide-ranging. In new clause 19, we have laid out some of the key services that need to be provided. The mental health impacts of domestic abuse and sexual violence cannot be overestimated, so counselling and other psychological support is central. In Women’s Aid research, almost half of women in refuge reported feeling depressed or having suicidal thoughts as a direct result of the domestic abuse that they experienced. Throughout the journey of the Bill, we have heard the heartbreaking case of Katie, who took her own life following sexual abuse. Katie was a childhood friend of the journalist Charlie Webster, who wrote:

“The thing about the trauma of sexual abuse, it doesn’t just go away. What happened to Katie made her feel worthless like she wasn’t enough, and it impacted her mental health, as is common for all survivors, me including.”

We must ensure that victims can get the help they need.

The organisation Surviving Economic Abuse has done extraordinary work on raising the profile of economic abuse and the devastating, complex impact on domestic abuse victims’ lives. Some 95% of domestic abuse victim-survivors experience economic abuse, and the lack of access to economic resources post separation is the primary reason why women return to an abusive partner. It is crucial that survivors have access to specialist experts who understand economic abuse, as well as advocacy support in relation to welfare benefits and debt and access to financial support to rebuild their lives.

The impact of domestic abuse on children is a shamefully underdeveloped area of policy. Colleagues and I were successful in securing the recognition of children as victims in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, but what does that actually mean in practice? One in seven children and young people under the age of 18 will have lived with domestic violence at some point in their childhood, but the provision of children’s support services nationally is patchy, piecemeal and precarious. I am one of the nation’s leading experts in this, but if a child in my constituency came to me today and said, “I’m not a direct victim of domestic abuse, but my mum is being beaten up by my dad every day,” I would not know where to send them. I would not know where to refer that child.

[Sarah Champion]

Will the Minister give way? Sorry, I mean the shadow Minister.

[Jess Phillips]

Not long, Sarah!

[Sarah Champion]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend heard the “Woman’s Hour” piece last week. Olivia Colman is a trustee of a theatre group that goes into primary schools specifically to raise issues that are uncomfortable, but also to try to give some support to those hidden children who will be seeing domestic abuse and to try to prevent perpetrators in future.

[Jess Phillips]

Absolutely. That organisation is called Tender; I am also a patron, along with Olivia Colman. Again, that support is only provided through having good headteachers or good local commissioners. There is nothing from this building or nationally that says there must be specialists going into every school, because if in every single school there is a class of 30 kids, and one in seven—my gosh, I am so dizzy that my maths will not work it out, but we will have a huge number of children in every class who suffer this in silence. They need specialist support available to them. We are failing to reach and save children in dire domestic abuse circumstances.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

I understand entirely—I am a firm democrat and I will fight for democracy—but I am afraid the idea that very marginalised groups of people with very little resource could launch a campaign to spark public interest in, say, Lincolnshire to get the 19% of people who voted in the PCC election to change the balance is for the birds. I say that as someone who has tried to do it. I am not entirely sure that PCCs can truly be accountable to their electorates on the issue. If we are seeing gaps, surely it is Parliament’s responsibility to deal with them.

[Edward Argar]

I was going to make the point that, sitting alongside local accountability and local tailoring, we also have—as the hon. Lady will know, and for want of a better term—a national approach. The context is slightly different, but we have the rape and sexual abuse support fund, for example, which is nationally commissioned. With RASAF, we seek to fill gaps in provision and ensure there is a geographical spread.

I will turn to individual services in a moment, but in any locality a PCC might say, in relation to the point made by the hon. Member for Rotherham, “I have limited resources, so I will put them where the greatest number of victims are in my area.” However, a small number of victims might not be covered by that, because they are a small number in that locality. That is why we have the national approach sitting alongside to ensure that there is national provision in a number of areas.

[Jess Phillips]

On the idea that there is anywhere in our country where victims of domestic abuse are small in number, let me say that the national average is 19% of all victims of crime, and domestic abuse represents the highest volume of any crime in our country where calls go to the police. I do not expect the Minister to have the data to hand, but I would like to see a PCC’s office that is spending 19% of its budget on this.

[Edward Argar]

I will see whether I can get that data. On the hon. Lady’s point about the figure of 19%, she is right to highlight the horrifying prevalence of that crime, which often goes unnoticed because of the nature of reporting and the nature of the crime. Moreover, there are particular groups within the figure and within the cohort of victims, for example minorities. A PCC might take the view that in a locality a particular group might need specific trauma-informed services, which, given their choice of resource allocation, might not have been catered for. That is why we seek at national level to try to address such issues with direct funding grants and with agreements that we reach, for example through the RASAF.

Our role as Government is to set the expected standards for the approach to commissioning of victim support services. At a macro level, we have done that through the victims funding strategy, which clearly sets out the expectation for commissioners to put victims at the centre of commissioning. We wholeheartedly agree that commissioners should consider a range of different services, including specialist women’s community-based domestic abuse and sexual violence support, and that they should choose to commission services that best fit the needs of their population.

Let me turn to the specifics of the amendment. I am in agreement on the importance of commissioners drawing on the expertise of providers of victim support services when preparing and revising their joint strategies. That is why clause 13(2) specifically requires relevant authorities to consult with persons who represent the interests of victims, providers and other expert organisations. We would expect them to consult with providers of specialist services for female victims of domestic abuse and sexual abuse, as well as “by and for” services in the children’s sector, to name but a few more. However, we do not consider it proportionate to list in legislation organisations with which commissioners must consult, which would risk resulting in a hierarchy of services or unintentionally omitting organisations providing valuable and important services.

In addition, we intend the accompanying statutory guidance to set out that local commissioners should consider engaging with a range of providers that reflect the types of service required in their area, such as women-only services, when considering their statutory duty to consult persons appearing to them to provide relevant victim support services and other appropriate persons. Guidance will also support commissioners by recommending standards and processes for that consultation. We are engaging with both providers and local commissioners as we develop that guidance so that we can reflect best practice, and I would be very happy to work with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley to explore how guidance may further support commissioners in fulfilling their obligations to reflect the views of providers, and those who support victims, in their joint-commissioning strategies.

I reassure the hon. Lady that the Government are fully aware that domestic abuse and sexual violence disproportionately impact women and girls. Beyond the Bill, in February 2023 we published a revised strategic policing requirement, which includes violence against women and girls as a national threat for policing to respond to. In 2021, the Government published a new and ambitious cross-Government tackling violence against women and girls strategy to help to ensure that women and girls are safe everywhere. That includes a new full-time national policing lead on violence against women and girls, DCC Maggie Blyth, who I have had the privilege of meeting; I know that the shadow Minister meets her regularly as well. She is now in post and is doing an excellent job in the role.

We have awarded £125 million through the safer streets fund and the safety of women at night fund to make our streets safer for women and girls. We have contributed up to £3.3 million to fund the roll-out of Domestic Abuse Matters training to police forces. That includes funding the development of a new module to improve charge rates. The Government are also taking targeted action against sexual violence, including through the 24/7 rape and sexual abuse support line, which offers free, confidential emotional support for victims and survivors.

I therefore encourage the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley—I do not know whether she is persuadable—not to press her amendment to a Division. The duty to collaborate focuses only on commissioning bodies, as they are best placed to meet the objectives of our duty. In the Government’s view, the Bill already includes provision for engagement with providers, such as providers of specialist women’s services for domestic abuse and sexual violence, underpinned by the statutory guidance that will be produced.

New clause 19 would place a duty on relevant local authorities to commission specialist women’s community-based domestic abuse and sexual violence support services for victims in accordance with need. It would also require the Secretary of State to define in regulations “specialist community based services”, after agreeing that definition in collaboration with the violence against women and girls sector, and to set out in regulations how providers will be regulated.

We do not fully share the hon. Lady’s view about the extent to which local authorities should be required to fund particular types of community-based services; again, that goes to the point underpinning my earlier remarks about it being a local decision for which local authorities would be accountable. In our view, it is for local commissioners to determine what services to fund, noting the additional national strand of direct funding alongside that. That determination will be based on their assessments of the needs of their local populations, knowledge of available services and their understanding of those services and their provision. Our concern is that the approach set out in the new clause risks excluding or minimising the importance of some of the other service types that commissioners could consider for victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence. As drafted, the new clause could risk creating a hierarchy.

On overall funding, we believe that the right approach to setting funding levels continues to be through the spending review process, rather than individual pieces of legislation. That allows Government and individual Departments to outline priorities and respond to changing circumstances; allows the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider a range of funding requests and pressures, recognising the finite amount of taxpayer money available to any Government; and allows those priorities to be considered in the round.

I hasten to add that I am not in any way questioning the importance of these vital services. I have had the privilege of visiting a number of them, both as Under-Secretary of State and in my present role. I have seen at first hand the amazing work that they do. They often go above and beyond the resources that they have available, in their own time and with their own resources, so passionate are those who work in this part of the sector to assist to the best of their ability those who need their help. That is one of the reasons that we have included ringfenced funding in our grants to PCCs for community-based services for victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence.

In allocating money to PCCs, there is always a balance to be struck. Many PCCs, I know, would prefer a greater proportion of their funding to be unringfenced and to be used entirely at their discretion within those broad parameters. We think that we have struck the appropriate balance, with them having a degree of discretion, but with some ringfenced funding to address particular needs.

[Edward Argar]

I suspect that when we reach that clause, we will debate that exact point. However, to pre-empt what I will say about that clause—I shall say this briefly before you call me to order, Mr Hosie—the reason is that ISVAs and IDVAs have a particular, evolving and developed professionalism that gives them a particular locus within the criminal justice system. It is quite right that we cannot issue guidance to judges, because they are the independent judiciary, but through this approach to ISVAs and IDVAs we can seek to give the judiciary greater confidence in the professionalism of those roles. We thereby hope to see the judiciary being more willing to utilise them in the court process. That is my rationale, but we may debate that point when we come to the relevant clause.

New clause 19 also highlights the importance of legal advice for victims. The Government asked the Law Commission, as part of its work on the use of evidence in sexual offence prosecutions, carefully to review the law, guidance and practice relating to the trial process in prosecutions of sexual offences, an issue in which I know the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley takes a close interest. That will include consideration of whether independent legal advice and representation would be beneficial where personal records are sought, or more widely for the trial process.

On setting out how providers are to be regulated, we do not want to take a prescriptive approach in legislation. Local commissioners regularly review the services they commission to ensure high standards of victim services and will set relevant and tailored quality standards in their agreements with local providers. I suspect that a degree of the debate here is around where the line lies between prescription and a permissive approach.

As I have said in response to similar amendments, we have allocated a substantial amount of funding for domestic abuse and sexual violence victims and survivors, demonstrating the Government’s commitment to victims of these crimes. We are making it clear to commissioners and funders that they should consider the value and role of specialist-based support services when assessing local need to inform the distribution of funding, but ultimately local commissioners are best placed to determine how those services should be provided locally. On that basis, I gently encourage the shadow Minister not to press her amendment to a Division.

[Jess Phillips]

I will respond to some of what the Minister has said. His charming hope that all commissioners are absolute experts in this is not one that I share. I have been a commissioner on a local authority, and I think Birmingham remains probably the only part of the country to commission sexual violence services as part of its sexual health commissioning, and sexual and domestic abuse services as part of its substance misuse commissioning. The reason is that I was the commissioner and I am an expert in this.

In our evidence session, the woman from Rape Crisis said that she could not think of any specialist Rape Crisis services being commissioned by mental health services in our country. There is this idea that commissioners all have a total understanding of specialist domestic and sexual violence services. I have a plan for someone who works in the service to become a commissioner in every service, to ensure that that happens, but given the failure of my ability to influence Bury St Edmunds Council to have someone from women’s aid services elected to it, I will struggle. I do not think we can argue that commissioners know best. I have watched them know very little about anything to do with this topic. They are not specialists. They need to be told what specialisms they have to provide.

On hierarchy, I totally agree about the paradox that my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham pointed out. I want there to be a hierarchy. That is what I am saying: I am asking for a hierarchy, where specialist services are placed at the top and generic support services are just that.

