Domestic Abuse Bill

Julie Marson Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 28th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con) [V]]

Nearly 10 years ago, one summer’s day, I remember sitting in a stifling hot room looking at a photograph of a cute, blond four-year-old boy who was beaming up at the camera. Nothing remarkable in that, you might think, and I expect that many of us have similar photographs of our own children smiling and laughing at the camera, just as they should be at that age, making happy memories. The difference on this occasion was that I was in court, sitting as a magistrate. The photograph had been taken by a police officer, and the little boy had an enormous black eye. He had been trying to protect his mother from being attacked by his father and had strayed too close to a flailing fist. He was just four years old, and he had already been subjected to more emotional and physical trauma than most of us can imagine. Domestic abuse is a crime and an abomination against victims and their families. It is a crime against our whole society. I have been lucky; I have never personally experienced it, but other Members of this House have done so, and they have spoken incredibly movingly about their experiences.

I will be supporting the Bill today, and I am proud that the Government are taking this lead. I pay tribute to all those involved in the development and drafting of the Bill. It is remarkable that until now there has been no cross-government statutory definition of domestic abuse, and no commissioner to give a voice and prominence to this issue and to hold the Government to account. I welcome those measures, along with the trial of protection orders and protection notices and the extra cross-court safeguards in the justice system, which will give more effective protection to victims and their children—explicitly, whatever their immigration status might be. I very much welcome the legislative inclusion of Clare’s law. I would also like to take a moment to recognise the pioneering work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), who worked tirelessly for this legislation and to ensure that provisions on coercive control would be included for the first time.

In Hertford and Stortford, we are fortunate to have Future Living, a charity founded and run by the amazing Sandra Conte, which provides outstanding community support and services for victims and perpetrators of domestic abuse, male and female alike. Everyone who meets Sandra and knows what she and her colleagues do at Future Living becomes an evangelist, and I am no different. Unapologetically, I shall use this opportunity to encourage the Government and our local authorities in Hertfordshire to continue to provide Future Living with the support and resources it needs to do its vital work, especially as Sandra has told me today that she is seeing a significant increase in cases, particularly where a separated, abusive parent is using the covid crisis to keep children away from their victim and flouting contact orders. We expect even more of an increase in demand for the charity’s services as we come out of lockdown.

I truly understood the dynamics of domestic abuse for the first time only after I experienced the training given to magistrates. It opened my eyes and completely changed my perspective. It is vital that those involved in policing and the justice system have rigorous training so that they can recognise the abuse cycle, from subtle control to murderous violence, and the fact that the most dangerous moment for a victim is often when they leave the relationship and try to regain control of their own lives.

Domestic abuse is a dangerous and destructive cycle. It was about 10 years ago when I saw that photograph. That little boy will be 14 or 15 by now, and what I wonder most is whether he spent his childhood in that environment or whether things might have changed for him. Perhaps his father received the justice or indeed the help he needed; perhaps his mother managed to escape. Heartbreakingly, that boy might be condemned to repeat the cycle of control and abuse he grew up with, knowing no different and believing that that was normal family life. I support this Bill, because I think it will help children like him. It has been a privilege to contribute to this debate.

Domestic Abuse Bill (Second sitting)

Julie Marson Excerpts

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

[Christine Jardine]

Q Can you tell us how important you think it might be for victims to have access to local authority welfare schemes? Also, do you think the definition of domestic abuse should apply only to those over 16? Please give a reason for your answer.

Lucy Hadley: I will respond to the question on the definition first. I echo my colleague Andrea’s points on compliance with the Istanbul convention. Another important means of ensuring the Bill is compliant with the Istanbul convention is to include a gender definition, which I know you have heard a lot about today. We believe that the age limit for domestic abuse should remain at 16. We do not feel that it should be lowered, but we absolutely agree that the definition needs to recognise that children are directly affected by living in a household where there is domestic abuse. We know they do not witness it but experience it, and it leads to long-term impacts on their health and wellbeing. Without clarity that they are specifically affected by domestic abuse and are survivors in their own right, we are concerned that we will still see inconsistent responses to recognising children as victims, particularly in the family courts and in other parts of the public sector, so we really support the proposed change.