I will not press the amendment to a vote, because I genuinely believe that we can get to an agreement on this issue prior to Report. I totally believe in the Minister’s will to do that. I say gently, though, that evidence from the Domestic Abuse Act shows that if we do not write these provisions into legislation, local authorities will just take refuge accommodation in-house and it will become completely non-specialist—it has been staffed by men, for example. We did not get this written into the Domestic Abuse Act, but I would really like the words “women” and “women’s specialist services” to exist somewhere in the Bill. Although I will not press the amendment to a vote today, I stand ready to make this argument again later. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Seventh sitting)

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 29th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Sarah Champion]

I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley.

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

I feel certain that between the heads of the people in this Committee Room, some progress on this issue could no doubt be made. The area where I have concerns—not only because of my own brief—is that Home Office Ministers need to be brought on board, because this relates to Home Office policy. Will my hon. Friend seek from the Minister a commitment that the Home Office might take part in some of this work?

[Sarah Champion]

The Minister can address sentences and conditions, but we absolutely need the Home Office on board.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

I beg to move amendment 53, in clause 2, page 2, line 25, at end insert—

“(3A) The victims’ code must make provision about pre-trial therapy for victims, including—

(a) a requirement that all criminal justice agencies inform victims of their right to pre-trial therapy, and

(b) a requirement that the Crown Prosecution Service annually review their pre-trial therapy guidance and its implementation.”

This amendment would include in the victims’ code a requirement to inform all victims of their right to access pre-trial therapy, and require the CPS to annually review the implementation of pre-trial therapy guidance.

The amendment is about access to pre-trial therapy, around which there are currently so many problems—particularly for victims and survivors of sexual offences. My former constituent contacted me a couple of years ago after she raised a complaint with the police regarding how she was treated throughout the criminal justice system. In 2011 to 2012, she reported her child abuse to South Yorkshire police. In her email to me, she wrote:

“After I had completed my video evidence, the officers told me it would complicate the trial if I sought any mental health support and to wait until it was over. That took 18 months, 18 of the most difficult months when I was emotionally abused and outcast by family for reporting the abuse. I had nowhere to turn, needed to see a psychologist for support and I was utterly traumatized. Today, I suffer from post-traumatic stress from that trial and feel that was related to being denied my human right of access to mental health support. If the police denied anyone cancer treatment during court proceedings, there would be uproar. We need to see mental health in the same way.”

She goes on:

“Despite it not being illegal to see a counsellor, it appears to be more convenient for the police if one is not seen. When someone in such an immense position of trust indicates it would be better not to see a counsellor, the victim is so vulnerable and so strongly lead by the police that I fear that it will continue, even if off record.”

[Jess Phillips]

I agree with everything my hon. Friend is saying. The week before last, I was in court with a victim of child sexual violence—she is no longer a child; she is now 22—who had waited seven years for her trial. As in the case that my hon. Friend has highlighted, she was not allowed to access mental health support for seven years, from the ages of 13 to 22.

[Sarah Champion]

Sadly, this is standard practice; systemic change is needed. Receiving counselling or mental health support should not be seen to make a victim an unreliable witness, which is what it feels as though the police believe. That culture within the criminal justice agencies perpetuates victim blaming. I hope that the threshold will be raised, so that there is a presumption against disclosure of mental health records as evidence in court. I think we will come to that in a later amendment.

I am relieved that the Minister is trying to tackle the use of counselling notes through new clause 4, which we will debate later in our proceedings, but it is vital that we also ensure that access to pre-trial therapy is also on the face of the Bill. My amendment is essential, as it would require the Crown Prosecution Service to review the implementation of its pre-trial therapy guidance. If the guidance is not effectively rolled out among prosecutors and officers, they should respond accordingly.

I think the current situation is a fundamental misunderstanding by the police, who are trying to do the right thing—get a prosecution—by trying to prevent victims’ counselling notes or victims being seen to be coached in any way before the trial, so that that cannot be used against them and unravel the case. The Minister is aware that that is not the case; people are able to access such provision. Former Secretaries of State and the CPS have confirmed to me that victims can access pre-trial therapy, but unless it is on the face of the Bill and in the victims code that that is their right, the myth perpetuates and it is having a very damaging effect on victims.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

Amendment 53 would place in the victims code a requirement to inform victims of their right to access pre-trial therapy, and require the CPS to annually review the implementation of its pre-trial therapy guidance. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for provoking this debate by tabling the amendment.

It is vital that victims get the support they need to cope and recover from the impact of crime, and pre-trial therapy is a hugely important part of that. The hon. Member for Lewisham East commented on the number of complainants and victims who withdraw from a case—the technical phrase is victim attrition; it is not the best phrase in the world—or do not see it through. A variety of reasons and a range of factors sit behind that. Lack of therapeutic support may not be the only one, but it is undoubtedly one of them. I am aware of instances where victims have mistakenly been advised not to seek the therapeutic support they need and to which they are entitled while they are involved in a criminal justice process. That should not happen, and I am again grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for raising that.

The first part of the amendment would require the victims code to include a specific requirement on all criminal justice agencies to inform victims of a right to pre-trial therapy. I hope I can reassure the hon. Lady to a degree that there are already many provisions in the Bill and, indeed, beyond it to make victims aware of how they can access pre-trial therapy. What came through in her remarks is that the challenge is not the obligations in the Bill or other legislation, but how they are operationalised and pull through into the experiences people have when interacting with the system.

The Bill already includes the code principle that victims should be able to access services that support them, including specialist services. The code itself includes the detail that those services can include pre-trial therapy and counselling, and we are introducing a new duty in the Bill on certain criminal justice agencies, including the police and the CPS, to raise awareness of the code and the rights within it. None the less, I am open to considering how we can make information relating to pre-trial therapy clearer in the new victims code, as it is critical that practitioners do not, even inadvertently, deter victims from seeking the support they need.

As hon. Members will be aware, we have committed to consult on an updated victims code after the passage of the Bill, and as I have said on previous occasions, I am happy to work with the hon. Member for Rotherham and others on the Committee on the new code. We have put out an indicative draft, which is almost a pre-consultation consultation, but that allows the flexibility for hon. Members and others to reflect back their thoughts on it.

[Jess Phillips]

As a point that may be interesting as we try to get this right established is that when I ran a rape crisis counselling service, this was not particularly an issue. Something has happened—something chilling—in the last eight years that means it is now a pressing issue. It was never the case, and rape crisis counsellors would always just make very sparing notes. Something has gone wrong, and in trying to move forward we should do a piece of work on where it started to go wrong.

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady brings to the House and this Committee a huge amount of experience from having worked in this sector and seen changes to it, and an interest that she has maintained since being elected to the House—at the same time as I was—and through her shadow ministerial roles. She is right; it is important that, if things have changed, we seek to understand the genesis of and the reasons for that change, and how to address it.

--- Later in debate ---

However, that report, which raises these critical issues and paints a true picture of how devastating the family court process is for survivors and their children, was three years ago.

[Jess Phillips]

To pinpoint the devastation so that we can get the point across, the harm panel review largely came out of a report written by Women’s Aid, which showed that, over a 10-year period, the murders of 19 children had followed family court decisions to place them with an abusive father.

[Anna McMorrin]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. Evidence from Women’s Aid still shows that survivors are disbelieved. Children have continued to be forced into unsafe contact arrangements with abusive parents, and perpetrators have continued to use child arrangement proceedings as a form of post-separation abuse. It is vital that the right support is signposted and that survivors are able to access that support. Parental alienation allegations in the family courts mean that many survivors of domestic abuse and coercive control are themselves made out to be the perpetrator. That has to stop.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna McMorrin]

An awful lot of organisations and people working in this area, including the Head of Family Justice, are bringing to light what is happening, so I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady.

[Jess Phillips]

On the point about exactly how we will ensure victims are protected within the family court system, I am afraid to say that one of the issues we have faced in the past three years is that when McFarlane says something, the Government say, “No, it’s McFarlane’s responsibility,” then McFarlane says, “It’s the Government’s responsibility,” and on we go. Does my hon. Friend agree that the amendment is about ensuring that some action is taken in this building?

[Anna McMorrin]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need to make sure that something is happening. That is why this amendment and the debate around it are so vital. The amendment will not solve everything in family courts—it is the tip of the iceberg—but we need to make sure that at the very least we have something in this Victims and Prisoners Bill to safeguard the mothers and children who are subjected to continued allegations and abuse through the family court system. That is not for want of trying by the very many organisations that are working hard.

To illustrate why we tabled the amendment, I will quote from a message that was sent to a mother I spoke to. Her son had been placed with an abusive father. He said:

“Mum…Dad bent my fingers back, hit me and pushed me on the floor. He won’t even let me eat lunch today.”

She said to call her, and he said:

“I can’t. I’m in the car and he will hit me if I call you. I have a big purple bruise on my knee.”

Now more than ever, survivors of abuse and their children need our protection and support, and this amendment is the necessary first step in ensuring we do that.

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Eighth sitting)

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 29th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

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

rose—

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

rose—

[Edward Argar]

I will give way first to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley.

[Jess Phillips]

I hear the good words in the Minister’s explanation, but I am still not entirely sure exactly what will happen. Are we going to get local forums to make it better if it is bad? That does not seem enough to me to ensure compliance or any change from the situation we have at the moment.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister. I will come on to how this will work in practice, but I suspect hon. Members may wish to return to it in their contributions to their amendments. I give way to the hon. Member for Rotherham.

--- Later in debate ---

We have not seen any evidence that there have been problems with a lack of co-operation in practice and therefore feel that the additional duty is unnecessary. Under the Bill, agencies will now be under a duty to respond to all recommendations made by the Victims’ Commissioner that are directed at them. That will help to identify and achieve improvements where they are needed. If there are cases where that does not happen as intended, we will work with the Victims’ Commissioner in a constructive way to address engagement issues.

[Jess Phillips]

I just wonder what would happen if we were discussing a school in my constituency—let us say my own children’s school—and Ofsted just got to say, “Yeah, you’ve just got to hope for the best, really. Let’s just hope for the best, with a little bit of improvement.” There are no powers; this process does not go anywhere. I am not sure that I can see how there is any gumption behind any of these particular improvements, other than just, “They’ll respond”.

[Edward Argar]

As I say, our experience is that the Victims’ Commissioner—I suspect that this is by virtue both of the office itself and the strength of personality of all three Victims’ Commissioners—has tended to be successful in obtaining the information they need to do their job and shine a light on particular issues or individual system challenges. Therefore, we do not believe that it is necessary or proportionate to alter their powers further in the way that has been discussed.

We intend for the Victims’ Commissioner to have access to relevant compliance information collected and shared under clauses 6 to 9, both via national governance forums and through the duty on the Secretary of State to publish compliance information. That may not go the full way, but I hope it goes some way to reassuring the hon. Lady that the Victims’ Commissioner will have access to information on the code. We do not believe that additional powers to collect such information are required.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. As I say, I am looking at how we might do this, so I am not in a position to make firm commitments to her, other than that I will bear what she says in mind when we get to the point of being able to do something like this. She made a sensible point and, typically, in doing so she also suggested a possible solution.

Accessibility is hugely important. The code, however brilliant it may end up being, is of limited value if people cannot access it to understand it and know how it relates to them. We know that victims not only need to know about the code, but need to understand it. We recognise the importance of that. We are considering carefully how we can ensure that everyone who needs to understand it can do so. I am happy to work with the hon. Member for Rotherham. My meeting agenda over the summer and in September is getting longer and longer, but I am always happy to spend time with her to discuss such matters.

The hon. Lady’s new clause 5 would also give the Secretary of State the power to make regulations prescribing that criminal justice bodies must signpost victims to appropriate support services and must receive appropriate training, including from specialist domestic abuse services. It is absolutely right that victims should be signposted to appropriate support services. Right 4 under the code contains an entitlement for victims to be referred to support services and to have such services tailored to their needs. Through the new duty on criminal justice agencies to take reasonable steps to make victims aware of the code, more victims should be aware of their entitlements.

I turn to training. Agencies already deliver training on the code to their staff to ensure that they are confident and comfortable sharing it. For example, the national policing curriculum uses interactive and group training methods to deliver training in as impactful a way as possible. That is regularly reviewed and updated as necessary.

[Jess Phillips]

I do not have the data, and I do not expect the Minister to have it at his fingertips, but does he know how many police officers have actually had that training? Less than 50% have been trained on what coercive control is, for example.

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady slightly pre-empts my answer. If that information is centrally held, I will endeavour to get it and write to her with it.

I am also pleased that the College of Policing has developed the Domestic Abuse Matters programme, which has already been delivered to the majority of forces. It was developed in conjunction with SafeLives and with input from Women’s Aid.

In addition, the CPS will work with specialist support organisations to develop bespoke trauma-informed training on domestic abuse to help prosecutors to understand the complexities that victims experience in those crimes. Information on domestic abuse and how to recognise the signs and provide support is also available to HMCTS staff. To increase the impact that the training agencies already deliver, we are using statutory guidance to set out advice regarding appropriate training so that staff working with victims are confident in how to share the code sensitively and effectively at the right time for the victim.

We are confident that for both training and accessibility, statutory guidance under the existing code awareness duty is the most flexible and effective approach. It can set standards while allowing agencies to tailor it for the different needs of agencies, staff and victims, and it can be kept up to date more easily, which enables us to take a continuous improvement approach. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley is right to make the point that we can have fantastic guidance and training, but the key thing is to ensure that it is engaged with and that practitioners take the training on board and—I have used this dreadful word a few times—“operationalise” it in their day-to-day work. It is right that independent agencies have the expertise to decide how best to design and deliver training, rather than the requirement sitting with the Secretary of State. We already have provisions in the Bill and additional measures to address the aims of new clause 5, so I encourage the hon. Member for Rotherham not to press it to a Division.

New clause 11 would place a duty on all agencies with victims code responsibilities to monitor and report on compliance, and a duty on the Secretary of State to report annually to Parliament. I am grateful for the debate we have had, and I absolutely agree that we must monitor and report code compliance information. That is vital to understanding whether victims are getting the service they should. As I mentioned in our debate on a previous group of amendments, in 2019-20 only 23% of victims and 22% of the public were aware of the code, and only 45% of victims felt that the police and other criminal justice agencies kept them informed. That is why the Bill already legislates for new duties on code awareness and compliance in clauses 6 to 11. We therefore consider that new clause 11 is already covered by the existing provisions.

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Sixth sitting)

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Edward Argar]

I mentioned operational partners, and in this context, that refers to partners in the criminal justice system, such as the prosecution authorities, the police and others. I take the hon. Lady’s point about the wider stakeholder and sector support. If she allows me to make a little progress, we will see if it reassures her sufficiently.

Turning to amendments 51 and 52, amendment 51 seeks to ensure that persons who have experienced adult sexual exploitation are explicitly referenced in the definition of a victim. Adult sexual exploitation could be considered to consist of numerous criminal acts, some of which include human trafficking, controlling and coercive behaviour, causing or inciting prostitution for gain, controlling prostitution for gain, and rape and other serious sexual offences. I reassure hon. Members that adults who have been subjected to such criminal conduct are victims under part 1 of the legislation and under the victims code. My concern is therefore that the amendments would duplicate the existing coverage of the definition of a victim of crime. Again, the definition is deliberately broad to avoid inadvertently excluding a particular group or victim through being overly prescriptive.

Amendment 52 is intended to create a definition of adult sexual exploitation. Acts that can constitute adult sexual exploitation are, again, already covered by a number of existing offences.

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

While they are covered by a number of different offences, much like domestic abuse, there is no charge or crime of domestic abuse, yet the Government felt it important to define domestic abuse in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 for all the same reasons that my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham tried to point out: it is currently written nowhere in any Government guidance, or any strategy to tackle adult sexual exploitation. That is what the amendment is intended to address.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. She may well push me in a slightly different direction, but I am always a little cautious of seeking to read across a precedent in one piece of legislation to a range of other areas. There may be occasions when it is universally applicable, but in other cases I would urge a degree of caution.

We have yet to see unequivocal evidence that a single definition or approach would better achieve delivery of our commitment than the current approach. However, I am happy to discuss it further and work with the hon. Member for Rotherham, the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff North, and others between Committee stage and Report. As is the nature of the Committee stage, the amendments were tabled a few days ago—last week—and inevitably, when something significant is suggested, it is important to reflect on that carefully. I intend to reflect carefully on the points that have been made. I will not pre-empt the conclusions of my reflections, but I will engage with the hon. Member for Rotherham, and the shadow Minister if she so wishes, to see what may be possible between Committee stage and Report. On the basis of that commitment to engage, I hope that the hon. Member for Rotherham and the shadow Minister might, at this point, consider not pressing the amendments to a Division.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

I am grateful to the Minister for keeping an open mind. What is needed most is information on the criminal justice process for those family members, which would automatically be afforded under the victims code. I am grateful for his offer to read the report and see whether there is something that we can do. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Jess Phillips]

I beg to move amendment 54, in clause 1, page 1, line 16, at end insert—

“(e) where the death by suicide of a close family member of the person was the result of domestic abuse which constitutes criminal conduct.”

We have all had a long time while the Bill has been going through to campaign, successfully, on various things through various means, including, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood mentioned, around the pre-legislative scrutiny. Those of us who have been fighting for child victims born of rape were pleased to see that concession. Another area that many of us have campaigned on is recognition of people who are victims of homicide but not direct victims. If someone’s daughter is murdered, they are a victim of that crime. Both those concessions have come about, and not dissimilarly to my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham I wish to push the envelope a little further, and talk about those who die by suicide as a direct result of being a victim of domestic abuse.

I met a mother at a memorial service for violence against women and girls. Just yesterday, she emailed me. Her daughter died in 2018. She wrote:

“If my daughter hadn’t met him, she would still be alive, her children still have a mother, me my precious only daughter…Why is the associated link between ‘domestic abuse’ and ‘suicide’ ignored? Overlooked are the ‘compensating’ mechanisms—substance abuse, alcohol, ‘mental health issues’ then used by so called ‘professionals’ as the reason ‘why’ they have taken their lives...the link is the perpetrator and the victim, NOT the substances. They are often used by the victim to ‘escape’ from the relentless mental, physical abuse and torture. They don’t want to die, merely ‘escape’ from the traumatic situations. They are in Hell.”

Families who have lost loved ones to suicide following domestic abuse should be recognised as victims, in the same way as those who lose family members to murder are supported.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. I want to mention the family of Gemma Robinson. Gemma was the victim of a horrific assault by a former boyfriend. She took her own life in 2020 due to the fear of facing her attacker in court. Gemma’s sister, Kirsty, has spoken about the devastating impact of Gemma’s death on the whole family. The family were then left to face the sentencing of the perpetrator, Gemma’s inquest and the domestic homicide review all on their own, without support. Does my hon. Friend agree that Gemma’s case highlights why it is so important that relatives in these types of cases are recognised as victims?

[Jess Phillips]

I thank my hon. Friend. Our hearts go out to Gemma’s family. That is exactly the reason why I tabled the amendment and why the Labour party seeks to have these people recognised. That recognition would allow such relatives to access the support and care they need, and begin to shine a light on a shamefully under-scrutinised and ignored sphere of criminality and wrongdoing.

We do not need to look much further than the facts of the cases and the experiences of the families to realise that those relatives should be recognised and have the support and guidance that that would, or should, bring. The criminality and wrongdoing in those cases, the interaction with court processes and the justice system, and the trauma experienced, make the argument for inclusion clear. Although in many cases, they may not ever get a criminal sanction against the perpetrator, there are inquests and domestic homicide reviews, as my hon. Friend said. Honestly, to be a victim in this country, whether that is one recognised by this Bill or not, is hard work. Imagine doing that work when your daughter or your sister has died.

There are other concerns about why this recognition is important, which are to do with unchecked criminality and wrongdoing. In these heartbreaking cases, where the deceased took her own life—I use the pronoun “she” due to the gendered nature of domestic abuse—there is clear evidence that she was driven to suicide by the abuse she suffered at the hands of a domestic abuse perpetrator.

The feelings of injustice for bereaved families when the abuser escapes all responsibility for the death must be unbearable. Families find themselves in an agonising position of having watched their loved one experience horrendous criminality—violence, abuse, coercive control—and the unrelenting horror day after day, hour after hour, until their loved one was driven by desperation to take their life. Currently, in those cases, criminality is going completely unchecked, un-investigated and unchallenged. Perpetrators remain free to harm again and again. Bereaved families are left feeling failed by the justice system, and the opportunities to address issues and learn lessons are being missed.

There has been one successful prosecution of that type of case. In 2017 R v. Allen, the perpetrator pleaded guilty to manslaughter—if we are relying on cases where men plead guilty, we are on a hiding to nothing—in respect of the death of his former partner, Justene Reece, who had taken her own life after experiencing years of coercive control, stalking and harassment. Justene had left a suicide note explaining that she could not endure her stalker’s behaviour any longer. That case is a clear precedent.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Only last week, we heard from the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, who said that the broader the definition is, the better it will be for victims.

[Jess Phillips]

Absolutely. I have worked with the Domestic Abuse Commissioner. There is a huge area of hidden homicide that we are concerned about, and suicide is one of the areas where we are just not getting the data about how many women are dying because of domestic abuse, unless they are directly killed.

The case that I described provides a clear precedent, and there is hope that more cases will follow, but currently families find very limited access to such justice and answers. It is clear that for such prosecutions to happen, police officers must proactively undertake evidence gathering for domestic abuse offences post death, for example by listening to the concerns of family members, taking witness accounts, reviewing records held by medical, statutory and third sector agencies, and looking through financial records and electronic communications. This is not commonplace in cases of domestic abuse where the victim is alive. It is certainly not commonplace in cases where the victim has died.

The police seem to have a distinct lack of professional curiosity in such cases. In research by Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse and the University of Warwick, titled “An Analysis of Domestic Homicide Reviews in Cases of Domestic Abuse Suicide”, families reported police failing to investigate adequately, police not acting on the information given by families and friends about perpetration of domestic abuse, evidence not being captured, evidence and personal effects of the deceased being returned to the surviving partner or ex-partner, police not considering domestic abuse when attending suicide cases, and a lack of senior police oversight in investigations of suicides.

One family member included in the research submitted 74 exhibits of screenshots and photographs in the aftermath of her daughter’s death, but felt dismissed out of hand by the officer in charge when she presented them. She said:

“I said to him, I’ve brought this because I think it’s important information. Every time he took a piece of paper off me…[he] slammed it on the desk. I said to him, are you not going to look at them? He said, there’s no point…it’s irrelevant…your daughter took her own life…It was like she wasn’t important when she was alive and…she’s not important now she’s dead.”

Other institutions also deny these families any form of justice or an understanding of what happened to their loved one. Take domestic homicide reviews. In many cases, even though the statutory criteria are met, families have to fight tooth and nail to ensure that a domestic homicide review is commissioned, normally only with the help of an advocacy organisation such as AAFDA. Inquests and coroners courts often demonstrate a lack of understanding of domestic abuse. In the research I mentioned, one DHR chair reflected that, in their experience,

“Coroners often see...women as kind of weak, they’re so misguided and they take their own lives, and they should have stood up for themselves and left…So you get that kind of reference to, you know, extreme attention-seeking. And it’s not that. It’s that you’re utterly worn down by someone who often is so cleverly manipulative…I don’t think Coroners understand that at all and the barriers to leaving and all those sorts of things…I don’t think they have an understanding of how all these little things are really damaging.”

Those examples of interactions with criminal justice systems or inquest procedures clearly highlight the crucial need for advocacy and support for families who lose a loved one to suicide following domestic abuse. One family member explained that

“you’re thrust, in a nanosecond your life flips on its axis, and not only are you dealing with the impact of losing someone so precious, especially in circumstances like this…you have to learn a whole new language…and then there’s timeframes, you’ve got to have this done by that…you’ve got this agency asking you for that, you’ve got someone questioning you, the police are calling you up”.