On the issue of local welfare schemes, we would absolutely like the Bill to do more on welfare for survivors. The Bill rightly recognises economic abuse as a key part of the pattern of abuse that a perpetrator imposes on a victim, and economic abuse has really significant impacts on access to safety for survivors, and on their ability to leave a relationship and rebuild an independent life. Sadly, many welfare reforms have compounded women’s barriers to leaving, from the benefit cap to the two-child tax credit limit and many more. We would like the Bill to introduce a guarantee that the Government will assess the impact of welfare reforms on survivors, and we would also like the Bill to exempt survivors from the benefit cap, because it restricts their ability to move on safely from refuges and to build an independent life after suffering abuse.

Andrea Simon: It is probably unhelpful to extend the criminalisation of under-16s by reducing the age limit. We believe that it is important to have an urgent response or action plan for intimate partner and sexual violence that occurs between under-16s who are in a relationship. At present, the experience of some under-age victims of very serious gender-based and violent crimes committed by perpetrators who are also under 16 can be minimised in a way that they would not if the perpetrator was over 16. That needs to be taken seriously and recognised. We agree 100% with the need for the definition to recognise children and their experiences of domestic abuse, which are often connected to their parents’ experiences, but are also distinct. There are certainly many gaps that need addressing, in terms of service provision for children and the resources that are needed to address children’s needs.

[Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)]

Q As a former magistrate in domestic abuse courts, I have seen women suffer in court and have more trauma imposed on them. How do you feel about the new measures to prevent cross-examination in family courts and to ensure that we can get special measures? How important do you think they are?

Lucy Hadley: At Women’s Aid, we think they are absolutely essential measures, and we are so pleased that the ban on cross-examination is finally being brought forward in the Bill. For survivors who are being re-victimised and re-traumatised in the family courts, it is so important that the ban be in place. I think you heard earlier that we would like it to be strengthened and to apply to all cases where domestic abuse is alleged, not just where there is an evidence test for it. Unfortunately, many women who experience domestic abuse will never tell anyone about the abuse, so having a form of evidence is a challenge.

We would like the Bill to go much further on the family courts, and to deliver a safe family court system for survivors and their children. One of the experts by experience in the project I mentioned earlier told us that the family courts were “horrific, traumatic, psychological warfare”, and that the proceedings replicated the abuse of her relationship. That is what we hear time and again.

The family court estate can feel very unsafe for survivors. Sixty-one per cent. of survivors we surveyed in 2018 had no access to special protection measures at all in court. Those are really basic things like screens, separate entrances and exits, and waiting rooms, which are vital to keep them safe from the perpetrator while they go through family proceedings.

We would like to see the guarantee of special protection measures in the Bill extended from the criminal courts to the family and civil courts, because it is vital that women experience consistency across the different jurisdictions. Many women will never go to the criminal courts, but they will use the family courts, and it is important that they get the same treatment.

Finally, we would like a systemic change in the approach to safe child contact with a perpetrator of domestic abuse. There are really serious issues about the understanding of domestic abuse and coercive control by the family judiciary and professionals in the child contact system. Despite robust judicial guidance in the area—practice direction 12J—we continue to see a very strong presumption that parental involvement in a child’s life is in that child’s best interests, regardless, seemingly, sometimes, of any safeguarding concerns about domestic abuse. We would like to see an end to that assumption of contact in domestic abuse cases, with a focus on child contact arrangements that are always safe and in a child’s best interests.

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

Q We were talking about children and the definition. It seems that both organisations accept that children can be victims, as well as observers. Is that correct?

Andrea Simon: Yes.

Domestic Abuse Bill (First sitting)

Julie Marson Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 4th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Thank you. I think Mike Wood has kindly given up his slot because of the time restraints. I have Julie Marson first, then Christine Jardine and then the Minister. It might be an idea to stand up at the back.

[Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)]

Q I am interested in your views on the impact of having a statutory definition of domestic abuse for the first time. Also, can you give your views of your relative powers compared with some of the other existing commissioners, such as the Victims’ Commissioner or the Children’s Commissioner?

Nicole Jacobs: We cannot underestimate the need for that statutory definition; if I think that, for years and years, I have been training to what would have been an agreed cross-departmental definition, that is particularly welcome. That will have some effect, without any doubt, on any number of systems and services.

The question was about the importance of having the statutory definition. Like I said earlier, I think it should include children. I really welcome the inclusion of economic abuse. We are seeing, particularly with covid—it is coming up time and time again each week—people needing support for economic-related, financial abuses, and that is increasing quite substantially. It is a really important time to recognise that. One of the things we need in order to do that better would be to amend our coercion and control legislation to include post-separation abuse. That is incredibly important to consider and do.

I also think that the definition could include—you will hear about this from others later today—the idea of having a non-discrimination clause. I know there is a lot of detail to that, but, in some ways, that would help reiterate and underscore some of the points we talked about earlier in relation to migrant women. I would welcome that, and it would be positive.

In relation to the powers of my role in comparison with other commissioners, I think I have said before that the Home Office has looked at various commissioners and has done quite a good job of thinking about what set of powers this office should have. They are relatively strong. The duty to respond to recommendations, and the ability to ask for information and have an expectation for co-operation—all those things compare quite well with other commissioners.

[The Chair]

I am sorry to interrupt. I am conscious of the lack of time, so I am going to move on to Christine Jardine.

Domestic Abuse Bill (Fourth sitting)

Julie Marson Excerpts

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

[Liz Saville Roberts]

That broader awareness of what constitutes a household has been brought home to us in the past few months, as well as the nature of the tensions that can exist in such households. The thing that comes to my mind is younger households where house-sharing is common. One can imagine those are quite small households. But this applies more broadly than that.

If we were to assume that the nature of the coercive or abusive relationship is based on whether there is a sexual relationship between the two individuals in a formal sense, we would close our eyes to the wider experience and we should consider whether we should capture them in this legislation. That also applies where there are informal sexual relationships, which can be imposed on people to a degree in certain household environments.

I am aware that we have already voted on the specific aspect of this in relation to people and their carer. I would be grateful if the Minister would consider our experiences in the past few months and the inherent tension between whether we are looking at this on the basis of household—where someone is physically located—and those people who are intimately related, or whether this is an opportunity to capture a wider question.

[Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)]

This amendment and the previous amendment speak to a common motivation to protect against an abuse that takes place in our society among many abusers of different relations of the powerful against the weak. I know that we are all motivated by a desire to address that.

I was a magistrate in a general court for several years before specialist domestic abuse courts were even envisaged and came into being. I saw a whole range of different contexts of abuse, but I wanted to be a part of the domestic abuse courts because it spoke to something special: a specific context of abuse based on a very intimate relationship. I do not want to dilute that, because that direction of travel—to have fought so hard to get recognition for domestic abuse as the uniquely invidious and insidious crime that it is—is something I do not want to go against.

While I completely empathise with the desire to prevent abuse wherever we find it, I believe that the direction of travel that is encapsulated in this landmark Bill is where we want to go. That is why I would resist attempts to dilute that aim, context and direction of travel.

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd—gosh, I took a deep breath before trying to say that. My hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford has summed it up beautifully, if I may say so. I absolutely understand the motivation for the right hon. Lady’s amendment.

As we were saying earlier, exploitation takes many forms. I know that the hon. Member for Hove has shone a bright light on the concept of sex for rent. I keep coming back to this golden thread of the relationship. I think everyone understand that that is what the concept of domestic abuse centres around, so that is the approach we have taken with the definition.

We considered the Joint Committee’s recommendations very carefully. Our concern was that including “household” in the definition may have the unintended consequence of diverting people’s attention from those relationships where people do not live together. I am sure we can all think of examples of incredibly abusive relationships in which the two people in that relationship do not happen to live together.

I will give an example: I visited a fantastic women’s centre a month ago, which has independent sexual violence advisers and independent domestic violence advisers working together. The IDVAs could identify certain serial perpetrators in their local area who were in relationships with not one woman, but with several women at the same time. By definition, that perpetrator could not live with all of the women simultaneously, but was visiting them and conducting his abuse against many women at the same time. I am anxious that we do not inadvertently, with absolutely the right intentions, divert people’s attention away from the central purpose of the Act. We have also tried to ensure in clause 2 that where a relationship has ended, that is still considered within the definition, because we are alive to the fact of abuse after a relationship has ended.

Finally, we would not want to broaden the definition to such an extent that it covers areas, such as landlords and tenants, that I do not believe people think of when they think about domestic abuse. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford has said, it has taken us an awfully long time to get to where we are, and I hope we can work on ensuring that victims who are in abusive relationships have our attention and focus. These other forms of exploitation should also have focus—just not in this piece of legislation.