Research has found that having access to support and advocacy is overwhelmingly positive for families, helping them to feel empowered, but for most that support comes about only by luck or lengthy effort on their part. The mental health impact must not be underestimated. The trauma experienced by families is unimaginable. As one professional who works with such bereaved relatives put it, losing a loved one to suicide is

“one of life’s most painful experiences. The feelings of loss, sadness, and loneliness experienced after any death of a loved one are often magnified in suicide survivors by feelings of guilt, confusion, rejection, shame, anger, and the effects of stigma and trauma. Furthermore, survivors of suicide loss are at higher risk of developing major depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicidal behaviors, as well as a prolonged form of grief called complicated grief. Added to the burden is the substantial stigma, which can keep survivors away from much needed support and healing resources. Thus, survivors may require unique supportive measures and targeted treatment to cope with their loss.”

It is clear that families who find themselves in that devastating situation desperately need more support to navigate the complex legal processes and get access to the support they need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley for raising this important issue and for referring, as the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood did, to pre-legislative scrutiny. I hope to have given Committee members some encouragement that on occasion I agree to changes, and perhaps to a different approach from that in the original draft of the Bill.

As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley set out, her amendment 54 would extend the definition of a victim in the Bill explicitly to include families impacted by the death by suicide of a loved one as a result of domestic abuse. In her remarks, the hon. Lady quite rightly went wider than that, highlighting investigatory issues and broader prosecutorial issues. I have—as, I suspect, does every member of the Committee—huge sympathy for the families in the position that she set out. Before I turn specifically to the impact of her amendment, and I wish to touch on some of the support available for them,.

The Ministry of Justice provides police and crime commissioners with grant funding to commission local, practical, emotional and therapeutic support services for victims of all crime types, based on their assessment of needs. The Department for Health and Social Care has committed to publishing a new national suicide prevention strategy later this year and is engaging widely across the sector to understand what further action can be taken to reduce cases of suicide. The strategy will reflect new evidence and national priorities for suicide prevention across England, including actions to tackle known risk factors and targeted actions for groups at particular risk or groups of concern. An additional £57 million is being invested in suicide prevention by March 2024, through the NHS long-term plan.

I agree with the hon. Lady about the importance of the issue. With regard to her amendment, we are not convinced that explicitly extending the definition of a victim of crime in the Bill and the code is the right approach to appropriately support the families. Part 1 of the Bill specifically sets out how victims who have suffered harm as a direct result of criminal conduct are treated by and supported to engage with the criminal justice system. Our view is that that group is largely covered by the Bill’s definition of the bereaved family of a person who has died, including by suicide as a direct result of domestic abuse, which is captured by clause 1(2)(c):

“where the death of a close family member of the person was the direct result of criminal conduct”.

In the context, domestic violence is criminal conduct. I appreciate—this is potentially where the nuance lies, and why the hon. Lady might be pushing for greater clarity—that that will be fact-specific for each case in the circumstances. It is a complicated area and each case will be complicated but, as I say, we believe that clause 1(2)(c) captures this.

I know that we have discussed the need for clarity and awareness about entitlements among victims and agencies. As I am sure the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley is aware from her shadow ministerial role, the Government are consulting on and clarifying the position in the domestic homicide review to formally recognise this cohort of victims. With her permission, I will gently encourage her not to press her amendment at this point, but in the context of the broader work being done I hope she will allow me, in the short term, to write to her with greater clarity on our interpretation of clause 1(2)(c)—she may wish to challenge that in the future, of course; she is entitled to—and to see if we are able to factor in the broader work being done before we reach Report.

[Jess Phillips]

I thank the Minister. I would absolutely welcome it if he wrote to me and the Committee about exactly how clause 1(2)(c) encompasses what I seek, so that those families have an opportunity. It is good when Ministers say things in Committee that we can use to ensure that families get support. I will withdraw the amendment at this stage. I am not always especially keen on the Government, but the level of progress in the area of hidden homicides, certainly under the previous Home Secretary, is to be admired. I do not think that the Government are without concern on the issue of suicide in cases of domestic abuse. Thanks to what the Minister says, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Sarah Champion]

I beg to move amendment 63, in clause 1, page 1, line 16, at end insert—

“(e) where the person is a child under the age of 18 who has suffered harm and is a victim of, or a witness to, criminal conduct.”

--- Later in debate ---

Ultimately, we all want the victims code entitlements to be delivered to victims. As the hon. Member for Cardiff North said, that is not always happening in the right way at the moment. Indeed, that has been the case over many years. Driving improvements in that is a core part of what the Bill is intended to achieve. I suspect we may disagree on the best mechanism to drive that improvement. The hon. Lady said that she wants defined rights to make the code enforceable, and to provide accountability when it is not upheld, which I suspect is what lies behind the four amendments. It is not clear, however, that putting entitlements in the Bill rather than the code would lead to improvements for victims. Our approach elsewhere in the Bill, as the Committee will know, is to ensure that non-compliance is addressed, and that it is easier for victims to escalate complaints when things go wrong.

[Jess Phillips]

Does the Minister agree that if this was written into primary legislation and it did not happen, a victim who sought to challenge that would have a case in law to do so, and would not otherwise?

[Edward Argar]

I will turn to non-compliance and why we believe that the approach that we have set out in the clause is the right one. I suspect that Opposition Members may take a different view, but after making a little progress, I will hopefully address some of their points—whether or not to their satisfaction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

I will speak to amendments 38 and 39, which are linked to the criminal injuries compensation scheme. Victims of violent crime in England and Wales may be awarded compensation under the publicly funded criminal injuries compensation scheme. I have campaigned extensively to reform that scheme and the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority that administers it.

When I started supporting victims of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, it soon became apparent that CICA was simply not fit for purpose. An agency that should have existed to support victims seemed instead to believe that its duty was to find any excuse possible not to make an award. Several constituents were affected by that. Indeed, many had claims rejected on one of the three grounds: first, that they were out of time; secondly, that they themselves had unspent criminal convictions; or, appallingly, thirdly, that they had somehow consented to their own abuse. That last reason was recognised to be deeply wrong and legally contradictory. I am pleased to say that it has now been removed, although not before it caused much harm.

The other two grounds remain in force and are particularly problematic for victims of child sexual exploitation, many of whom may take years to disclose their abuse. The trauma of doing so may further delay launching a claim. Furthermore, a well recognised and understood part of the grooming process is that abusers may involve victims in other criminal activities as a further form of coercive control, which is also seen as blackmail and, indeed, an insurance policy. It goes without saying that we should not be holding symptoms of abuse against victims when determining whether their suffering merits compensation.

Amendments 38 and 39 will ensure that all CSA victims, including online, are entitled to compensation under the CICS and that those with unspent convictions linked to the circumstances of their abuse can access support. The period by which victims can apply for compensation is also extended.

There is broader support for change in the scheme. The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse—IICSA —published its interim report in April 2018. That report, along with the “Accountability and Reparations Investigation Report” published in 2019, made several recommendations to improve access to the scheme for victims and survivors of child sexual abuse. Despite that, concerns about the scheme remain, in that its continued focus on crimes of violence fails to consider that child sexual abuse and particularly online sexual abuse may occur without physical contact.

Under the 2012 scheme, no award is made to applicants who have unspent convictions for offences that resulted in certain sentences or orders. That fails to recognise the impact of child sexual abuse and specifically that abuse may have directly contributed to instances of offending; there is often, for example, a close link between sexual exploitation, grooming and criminal behaviour. There is also a two-year time limit for making a claim. Even though that may be extended where there are exceptional circumstances, such a period is inadequate for victims and survivors of child sexual abuse, who often do not report their abuse until adulthood.

Victim Support strongly believes that the unspent conviction rule unfairly penalises some victims of violent crime, in particular the most vulnerable, such as the victims of child sexual abuse. It says that victims of child sexual abuse, sexual exploitation and grooming are often targeted by their abusers, in part because they are vulnerable, lack adequate support and supervision and may be perceived by offenders as easy to manipulate on those grounds. Such victims are often from challenging backgrounds and therefore, for various reasons, may be more likely to have criminal convictions prior to the abuse taking place. That should not be held against them.

Further, the fact of being abused in itself makes it more likely that a person will themselves go on to commit an offence, either as part of the abuse and under the coercion of the abuser, or in reaction to the abuse. It is now widely recognised that victims of crime have an increased likelihood of committing an offence. The relationship is particularly acute where the individual has suffered sexual abuse. Ministry of Justice data reveals that almost a third—30%—of prisoners experienced emotional, physical or sexual abuse as a child.

The 2008 criminal injuries compensation scheme, which the current scheme replaced in 2012, also set out that an award for compensation would be withheld or reduced to reflect unspent convictions, but it allowed for claims officers to use their discretion if they considered that there were exceptional reasons. That claims officers could use their discretion to decide on levels of reduction was also set out in the accompanying guidance for the scheme, which makes it clear that claims should not be rejected where the convictions are related to their child sexual abuse.

The Government should reinstate the ability of claims officers to use their discretion in this area and remove completely the blanket ban on making any payments to the victims, which is set out in paragraph 3 of annex D to the guidance on the criminal injuries compensation scheme. Victim Support would also support changes to the criminal injuries compensation scheme time limits rule. Currently, claims made outside of the two-year limit can be considered by CICA in exceptional circumstances, but that does not provide enough clarity or certainty for victims and is therefore not fit for purpose. The policy disproportionately affects victims of sexual abuse, who are concerned that their claim may affect their ability to receive justice and that the fact they have made a claim will be used against them in court.

It is welcome that, as part of the review into criminal injuries compensation, the Government undertook a review of the exceptional circumstances clause and found that 63% of cases submitted outside the time limit still received a reward. However, that still shows that over a third of claims submitted outside of the time limit were denied.

Additionally, the Government’s review does not consider the victims who did not submit a CICA claim because they believed they were too late to do so. The court backlogs also mean that victims concerned about applying to the CICS before the trial ends, who are already struggling to cope with the delays, will have the additional risk of being ineligible. I urge the Minister to listen to my constituents, victims, charities such as Victim Support, and the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, and accept the changes.

[Jess Phillips]

I rise to speak to amendment 55, which I tabled to clarify that one of the groups that has now been included in the Bill—that is, children born of rape—will also be able to access the criminal injuries compensation scheme as victims of crime. Many brilliant people have been involved in the campaign to ensure that children born of rape are considered to be victims: Daisy, who has been involved with Daisy’s law; the Centre for Women’s Justice; and the very passionate campaigner and Rotherham sexual exploitation victim Sammy Woodhouse.

I want to read a letter that I received about this issue:

“Dear MP

I hope my email finds you well. I am the son of Sammy Woodhouse. I am aware you have publicly supported my mothers campaign, which I would like to thank you. I am writing you this letter with her help and support as I have never reached out to an MP before, I have done so as this is a campaign that is very close to me.

I wish to express how difficult it has been for me to learn that I was conceived by sexual violence and some of the challenges I have had to face. I want the government to take it seriously and to help others. Not only have I felt very alone but I have struggled with my Identity, my mother was raped by my ‘father’ and he is known as the UK’s most notorious rapist, this alone faced its challenges and left me confused. Emotionally I have closed off and shut down and at times I’ve wanted to scream from the rooftops.

Despite me never being identified publicly, we were known within our community so therefore I was subjected to death threats, followed and had my picture taken, called ‘rape baby’ and told I would also become a rapist. We had to move home and schools and even then people came to our home and posted our address online. I’ve been targeted and lied about on social media, and professionals encouraged me to have a relationship with my father rather than safeguard me. This was all done by the people in our local community even when my mother remained anonymous. I was 12 years old. There are many like me.”

Victims and Prisoners Bill (Fifth sitting)

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 27th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Edward Argar]

I was about to come to that point, so the hon. Lady’s intervention is prescient.

All of the speeches that we have heard have acknowledged that the behaviour that is being referred to is often criminal, even the low-level behaviour. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff North said that if something is thrown in the direction of an individual or if plants are trampled, that would be criminal behaviour. It may not be charged as such, but it would still entitle people to those rights under the code.

Dame Vera’s key point was about who decides what criminal behaviour is, how we ensure that people know that those rights are available to them and that the service providers acknowledge that those individuals are entitled to those rights. The behaviour we have heard about is included, but we do not believe that including it in the Bill in this way is the right approach to address the issue, to raise that awareness and to ensure that people can access the rights that are already there. However, I will turn to that in just a second. The right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood again managed to pre-empt an element of what she thought I would say in my speech, and she is not inaccurate in her presumption.

A point was raised about the previous Lord Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton. My only reflection on that is that, first of all, in my recollection—the right hon. Lady is right that this is going back a while—the articles cited an unnamed source and Government sources. We on both sides of the House have experience of how that can work. That is not official policy, but I will mention, on official policy, that that Lord Chancellor confirmed the content of the draft Bill and the full Bill, so it is not accurate to suggest a U-turn. It was the same Lord Chancellor who confirmed what we are debating today as what he wished to see in legislation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud raised a number of points. We do not believe that a lack of legislation is the challenge here. We believe that there are key aspects, which the hon. Member for Cardiff North rightly highlighted, about raising awareness and the different public authorities and bodies engaging in a concerted manner to tackle the problem—treating it seriously and suchlike—but we do not believe that putting something in the Bill is the right way to raise awareness and to change those behaviours.

My hon. Friend raised some particularly distressing cases that have recently been on social media. I tread warily because I am not a lawyer—I am looking at one or two of the lawyers across the room—but she is right to say that trespass is a civil offence. I want to be careful, because I do not know the details of each of those incidents, but it is quite possible that a number of those incidents reported on social media may well have encompassed elements that were criminal in what was done. However, as a non-lawyer, I am cautious about saying that with any certainty, without knowing the details of the cases. Again, in those cases where there was an element of criminality, those individuals would be encompassed under the provisions for support under the victims code and in the legislation.

As Dame Vera alluded to, a significant number of individuals who have been harmed by antisocial behaviour are already defined as victims under the Bill. The definition as drafted covers a huge range of antisocial behaviour: where the behaviour itself is a criminal offence, such as criminal damage; where the behaviours, when taken together, constitute a criminal offence, such as harassment; or where a civil order has been breached, thereby incurring criminal penalties. In essence, where the antisocial behaviour amounts to criminal conduct, victims harmed by that behaviour can already benefit from measures in the Bill.

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

I was going to intervene on the Minister earlier, when he kept saying that we should not put this in the Bill, to ask, “Why?” If it is already included, why not write the words down?

[Edward Argar]

First, we do not need to do this in the Bill—the points that the hon. Lady makes are essentially two sides of the same coin. I will turn to this in more detail, but we are seeking to be permissive in the breadth of the definition, rather than prescriptive by naming individual groups. Again, that risks causing the effect that she does not want: if we name A, B and C, does that create a hierarchy, and if we miss out D—as this place occasionally does—are we suddenly excluding something unintentionally? We have sought, by criminal conduct and victims of crime, to include as broad a definition as possible. A vast majority of individuals who are sadly victims of antisocial behaviour will be effectively victims of a crime.

The challenge, which I am happy to work with Members on both sides of the House on, is how we can ensure that we address Dame Vera’s key point—in my view, we would not do this on the face of the Bill—which is who decides and how we empower individuals to say, “Police may not have proceeded with it, but I know this is a criminal offence, so I wish to access these services and have a right to do so.” We need to address that key point. I am not sure if that is best done through legislation, but I am happy to work across the House to address that issue.

--- Later in debate ---

Although many perpetrators exploiting children for criminal purposes will be arrested and charged for stand-alone offences, such as supplying a class A substance, they are not held accountable for the harm and damage they have caused those children’s lives. It is abundantly clear that there is a disparity between the number of children being criminally exploited and the number of perpetrators of criminal exploitation being charged under the Modern Slavery Act.

[Jess Phillips]

I think that, last year, four people were charged with child trafficking, and one person was convicted. I believe that last year also saw the highest rate of young boys being trafficked into the system and being recorded in the national referral mechanism. Although the number of victims has gone up over the past 10 years, the number of trafficking convictions has gone down.

[Anna McMorrin]

I thank my hon. Friend for absolutely illustrating the point.

I want to raise a real case of child exploitation. A 15-year-old boy, whom I will call Robbie—not his real name—was picked up with class A drugs in a trap house raid by the police. He was driven back home by police officers, who questioned him alone in the car and used that information to submit an entry to the national referral mechanism, which did not highlight his vulnerability but instead read like a crime report. Robbie subsequently went to court. His national referral mechanism failed, and his barrister, who did not understand the NRM process, advised him to plead guilty, which he did.

[Anna McMorrin]

That is an excellent point. My hon. Friend has absolutely reinforced the point that such children must be included in the Bill as victims.

I move on to talk about Robbie’s experience—as I said, that is not his real name. In June 2019, he was referred to the Children’s Society’s disrupting exploitation programme. The programme helped Robbie challenge the national referral mechanism decision, and those supporting him attended court sessions with him to ensure that his vulnerability was outlined and that he was recognised as a victim, instead of an offender. That enabled him to retract his guilty plea and access vital support. However, that was just one case. He was lucky: he had the Children’s Society programme there to support him. We know that does not happen for the majority of child victims.

[Jess Phillips]

Is my hon. Friend aware that had Robbie arrived on a small boat and been trafficked out of a hotel and into a cannabis factory at the age of 10—Channel 4 has found such a case—he would not be entitled to any support from the NRM under the proposals of the Illegal Migration Bill, even though he would be a 10-year-old child who had been groomed into drug dealing?

[Anna McMorrin]

Absolutely. That illustrates yet more child criminal exploitation. The whole thing is just horrific and absurd, which is why this issue needs to be addressed.

Back to Robbie. As the drugs that he had been selling were confiscated by the police when he was picked up in the raid, there was debt bondage in Robbie’s case, as he now owed the groomer money for the drugs that had been lost. In turn, that resulted in threats to him and his family. The programme then worked with the police to complete intelligence forms and make sure that Robbie’s safety was paramount. It put markers on the home and made sure that the police were aware of the situation, so that they could respond quickly if anything happened. The programme supported Robbie to continue his education.

Amendments 17 and 18 are absolutely vital to make sure that we take the necessary steps to protect vulnerable children and to focus agencies’ attention on the adults who exploit them and are linked to the much, much more serious crimes that are taking place. Protecting children and bringing true criminals to justice—I do not see how anyone, least of all the Government, can object to such a notion. I will push the amendments to a vote later, but I hope the Minister will seek to include them in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

In March this year, N had an episode in which she went missing. When she was located following a sexual assault, the responding police officer informed STAGE that it could not be sexual exploitation because N was over 18. The lack of a legal definition of adult sexual exploitation has allowed N’s abuse to continue and has led to a lack of professional curiosity among key safeguarding services. I say to the Minister—I know he is aware of this—that N’s case is replicated across the country. Many women in other situations do not themselves recognise that they have experienced sexual exploitation, in part due to the fact that there is no statutory definition of adult sexual exploitation.

[Jess Phillips]

I should declare that I am chair of the STAGE group. Is my hon. Friend concerned, as I am, at the disparity when it comes to women who are British citizens? When sexual exploitation is considered as part of human trafficking, a foreign national is far, far more likely to be considered a victim than a British person. In many regards, British victims of sexual exploitation—adults and children—get lesser services.

[Sarah Champion]

Sadly, I am concerned and I absolutely agree. That is partly why we need a definition. The national referral mechanism was mentioned. By moving a person from one side of the street to the other they are trafficked, so they could fall under the national referral mechanism for modern slavery or just be prosecuted. But without a definition, services are not taking a joined-up approach and using the resources already in place.

The same arguments about choice and risky lifestyles in relation to adult victims of sexual exploitation were used in Rotherham. Having a definition would mean police forces being trained in what the definition means. Legal arguments would be put forward, and judges would receive training so that when they saw a young person in front of them they would understand that their behaviour was a symptom of being sexually exploited. There is a domino effect once a legal definition is in place. That is what happened with child sexual exploitation, so I hope that that will happen with adult sexual exploitation. I will come on to child criminal exploitation, but I have said to the Minister what needs to happen with adult sexual exploitation.

Manipulation by perpetrators, cultural expectations and family and community dynamics make it difficult for women to identify that they have experienced abuse. But sadly, sexual exploitation, as I have said, is not widely understood by professionals. It is vital that the Ministry of Justice use the Bill as an ideal opportunity to create a statutory definition of adult sexual exploitation to ensure a consistent understanding and recognition of the ways that sexual exploitation continues and presents itself in adulthood.

Amendments 51 and 52 would be a huge step in the right direction by recognising people who have experienced adult sexual exploitation as victims and entitling them to the crucial support available under the Bill. That must also come, of course, with support and funding for training to be given to police and justice staff to identify the signs of sexual exploitation.

I will now speak in support of amendments 17 and 18, which are about the definition of child criminal exploitation. The amendments would place a statutory definition of criminal child exploitation in law for the first time by ensuring that children who are being exploited are classed as victims under the Bill. Child criminal exploitation is the grooming and exploitation of children into criminal activity. There is a strong association with county lines, but it can also involve moving drugs, financial fraud and shoplifting on demand. That our laws catch up with our reality and realise the harm and damage that those criminals are causing children is long overdue. The true scale remains unknown, as many children fall through the cracks, but we have some evidence that indicates the scale of the abuse.

The former Children’s Commissioner estimated that 27,000 children are at high risk of gang exploitation. During 2020, 2,544 children were referred to the national referral mechanism due to concerns about child criminal exploitation, and 205 of those cases involved concerns about both criminal and sexual exploitation. The pandemic has only made the situation worse. Children in Need reported that during the pandemic children faced an increased risk of online grooming or exploitation due to time online, not being at school or college, and increased exposure to harmful online content such as inappropriately sexualised or hyper-violent content.

In the evidence sessions last week, the current Children’s Commissioner fully supported introducing a statutory definition of child criminal exploitation. She explained that the situations facing the children affected are very complex and that police make many feel like criminals rather than victims, as my Front-Bench colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North, highlighted.

It is clear that thousands of children are being criminally exploited every day and the response for those children must be immediate and properly resourced. Experts believe that a lack of understanding of child criminal exploitation prohibits an effective and joined-up response. The lack of a single definition means that local agencies respond differently to this form of exploitation across the country. The Children’s Society data shows that a third of local authorities had a policy in place to respond. That means that two thirds do not. Given the nature of this exploitation, a national shared understanding is imperative. That is what a definition would provide.

Let me for one moment contrast the situation with that of the response to child sexual exploitation, which I spoke to on a previous group of amendments. Police officers across the country say to me that, because the police and politicians understand CSE, the police get resources specifically to address CSE. That is great and I support that provision, but it takes away from the resources we need for CCE. They are treated as two separate issues, even though the same gangs often promote both forms of exploitation. They are using these children for criminal exploitation, whether that be sexual, drug running or shoplifting. Accepting the definition would mean that we see criminal exploitation of children and sexual exploitation of children just as “exploitation of children” and we can pool the resources and expertise to try to prevent this crime.

Many children who are criminally exploited receive punitive criminal justice responses, rather than being seen as victims. Again, I take colleagues back; that is what happened 25 or 15 years ago with child sexual exploitation victims.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

British Transport police are the specific police for incidents that happen on the railways and transport networks. Even if we were looking at the Metropolitan police—I am going back and forth to London—the scale of the issue is so enormous that there is not the capacity to deal with it.

[Jess Phillips]

As somebody who has called the police in those circumstances, we are talking about a nine-day wait for anyone to come out. That is a problem.

[Sarah Champion]

Minister, it seems a ridiculously simple act to accept these two definitions, but the cascading of support and recognition within the victims code and our justice system would be enormous as a consequence. I have seen that at first hand with child sexual exploitation. I urge the Minister to look seriously into the two definitions.

Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Fay Jones.)

Victims and Prisoners Bill (First sitting)

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

I would like to declare, in the interests of full transparency, that prior to my election I was a non-executive director of what was then Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service and a member of the Sentencing Council. I was also a magistrate for 12 years and previously a member of the independent monitoring board of HMP Young Offenders’ Institution Feltham. I hope that covers the full gambit.