Domestic Abuse Bill (Fifth sitting)

Julie Marson Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 10th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

The Opposition welcome the orders, but without the training, resources and hand-in-hand support for all parties concerned, perpetrators included, I fear that they could go down the line of their forebears. We welcome the orders, and certainly support the clause.

[Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)]

I want to add my voice in supporting the belief that the orders will be a step change in the courts. As a magistrate, I have grappled with many restraining orders and non-molestation orders, and with bail conditions. One of the frustrations I have seen on the bench arises from the desire to know what tools we have to do more, particularly for what seem like minor offences, when someone is not breaking down someone’s door, but writing Facebook messages, or text messages, to their mum or sister.

Many in the police and the courts recognise that the point of crisis for women—in my experience, it is mainly women, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley said—is when they try to break away from an abuser. That is the moment of greatest danger for a woman, because the perpetrator can see the control slipping away. That is a moment of desperation, when the perpetrator wants to reassert that control, and will use every tool and every trick in the book to do so.

In my experience, the courts and the police are crying out for the tools that they can use, and for the clarity and scope that the measures introduce. I am optimistic, and I believe that lots of people in the system are crying out for just this kind of measure. It will be very welcome and effective.

[Victoria Atkins]

Forgive me, Mr Bone, but I should explain that, because we do not have box notes, I am having to use my phone. If I may, I will deal with a couple of points that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley raised. A lot of the questions that she posed sit with other clauses in the Bill, and I do not want to detract from the magnificent occasion that will be my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Justice getting to his feet and talking through some of those clauses, so I will defer to him.

The hon. Lady raised the issue of police fees and recognised that the Government have accepted the Joint Committee’s recommendation, which means that, for the two-year pilot, we will cover the police’s court fees for applying for the orders. We very much want to use the pilot to understand the resource implications of the new orders for the police and other agencies, and to use that to inform our considerations in future.

When she spoke to the Public Bill Committee in 2019, Deputy Chief Constable Louisa Rolfe, the National Police Chiefs Council lead on domestic abuse, said:

“The cost of the DAPO would be the least of our concerns. There are many positive aspects to the DAPO…Policing is not deterred by cost and I have some examples of that. We have a strong record of sometimes stepping in where other agencies are not able to.”––[Official Report, Domestic Abuse Public Bill Committee, 29 October 2019; c. 27, Q47.]

In any event, as I say, we have said that we will cover the cost in response to the concerns raised by the Joint Committee.

In terms of training, we will provide statutory guidance on the new orders, to ensure that the police and other frontline practitioners use them effectively and consistently to protect victims and their children. We will consult with the commissioner, the police and others on the guidance before it is issued, and we will ensure that the police and other frontline practitioners have enough time to prepare for the introduction of the new orders.

The Judicial College has a regular training programme for all judges and magistrates, and Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service provides training for court staff. We will work with both those partners to assess how to incorporate training on DAPOs into their ongoing training programmes.

Domestic Abuse Bill (Seventh sitting)

Julie Marson Excerpts

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

[Jess Phillips]

Absolutely. Sheldon police station is no longer a police station, and there is now a planning application for it to become temporary accommodation. To return to the debate, police stations were often built in communities. My father was born in Sheldon, on the estate that the police station looks over. It is built on a sort of plinth, making it possible to see across the whole community. It can be seen from pretty much everywhere in the Garretts Green Chestnuts estate, as we call it colloquially. It is not hidden; it is not discreet.

The building was sold and, in the planning application that was put in for temporary accommodation, that accommodation was going to be provided for a list of people. One item on the list was victims of domestic abuse. Another was offenders. Another was people with drug and alcohol misuse problems. There was to be no specification about whether there would just be women in the place, or just men. Those people would be housed together. Every single council in the land will have a planning application exactly like this one, through which private landlords seek to make money by turning the property into temporary accommodation for victims of domestic abuse, even though it is completely unsafe. None of us would be happy to place them in such accommodation, but the Bill does nothing to prevent that from happening.