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

In that case, I should probably declare that I have run sexual violence services, domestic abuse services, female offender services, human trafficking services and sexual exploitation services, as well as being the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on children at the centre of the family court and the vice chair of the all-party parliamentary group on domestic abuse. I think that is it.

[The Chair]

Thank you. I am happy to take declarations throughout proceedings if any Member thinks there is something they need to declare as we go through.

I welcome our first witness this morning, Nicole Jacobs, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner. We will now hear her oral evidence.

Before calling the first Member to ask a question, I remind all Members that questions should be limited to matters within the scope of the Bill and that we stick to the timings in the programme motion that the Committee has agreed. For this session, we have until 9.55 am. Could I ask Nicole Jacobs to introduce herself for the record, please?

Nicole Jacobs: Good morning, everyone. I am Nicole Jacobs. I am the Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales.

[The Chair]

Thank you. Jess Phillips will ask the first question.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Hello, Nicole. Thank you for coming in. First and foremost, can we have your overall feeling about the Bill? What is your overall assessment of the Bill and how it will or will not move things forward for victims?

Nicole Jacobs: Thanks for having me today. In general, I have huge hopes for this Bill. If amended and changed, which I am sure we will talk about, it could really produce momentous change for victims of domestic abuse. I am here to talk about victims of domestic abuse. You obviously have a wider scope of victims to consider, but victims of domestic abuse are highly prevalent; in my mind, that also includes and has a very strong link to so-called honour-based abuse, forced abuse, sexual violence, stalking and harassment, because, for the vast majority of people in those categories, you would find that their perpetrator is either a current or former partner.

It is hugely important to think about, in each and every part of the Bill, where we could improve and how we could go further to make it more meaningful on the ground. That is my interest. As things stand now, my topline view is that there is a lot to work with here, particularly regarding the duty to collaborate. That has huge potential to transform services on the ground, if the provisions are implemented correctly, which is what we need to spend some time talking about.

[Jess Phillips]

Q How do you feel that the duty to collaborate in the Bill could be strengthened? You have said that it is a good base to start on. How do you feel that we could strengthen it as the Bill goes forward?

Nicole Jacobs: First, I hope you will consider the mapping report that my office produced; I will tell you a little about it. When I became commissioner, that was one of the responsibilities of my role, and last year we produced a mapping report of services for England and Wales. That is a very important document, partly because we have not had one before. It brought together information from commissioners, from domestic abuse services on the ground, and, really importantly, from thousands of victims who fed back about their experiences of seeking services in the last three years—on what they wanted, what they got, and what is actually out there. We have not had that information at our disposal before. We have a sense of what is out there and we have other types of reports, but this is pretty comprehensive.

The report showed how huge the gaps are. Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 brought us the accommodation-based duty, which of course was a huge step forward, but we have to appreciate that 70% of victims go to community-based services, which is what you are looking at in this duty to collaborate and how it is funded. We know that the vast majority of victims—over half—were not able to find services that they wanted or needed in that category. There are higher rates when it comes to services for children, and lots of variability regionally in services for children and domestic abuse. We are looking at huge gaps in mental health counselling and therapeutic support, and in services for perpetrators to change.

The stark reality that I want to get across to you—although you will know this, because you have constituents—is that there are huge gaps. We have come a long way in our thinking and our legislation about domestic abuse, but the services are not sustainably funded. That is simply the reality. I ran services myself, before I was in this role. To give you a sense of things, the charity I ran had about 34 different funding streams, which were always cutting off, with cliff edges at various points. It was a struggle to make ends meet and to keep services continuing. That is what the services are doing. They are not sitting in core budgets. Money is coming to them—and the good news is that, in particular in the past few years, we have had great money through the Ministry of Justice and other sources—but it comes to the local area in a not very coherent way for the services to plan and think about filling the gaps.

The duty to collaborate, therefore, is potentially truly transformational, but to be so it is not as simple as saying, “You must collaborate”, which is how I read some of the Bill as it stands. Services will have to plan for collaboration and bring partners together, while sometimes the geographical mix does not fit exactly and certainly the timescales do not fit. There has to be a joint strategic needs assessment, which sounds administrative, but it is the only way to make the best of such duties. That takes some time. Under part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act, money was set aside for the needs assessment of housing and accommodation-based planning, and we have seen that in other types of things, like our serious violence duty. A very practical way to make sure that the duty is implemented well is to have the joint strategic needs assessment.

Also, very importantly, when partners get together and look around the table, cobbling everything together and getting everything in line as perfectly as they can, inevitably they will find that they do not have funding for certain things that we would all agree that we need—services for children particularly, or for domestic abuse. They will then need some kind of mechanism to feed back to us here and to decision makers in Government to say, “We have this gap. How is it going to be filled?” There has to be some kind of responsibility back and forth. That is the only way we will move in any kind of meaningful way to fill the gaps.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Would you say that the Bill needs to be amended to be specific about strategic needs assessments in the case of the duty to collaborate?

Nicole Jacobs: Absolutely, and there needs to be some kind of language that creates a responsibility for when the gap remains and how it is dealt with at the national level.

One other quick thing to point out from the mapping is the need for “by and for” services. What I mean by that is services that are very specific to particular groups: deaf and disabled survivors; black and minoritised survivors; LGBTQ+ survivors. What we found in our mapping is good news—that they are, by any measure, the most effective services for victims. We can see that because in our survey we could compare people who got to those services and how they felt with people who did not. That is very unusual, because usually we hear from reports and surveys of all people who made it to a service; it is great to hear about that effect, but in this mapping we could compare the two groups, so we can see how effective the services are.

We can also imagine how those services could be not effectively funded at the local level, because their geographic footprint might be a little larger, so the planning needs to be more regional or national. Another thing that has to be recognised at this stage is that there is a need for a “by and for” pot, which would help to supplement what is then implemented locally.

[Jess Phillips]

Q I have three more quick points. Do you feel that the Bill in any way protects victims outside our criminal justice system—in some of the instances you just mentioned, for example? This is a justice Bill. What about in the family courts?

Nicole Jacobs: Certain parts of it could. Of course, that is highly dependent on what kinds of services are out there and what they are funded to do. On the definition of an independent domestic violence adviser and an independent sexual violence adviser, that work really needs refining, as does the duty to collaborate in terms of community-based services. You are absolutely right: most victims do not report to the police. The reality is that it is probably one in six. We published a report where we scoped specifically which community-based services are oriented to criminal and family court proceedings. For the family court, it is much less—around 18%. We can send that to the Committee.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Would you like to see something more specific in the Bill about support needed in the family court in cases of domestic violence?

Nicole Jacobs: I would, and I would go even further. You will spend a lot of time in this Committee hearing from people who will tell you about how to correct the criminal justice response as if it starts only with our statutory partners—the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and others. I beg you to realise—I have done this work myself—that the real meaningful work for a victim is when you have the community-based service, the IDVA or ISVA, in the mix and interacting with the police and those partners on a daily basis. That is where the problem solving is. You will get to a point where you will not have to worry as much about invoking the victims code because everything is taken care of.

[Jess Phillips]

Q On IDVAs and ISVAs, there are specific clauses in the Bill with regard to independent domestic violence advisers and independent sexual violence advocates, as we used to call them—call the “A” whatever you want. There has been some pushback from the sector with regard to the need to define an IDVA and an ISVA, and that it forgets all the other community-based support—floating support, housing support and everything else—and that putting everything under an IDVA umbrella is a dangerous thing to do. What is your view on that?

Nicole Jacobs: That is a really important point. Imagine that you are on a team at a local level—that was my reality before I came into this role. In central London, in the year before I was appointed, 4,000 victims were referred to the service. They cannot be supported by a team of IDVAs as if that is all that is needed. The most successful teams are ones that are surrounded by other types of role that recognise that not all people will interact with the police or the criminal justice system, but they will need help and very practical support. I do not know whether I am putting that in the right way.

These roles have huge caseloads, just like a lot of our frontline services. They cannot be everything to everyone. A big step forward in the process would be to carve out and be clear. I am not as concerned about what roles are called; it is about the skills and knowledge that one needs to be at the table advocating with and alongside victims in the criminal justice system and other systems—housing, health and children’s social care. What are the skills and knowledge, and what tables should they sit at? The best work that I have ever done was when I was in a working system where I knew that there was an operational group with the police, the CPS and others that was oriented to that work. You could problem-solve. You could bring issues to the table that everyone grappled with together. You cannot do that without the advocate for the victim being in the mix and being supported to do that.

There is another thing that, if it were in the statutory guidance or provisions, would allow a huge step forward. We have done a lot of funding of these roles, but not a lot of development of what that really means. What is the salary? What are the skills and knowledge? What is the practice development for this type of criminal justice advocacy or family court advocacy? That would move us substantially forward. Those are all possibilities that we can achieve in the Bill if we get the guidance, funding and language right.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Finally, you are an independent person, no doubt, but you work very closely alongside the Home Office, and I am sure that you have worked with the Ministry of Justice as well. What is your view of the sudden, last-minute—sorry, I should not put judgment into this. What is your view of the inclusion of part 3 of the draft Victims Bill in this Bill? As one of the nation’s leading victims’ advocates, were you aware that the Victims Bill was no longer going to be the Victims Bill and was going to be something else?

Nicole Jacobs: No. I had heard something along the lines of there being an interest in making sure that there were improvements to parole. I was surprised, and I understand the arguments made about the optics of it. On a practical level, I feel strongly that we really have to achieve the ambition of the Bill.

On the parole reforms, I talk to families, particularly bereaved families, and they often do not have a very good experience of the parole system, in terms of feeling informed and feeling that their concerns about release are being dealt with. One of the things that I am most curious about regarding the last-minute changes is how strong the parole provisions will be and how the family liaison care will be improved. I am very interested in what mental health assessments will be required when prisoners are released who have committed domestic abuse or murder. You are right: my thinking about this is probably less developed, because this was added on quite quickly.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

Q I have questions on two issues. The definition of victim in the Bill is quite broad in some ways. What do you make of that? Is that a good idea, because it wraps up categories of individual who previously would not have been included, or does it run the risk of widening the category so much that you have difficulty providing the core service that you were talking about?

Nicole Jacobs: I think broader is really positive. If you were to limit the definition to people who are accessing criminal justice remedies, then when it comes to domestic abuse, for example, that would narrow it way too much. Of course, the Domestic Abuse Act has a definition of children as victims in their own right. I am quite comfortable with the definition and feel good about what it is signalling, which is that in the victims code we want support for all victims, regardless of whether they engage with the police, for example. Services should be there.

One of my main concerns when it comes to genuinely providing services for all is that with domestic abuse, you are still leaving out migrant survivors and people who are in this country as students or with some other visa status; they have trouble accessing domestic abuse services. That could be fixed quite simply by allowing recourse to public funds for domestic abuse services for the period when a migrant is here—often victimised by a citizen here, let’s keep in mind. Having the provision of care that any other victim has: that is the one key thing I would highlight.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna McMorrin]

Q Should that duty include other victims of crime?

Jayne Butler: Potentially, yes. It is not necessarily my area.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Just to give a sense of the duty to collaborate, what currently does not exist and what, I suppose, the ambition is for what will exist in the future, can you tell me—you do not have to have the exact data—how many of your members of Rape Crisis across the country have any funding from mental health services to run specialist trauma-based services for victims of rape?

Jayne Butler: If it is one, I will be surprised. It is probably not—

[Jess Phillips]

Q I knew that was the answer; I just wanted to hear you say it. What about public health and sexual health services across the country?

Jayne Butler: Not that I am aware of.

[Jess Phillips]

Well, there is one.

Jayne Butler: Okay. Thanks Jess.

[Jess Phillips]

Q That is just to get a sense of what is currently not being commissioned.

Hannana, I will come on to you. My first question is: do you think that migrant victims of domestic abuse are currently included in the Bill?

Dr Siddiqui: Definitely not. The whole Bill is lacking, properly and in any meaningful way, any inclusion of protected characteristics. Black and minority women, for example, are not included, and migrant victims are definitely not included. The migrant victims should be central to the victims code, the definition of the victim and throughout the Bill. It is the only way that we can ensure all victims are provided for by the Bill.

[Jess Phillips]

Q Would a migrant victim on a student visa who has just been raped and beaten by her husband have the same access to the code as I would if it were to happen to me?

Dr Siddiqui: No. I think that most migrant victims do not approach the police or the criminal justice system to report domestic abuse and other forms of violence, primarily because they can be treated as an immigration offender and become criminalised, or they can be arrested, detained and deported. The fear of deportation is often the reason that prevents migrant victims coming forward. That is why a firewall, which is a total separation of the data sharing between the police and immigration enforcement, is absolutely necessary in order for them to come forward.

[Jess Phillips]

Q So in order for the statutory nature of the victims code in part 1 of the Bill to be able to be accessed by all victims in our country, regardless of their status, you would say that there needs to be a firewall that stops immigration enforcement being informed when somebody comes forward.

Dr Siddiqui: Yes, there has to be a firewall and other legal reforms—for example, around no recourse to public funds. That needs to be lifted, so that victims can go to statutory agencies such as the police for help and support without the fear that they will be destitute as well as deported.

[Jess Phillips]

Q More broadly, on the issue of ISVAs and IDVAs, as we discussed—I think you were here when Nicole was speaking—how do you feel about the Bill’s focus on IDVAs and ISVAs? How many IDVAs and ISVAs work in “by and for” services?

Dr Siddiqui: There are hardly any. I mean, I would say that there should not be a statutory definition of IDVA and ISVA because it excludes most advocacy services that we have in community-based organisations, including “by and for” services. Southall Black Sisters, which is a pioneering organisation in advocacy services, does not fit the current MOJ model, which is very criminal-justice focused and largely looks at high-risk cases. We provide holistic services for victims of domestic abuse and a lot of that is advocacy work that sits outside the current definitions. You know, IDVAs and ISVAs also need development. They need guidance and improvement in pay and conditions. But I do not think that that needs to be done through a statutory definition. They definitely need more funding and you definitely need to give more funding for the “by and for” services with a wider definition of what an advocate is.

[Jess Phillips]

Ellen, can you hear me? I do not know whether I should make this declaration, but Ellen went to the same school as me. Ellen? Okay, I cede the floor if Ellen cannot hear me.

[The Chair]

If Ellen comes back online and we have time, I will bring you back in, Jess.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Jess Phillips Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 15th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that important case on behalf of her constituent. I will develop those points in due course, but let me make a core point first. We have gone from creating the important victims’ entitlements in the code to wanting to ensure that they have a profile, a prominence and an accountability, so that if things go wrong—and from time to time things will go wrong; that happens in any system—people can be truly held to account, and where agencies are failing that is made plain for all to see.

We have also strengthened the system of special measures, completing a national roll-out of pre-recorded examination and cross-examination for victims of rape and sexual offences. That spares them the ordeal of giving evidence in a live trial and having to stand in the same room as their alleged attacker. Really importantly, there has been the introduction of more independent sexual and domestic abuse advisers. These are specialists trained to support vulnerable victims through the justice process. From just the odd pilot scheme pre-2010, there are now over 700 working up and down the country to support victims, and we are rolling out 300 more. It is all part of an unprecedented investment in victim and witness support services, quadrupling 2010 levels.

That is the context. The difference between a decade ago and now is stark. Following those crucial advances, we are now taking steps to secure the entitlements and raise yet further the standards we expect the criminal justice system to deliver for victims. First, the Bill will enshrine the key principles of the victims code in law and provide a framework for the code in regulations, centred around the 12 key entitlements that victims can expect. That will ensure that the good practice I mentioned earlier, which has taken root in many courts and CPS offices around the country, becomes standard practice. The Bill will give these entitlements the profile, the prominence and the weight they deserve and ensure that they cannot be watered down by future Governments. It will place agencies within the criminal justice system, including chief constables, the CPS, British Transport police and others, under a new duty to make victims aware of the code so that every victim knows what they are entitled to.

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

The right hon. and learned Gentleman talks about what was enshrined in the code, which he said happened in 2020. In 2021—I have just checked the date on my phone—I found out that somebody had been convicted of harassing and threatening me. I found out about it in The Guardian, so the code was certainly not enshrined in that particular courtroom in Birmingham, which I mention as he is leaning on Birmingham courtrooms. What right would I have in this Bill to any recourse and what would happen to the people who failed to inform me?

[Alex Chalk]

The hon. Lady should not have found out in a newspaper. She should have been kept updated and informed. If she would like to come to speak to me about that, I will find out what went wrong in that case. On her specific point, what I think is exciting and heartening about the Bill is that it contains a duty on the Secretary of State and police and crime commissioners not just to promote awareness of the code—important though that is—but to promote compliance. If there is not compliance, there is also a duty, effectively, to publish that, so that it is plain for everyone to see. The local PCC will be publishing that, which means that the hon. Lady can get some accountability. I reiterate that if she wants to come to speak to me, she must not hesitate to do so. In fact, knowing her, I know that she would not hesitate to speak.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

I could not agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman more. What I would also ask is that people in that situation, especially those who murder their wife and the mother of their children, should also have their parental rights taken away. Why is that not in the Bill?

[Alex Chalk]

As the hon. Lady knows, we have discussed these issues at some length in a different context, and she should know that I am ready to continue that conversation.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller). I fully back her calls; as the Bill goes into Committee, I am sure we will work across the House to improve some elements it.

I find myself in the unenviable position of being ready to critique quite a bit of the Bill—not necessarily because of what is in it, but because of what is not in it. I say “unenviable” because without doubt the Secretary of State, who is not currently in his place, and the Minister have open ears for the things being said in this Chamber. The Secretary of State alluded to my contact with him over the weekend; I found him to be incredibly helpful about some difficult cases, specifically around the family court. I suppose I might focus my attention and ire about what is missing on the previous Secretary of State rather than the current one, who has been in post for a couple of weeks and I am not entirely sure has had the time to properly put himself into the Bill. I look forward to seeing that happen as we go through Committee.

We all agree that we do not want victims of crime to be left in terrible situations. We do not want there to be a postcode lottery or people who have suffered crimes not to get justice in this country—I do not doubt that for a second when it comes to the vast majority of people in this House. Unfortunately, however, when politics intervenes I sometimes see a huge amount of headline and very little frontline going on. Some of the things missing from the Bill need to be put into it, to make some of the Prime Minister’s words mean something more than a cracking headline in the Express. We have to work to get that to be the case. I will go over some of the things that should be included to make the Prime Minister good on some of his words.

I very much hope that sexual exploitation is not a wedge issue, but one that we would all focus on getting right. Recently, the Prime Minister talked about there being an element of charge around the duty to report in cases of sexual exploitation. If people fail on their watch as professionals to act collectively to report cases of sexual exploitation or any form of child abuse, they should be subject to a standard that they have to live by. The issue has been consulted on three times in the last 10 years—why on earth is it not in the Bill? The Prime Minister took to various plinths and said that he wanted it to happen. “Crack on!” would be my advice.

Nothing was released on the day the Prime Minister went out to talk about sexual exploitation, following years of many different inquiries from all over the country and amazing work by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). Why is none of it reflected in the Bill? Why is there nothing about children living in unregulated accommodation or about powers to change how we deal with the sexual exploitation of British children? I feel that there are huge gaps when it comes to things we have been promised—merely headline, rather than frontline.

The other area that is everybody’s favourite wedge issue —one that the Prime Minister certainly wants to lean on constantly—is the idea of specialist women-only services, which have become the absolute tour de force of a thing that people want to defend. Let me say what is happening across our country because of a commissioning environment created over the last decade. Specialist women-only services have given way to generic services that could offer a lower contract price in local authority areas. Nothing in the Bill says what specialist women’s services are—women do not even get a mention. Nothing in the Bill says what a specialist sexual violence or domestic abuse service is.

I am not talking about a Johnny-come-lately, “We noticed that people care about domestic abuse so we’ll set up a random domestic abuse charity and make it for everybody.” In the last 10 years, the commissioning environment created in local authorities, and police and crime commissioners, have seen specialist women-only domestic abuse services being told that they absolutely have to see men and will lose their contracts if they do not. Why on earth would we not just commission specialist men’s services if that is what we wanted? We want specialist LGBT services in this space, so why on earth would we not have a strategy to commission them?

What is happening in the broader area that I represent—not my constituency per se—is that contracts are given to generic housing associations or broader victims’ charities. I have a case of a woman who has been taken to eight multi-agency risk assessment conferences; she has been risk-assessed as being at high risk of harm and death eight times. Yet the same agency—apparently a specialist domestic abuse service; one I had never heard of—is also now supporting the perpetrator, who is claiming to be a victim of domestic abuse. It is completely and utterly dangerous to provide that kind of “specialist” service.

If the Prime Minister cared to make more of a headline out of the argument about women-only spaces, the Bill could make it incredibly clear what we mean by specialist women-only domestic and sexual violence services. I implore the Minister to make that happen. There is nothing that says what a specialist agency is. Even the duty to collaborate—honestly, I have heard so many serious case or domestic homicide reviews that say that people did not collaborate! It is not true: people do collaborate, but no one acts. This is about action. People talk to each other all the time. Agencies are constantly passing things on one to another, but people have to actually act and feel empowered to do something with the information.

The Secretary of State, a man I deeply like and respect, said a number of things earlier. The general patter in this place would make it seem that there are independent domestic abuse and independent sexual violence advisers everywhere, as far as the eye can see. That is laughable—in the area where I live, the wait for one at the moment would be at least a year, and they are rationed according to whether someone has come forward to the police. When I did the job, that was absolutely not the case—the victim did not have to be in an active process of police complaint to get access to an ISVA service, but that is exactly what is happening now across our country. The idea that IDAAs and ISVAs are everywhere or that there is anywhere near enough of them is for the birds.

The Secretary of State also said that of course young people should be able to access therapeutic support, to which I say, “Chance would be a fine thing!” I have tried to refer somebody who has been sexually exploited and is suffering from very severe suicide ideation to child and adolescent mental health services, for example. I have then been told that the assessment process will take two and a half years. It is great that the third-party thing that many in the House have campaigned for has come into force. Now let us get some counsellors for people to go to, so that there are some notes to go by. That might be an idea.

Many of us will have seen the letter today from Charlie Webster, a friend of many of us in this Chamber, and the story of her friend Katie who took her life after not being able to overcome the trauma of her situation. That is the reality on the ground.

[Dame Maria Miller]

I hear what the hon. Lady is saying about the availability of ISVAs in her area and about their only being connected with police cases, but should she not push back against that? There are three ISVAs in my local hospital, and they are certainly not connected with crimes; they would be called on by the staff in the emergency department as needed.

[Jess Phillips]

In fact, my area was the first in the west midlands to have ISVAs in a hospital, the Queen Elizabeth. I was one of the commissioners. What I want to see in a Bill such as this is not just a duty to collaborate, but a duty to commission. Every local authority area in the country, and every health provider, whether it is a public health provider, a mental health provider, an independent board, or whatever the bloody hell we call them this week—PCCs, PCGs—I apologise for swearing, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Let us just rewind to “whatever”.

[Jess Phillips]

Whatever we call them this week, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The vast majority of those bodies do not commission a single support service anywhere in the country to deal with sexual or domestic abuse. In the constituencies of nearly all those who are in the Chamber today, there will be a sexual health service with no ISVAs. How is it possible to run a special sexual health service without them? The worst offender, though, is mental health services. It is unimaginable that there should be mental health services in this country that do not have specific mental health provision for victims of trauma such as sexual violence or a lifelong experience of abuse and victimisation, but most of them do not.

There may well be more ISVAs funded from the centre than there have been previously, but those funded by local authorities and police forces throughout the country have been decimated. We give with one hand and take away with another. The decimation of local authority budgets over many years has undermined victims’ services to the point where specialisms no longer really matter, and there is a race to the bottom in lots of commissioning. I would want the Bill to reflect what specialism actually means, rather than just listening to people caring about it when it makes for good headlines—that is absolutely no criticism of anyone who is in the Chamber at the moment.