To avoid that situation, the definition must align with definitions established on Routes to Support, which is a UK-wide service directory, partly funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, relating to violence against women and girls. The only accommodation-based service on the Routes to Support model is a refuge service. I ran refuge services, and it was not just buildings with different flats in them. It was dispersed accommodation. We had about 18 flats in the community that were single-use, for all sorts of reasons, including the need to provide disability space and space for boys over the age of 14. In sex-based, women-only services, as boys become older there are safety issues involved in having males in a women’s refuge. So, for women with teenage boys—my teenage boy is nearly twice my size and he definitely looks like a man—we made sure that dispersed accommodation was available.

We are talking not just about refuges that people might imagine to be a house where lots of women live together. We are talking about refuge accommodation in its broadest terms, including shared houses, self-contained and dispersed accommodation. The amendment seeks to require that the relevant accommodation, as defined in the regulations, must be safe for survivors and their children.

[Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)]

The hon. Lady mentions the relevant accommodation. I cannot help looking at subsection (2), which notes that

“‘relevant accommodation’ means accommodation of a description specified by the Secretary of State in regulations.”

What the hon. Lady is covering is covered there, and will be specified in the regulations.

[Jess Phillips]

Hope springs eternal for what I am covering here being in the regulations. Had we seen the regulations, we would not have to debate whether it is going to be in them. Unless the regulations are drawn according to clearly defined grounds, I fear that there is a real risk that people will just say, “Yes, I am a provider for victims of domestic violence.”

Domestic Abuse Bill (Eighth sitting)

Julie Marson Excerpts

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

[Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)]

I want to touch on my experience in the courts, particularly the specialist domestic violence courts. However harrowing it has been, it has been a genuine pleasure to be able to sit in those courts.

There are some common themes that I have seen in court. It is usually women and children affected. There is always a power and control dynamic; it is never just about the violence, although there usually has been violence. And there is always fear on the part of the victim, even with the special measures that I have seen—the screens and so on. I could still see the victims, and I saw them crying, shaking and trembling. This is so important. What such a measure does is take away some of the power that the perpetrator has to control the victim in the courtroom environment, because they are still trying to control, even right at that moment, with looks, sounds, movements—with everything they can muster at the time. Therefore, I profoundly support special measures across the piece, because I think that they are really valuable in limiting that control right through the justice system.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

In the hon. Lady’s experience of dealing with these cases and being able to see the impact on victims, was she aware of the challenges that victims have before they get into the courtroom, because often in family courts it is very difficult to separate victims from perpetrators? Was she aware, in her job at the time, that that was also an issue that needed to be dealt with?

[Julie Marson]

The hon. Gentleman makes a really important point. Long before I ever see a victim in court, there has been a huge process to get there and to provide the right support. Independent domestic violence advisers and different support mechanisms are in place; there are supporting people who come in and sit with the victim in court, but it is a hugely traumatic experience and support is needed throughout that process.

I would add a point about a common theme among perpetrators. When, in normal criminal cases, shoplifters or burglars or other violent offenders are convicted and sent to prison, there is a shrug of the shoulders—it is a part of their life; a general hazard of the criminality that they are involved in. When I have had—I will use the phrase—the pleasure to convict a perpetrator and send them to prison, it is noticeable that all the power has all of a sudden been stripped away. Their indignance and fury is palpable; you can sense it and see it. That is what makes it a different crime and a different experience, and that is why special measures are important. I speak to that experience.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

Will my hon. Friend indulge me for a moment? I take the point that the hon. Member for Hove made about the geography and layout of court buildings. Some we cannot change because they are very old. Has my hon. Friend seen the measures that clever judges can introduce to control when defendants are permitted to turn up according to the conditions of bail? For example, the defendant is not permitted to arrive at court until 20 minutes before the court case starts, so that the victim has time to get into the building and into the witness room, or wherever she will be based, and there is no risk of crossover. Does my hon. Friend agree that little tweaks such as that can make a difference?

[Julie Marson]

Absolutely; I completely agree. We cannot legislate for everything you can do in a court—every courtroom is set out differently. I have seen a lady with two teenage daughters, with the husband, and some really clever dynamics were needed to keep everyone separate, including in the toilets. In my experience, such measures have been very positive. There have been specialist domestic violence courts. Everyone is keenly aware of what is needed and is trying to think ahead for the kinds of measures that can make justice effective and make sure that justice is done. Such measures are all part of that.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)]

I am delighted to see you in the Chair once again, Ms Buck. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford for her excellent contribution. It speaks to the strength of the Committee that its members have real-world experience and can apply it to the important matters that we are here to discuss.