I want to make two more points specifically about things that are missing from the Bill, and what we in the Labour party will be pushing for. One, which I mentioned to the Secretary of State earlier, is Jade’s law. The Bill massively misses an opportunity in some areas—well, all areas—of the family court, which is diabolical for victims of crime, to the point where I think it is the worst part of our justice system with regard to those victims. There is a specific opportunity to say that, if someone has been sent to prison for the murder or manslaughter—so many of these cases go for manslaughter, but let us say the killing—of the other parent, they should never be entitled to parental responsibility. If I were to go out into the street and tell people that a father who had murdered a mother is allowed to decide whether the child could go to counselling, for example, they would think I was a mad, swivel-eyed feminist. However, that is the law of the land in our country and we have to do something to end that ridiculous injustice.

The Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), did a fine and decent service to everyone in the Chamber with his critique of part 3. I look forward to the conversations in Committee, but I think it important to say now that this was always meant to be the victims Bill, and it has been subverted somewhat to become the victims and prisoners Bill.

We have already had conversations about Hillsborough and unfair arms with regard to legal aid and support. Currently, part 3 provides the opportunity for appeal and review, and I am not sure that anyone would argue with that, but what comes alongside the appeal and review is a lengthy process that victims—for example, mothers of murdered daughters and fathers of murdered sons—have to go through without a penny piece of support, or anything extra, but there is money to support the perpetrators. The only allocation of actual funding in this document is for the prisoners bit, not the victims bit.

That is not what the House has been pushing for 10 years. That is not what we asked for and it is not what we should have got. I look forward very much to working with the Ministers to make the Bill considerably better than it is now, as we would all want.

Family Court Reform and CAFCASS

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Westminster Hall

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

I stand here to give a general primal scream on behalf of what I will say are thousands of cases that I have seen over the past seven years of victims of domestic abuse being, not to put too fine a point on it, abused by the family courts. We allow the system to go on largely in secret, shrouded in total secrecy, but it is opening up slightly now thanks to the efforts of some incredibly good investigative journalism and some incredibly brave victims of rape who allowed their cases to be the test cases to enable that transparency.

I cannot sit in front of another mother who has been beaten, raped, abused, coerced, and has had a court in our country take her children from her and given them to the man who raped, beat and abused her. It must be about five or six years ago that Women’s Aid produced a report called, “Nineteen Child Homicides”, which cites cases from the previous 10 years of 19 children murdered following the decision of a family court to place them with a violent and abusive father. I pay huge tribute to the families who were involved.

We are two years on from the harm review—it might be longer, but the covid years make it hard to remember how many years it has been; I am really only 39, because I do not count the covid years. Everyone working in this building was pleased to see the harm review, which came out of a very extensive piece of work by the Government. I take my hat off to them for doing it. However, it dodged one vital issue, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi), to whom I am grateful for securing the debate: the issue of a pro-contact culture. We need fundamentally to undermine the idea that it is better for a child to have contact with both parents when one of them is abusive and violent. Often people will say to me, “These people aren’t necessarily abusive and violent towards the children”, but I think you are a bad father if you are abusive and violent towards the mother of your child. That is fundamental for me.

In the vast majority of cases that I have handled in my lifetime, which are into the tens of thousands, mothers want fathers to have some form of contact with, or access to, their child. It is not until we come to the family courts that that becomes completely and utterly distorted, and women are cited for being insane. If I had been raped, beaten and abused for decades, I might take medication for anxiety. That has not happened to me, but I do take medication for anxiety, which could be used to remove a child from a mother. She will be called mad, hysterical or bad in a family court, even though social services might consider her to be an exemplary mother. In the family courts, fancy lawyers—as suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), it is unfortunately still the case in the world we live in that men have more money than women—argue that women are mad.

We have allowed the situation to get to the point that any woman who tries to protect her child from a violent and abusive partner will be accused of parent alienation, which will work against her, so what we are now asking women to do is not safeguard their children in order to have access to them. There is a perverse incentive in the system that says, “If you and your children are being abused by this man, don’t mention it, because if you do, you will have parent alienation thrown at you.” There is absolutely no efficacy in what is being described as parent alienation.

On efficacy, I wish to point out that the people on whom we rely to make the judgment of parent alienation might as well be my milkman. That is literally how qualified they are. My milkman is a lovely fella who has six kids, and I would trust him more. We have specialists being paid huge amounts of taxpayers’ money, and operating in courts across our country—with a specific focus, it seems, on the south, which I presume is because people have more money to spend on such things down here—who are not psychologists. It might as well be my milkman, but they are saying, “Yes, we’re seeing signs of parent alienation”, and there is no regulation of this. The head of the family courts division has made it incredibly clear that it is up to the Government to deal with this issue. It is up to the Government to ensure that there is regulation of expert milkmen—I feel like I am taking milkmen down now, but they are perfectly good people—and expert witnesses in our family courts.

[Siobhan Baillie]

It is always important to listen to the hon. Member. One of the things that the president of the family division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, has done recently is open up the family courts for reporting pilots. That is an incredibly good step, because it will shine a light not only on what is going on with people having representation or not having representation, but on the experts who are being put forward. Even though there is work to be done, there is active effort from the top of the family division to make changes, and I hope she can see that.

[Jess Phillips]

I absolutely agree. Sir James Munby, in his final year as head of the family division, seemed to do a sort of swansong in which he said, “I am going to do something about this, recognising that the many brilliant legal minds who work in the family court know where the problems are.” In fact, it is not just victims I am representing and speaking for in this primal scream, but the hundreds of solicitors and judges who get in touch with me all the time to tell me about the terrible, broken problems in our family court system.

As McFarlane has laid out, the Government have to undertake a piece of work. The family court’s hands are tied, and it is for the Government—the ball is in their court—to say what they are going to do about unregulated experts. Members should bear in mind that I am a genuine expert on domestic abuse, with years and years of training, and I have been refused entry to family courts when I have sought to attend with victims—maybe I would get in if I did a milk round.

I am fairly certain that, in my time in this building, I will, alongside others, advance changes around domestic abuse. I feel confident about that, but I am starting to lose confidence that we will ever do enough to change the family courts. The hon. Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) mentioned the pilots, which I am sure the Minister will address. They are just pilots at the moment, and they seem to be working well, but I think that they need to go further. There needs to be a change into the gladiatorial; there needs to be much more sense of ongoing inquiry throughout such cases.

Practice direction 12J, which states that there is no presumption of contact in cases of domestic abuse, is not worth the paper that it is written on because it is hardly ever used. If it is not being used in cases involving convicted rapists, we have to ask ourselves serious questions about whether the situation that we have at the moment is working.

I just want to know from the Government when we can expect the outcome of the review into a pro-contact culture, and what the hold-up is. Why has a single point, on pro-contact culture, taken two years in the harms review? I have written to the Justice Secretary about this, and I have not yet heard back—I will cut him some slack, because it was only about two weeks ago, when McFarlane said it—but I also want to know when we will stop the use of unregulated experts in our family courts.

My point, which my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West began with, was about legal aid. Although the Government have—through an amendment that I moved initially—stopped the cross-examination of victims by perpetrators in the family court, I am afraid that the roll-out of advocates who are meant to be doing that work seems to be underfunded, and the work is an unattractive prospect, meaning that, from what I can tell—from the cases that I have seen and reviewed, and from the members of the Family Law Bar Association I speak to—the system is faltering at the moment.

I want to know and feel that there is some progress, and that I will not get another email— inevitably I will tomorrow, but maybe not next week or next year—about a mother who has been beaten and abused, has just had her child removed, and is allowed only supervised contact because some man has managed manipulate the systems in our country to make them feel as if she is mad and bad, and that he is an absolute angel. If I had a penny for every such case that I have seen, I could rebuild the family courts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Freer]

As always, I will give very careful consideration to any request from the hon. Gentleman, and I will report back to him on what we can do on that issue. He mentioned family mediation. Obviously, a big driver of the reform is the desire to keep families out of a court process that is not helpful, and away from an adversarial process. The investment of about £7.3 million in providing mediation vouchers has been a success; it is working.

[Jess Phillips]

Would the Minister enter, or want anyone in his family to enter, into mediation with their rapist?

[Mike Freer]

I will tread very carefully here. I grew up in a home with domestic violence, so I understand the issue quite closely. I am very careful to ensure that victims of domestic abuse are able to get justice, but I also accept—[Interruption.] No, hang on a moment; the hon. Lady should let me finish, before she judges what I am going to say. I personally would not want that to happen. That is not my decision. Unfortunately, as the hon. Lady knows, the justice system is never fair. It is often too “processy”. The point she makes has been well landed, and they are points that we will continue to discuss with the judiciary. The process, as she knows, is not always balanced, and it is our job to try to remove imbalances. The point has been well made, and I will ensure that it is conveyed to the judiciary.

I turn to the other issues that the hon. Lady and other Members have raised. On the use of experts, we clearly have a difference of opinion. First of all, the regulation of experts is a matter for the Department of Health and Social Care, and I am more than happy to take the matter up with the relevant Minister.

The ability, or inability, to refuse a so-called expert is a matter for judicial discretion. If the judiciary does not believe that a person is an expert, it is up to them to say, “We do not accept them as an expert.” Regulation is a separate issue; as I say, I am more than happy to take that up with colleagues in DHSC. However, the judiciary can reject what we would call, in common parlance, so-called experts.

I turn to the presumption of parental involvement. This is an important and complex issue, and we want to ensure that any recommendations resulting from the review are based on a solid understanding of the way that the presumption is applied, and how it affects both parents and children. The review will be concluded later this year, and a publication date will be announced in due course.

Parental responsibilities can already be limited by the courts. On Jade’s law, my understanding is that the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), and Lord Bellamy have already met the right hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) to discuss the case and how these issues can be pursued. If hon. Members want to know more, then I am very happy to write, or to ask Lord Bellamy to write. However, that issue is being explored with the right hon. Member, who has raised it in the House several times.

I do not want to diminish the complexity of the issues raised today, but I did want to put on record that all the issues raised are being dealt with. I appreciate that Members will raise individual cases where they feel that the system is failing, and I cannot diminish individuals’ experience of that, but we need some balance; 140,000 children are supported by CAFCASS in difficult circumstances, and to suggest that it gets it wrong all the time is not fair. However, the points raised by Opposition Members have landed well, and I will ensure that Lord Bellamy and I sit down to review the issues that have been raised. If hon. Members wish to have a meeting with Lord Bellamy, I am more than happy to facilitate that.

Probation Service: Chief Inspector’s Reviews into Serious Further Offences

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Commons Chamber

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

The Minister lays out a world that I simply do not recognise in which, had there been this and that, people would have monitored the situation better. Every single day I handle cases of very serious, dangerous threats of violence. There is no monitoring of the most violent, well-known and prolific offenders of violence against women and girls in our country. These cases are by no means simply cases; they are part of a systemic problem. How many times have the Labour party and people like me called for some monitoring and offender management in these cases? I cannot sit through another statement about how agencies should be talking to each other. I have been hearing it for 20 years.

There is no monitoring. I spoke to Regan Tierney’s father just his morning. Regan was killed by her ex-partner while he had been on probation for breaking her nose. He had stopped turning up and nobody bothered to tell her. That is a case I just happened across this morning without knowing I was coming to this statement. I come across such cases every single day. The Government promised to make violence against women and girls a strategic policing priority. Why have they not done it yet? It has been a year. I cannot listen any more to people saying, “If only this had happened, these people would be monitored.” The truth is that we do not monitor these people in this country. We should stop pretending otherwise.

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Lady speaks with great personal experience as well as passion, and always does on these topics. I wish it were not so. I wish she did not have to have all those experiences and hear from all those people as she does. Rightly because of the way that she channels these points into debate on the Floor of this House, people come to her. She does us a service by doing that.

The hon. Lady is right that levels of violence against women and girls are far too high. No woman and no girl should feel afraid as they walk the streets. That is something on which I believe everybody in this House concurs. She may argue the point and I respect that, but it is my absolute knowledge that tackling violence against women and girls is a top priority for the Government, the police and the justice system. Do we need to go further and faster? Of course we do, but I want her to know my personal commitment, as well as our collective.