Before turning to the amendment and new clause, it is worth taking stock of where we are in terms of the court process and the framework in which the amendment and new clause sit. Over the last 10 years or so—probably a bit longer—the environment for victims and witnesses has been completely transformed. It was not so long ago that a complainant in a case of serious violence or a serious sexual allegation had to turn up at court and eyeball the defendant. It required an extraordinary effort of will, and a lot of people just thought, “This isn’t worth the candle.”

Legislation was introduced that provided the opportunity for screens and giving evidence via live link. At the time, that was considered utterly revolutionary. People were clutching their pearls, saying, “That’s it; justice is dead in our country; there is no opportunity for people to get a fair trial” and so on. The culture has changed. Now, at plea and trial preparation hearings such orders are routinely made and, lo and behold, juries—indeed, benches of magistrates as well—seem to find it perfectly straightforward to make a judgment in the interests of justice on the facts in front of them.

Setting that context helps to bring us up to the situation at the moment. Let us imagine some facts for a moment. The allegation is one of sexual assault on the London Underground. At that early hearing, before the Crown court, long before the trial has even been scheduled, the judge will ask the prosecutor, “Are there any applications for a special measures direction?” The prosecutor will stand up and say, “Yes, there is a complainant in this case and it is an allegation of a sexual nature, so I will be inviting the court to make a special measures direction in the normal way.” That is precisely what will happen, because it will be automatic.

I pause to note one further point. If the complainant says, “Forget this. I don’t want a screen, and I don’t want to give evidence on a live link; I want to be there in the well of the court, because that is how I feel I will get justice”, that will be accommodated as well.

Domestic Abuse Bill (Ninth sitting)

Julie Marson Excerpts

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

[Christine Jardine]

I thank the right hon. Lady, and absolutely agree. We have a number of opportunities in this Committee to ratify the convention through this Bill. It is an international women’s rights treaty that this country signed, yet it is one of a handful of countries that still has not taken the steps the convention demands. Recognising misogyny as a hate crime would go some way towards achieving the goals of the treaty.

I will step back for a minute to explain why we should record misogyny as a hate crime, and what exactly I mean by a hate crime. Hate crime is defined as criminal behaviour where the perpetrator is motivated by hostility, or demonstrates hostility, towards a protected characteristic of the victim. Intimidation, verbal abuse, intimidating threats, harassment, assault, bullying and damaging property are all covered. Hate crime law is rooted in a need to protect people who are targeted because of their identity, and is defined as

“Any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice, based on”

a protected characteristic. Currently, those characteristics are defined as disability, transgender status, race, religion and sexual orientation under the relevant sections of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and the Criminal Justice Act 2003, and allow prosecutors to apply for an uplift in sentencing.

Where does misogyny fit into that and affect it? Women and girls from a black, Asian and minority ethnic background often experience hate crimes based on multiple characteristics, and if we do not take misogyny into account, we do not truly get an intersectional understanding of the crime. Sex was the motivation for more than half of the hate crimes women reported last year; age was the second most common, followed by race. Some women may be victims of a hate crime because of their ethnicity or religion, and also because they are women. Some 42% of BAME women aged 14 to 21 reported unwanted sexual attention at least once a month. Many women and girls with intellectual disabilities are also disproportionately subjected to street harassment and sexually based violence, for the dual reason that they are disabled and that they are women. Our laws have to protect them equally, and they cannot do so effectively while misogyny is a blind spot.

I have a personal theory. I suspect that all the women in this room are like me, and have always rejected the idea that they are not equal. That is how we come to be here: we do not accept the premise that we are not equal. I grew up in a household with three daughters, and had no reason to believe that we were not equal to anyone else. I have often had the opposite problem, actually. My confidence was taken for aggression that was not appropriate in a woman, because women are not aggressive, apparently. I remember once when the BBC was tackling sexual harassment problems among staff, it launched an assertiveness programme for women. I asked my boss if I could do this assertiveness programme. I could not understand why my colleagues all laughed when I came out. They asked, “How did it go?” I told them that when I asked, “Gordon, is it alright if I do this assertiveness programme?”, he said, “I wouldn’t dare say no.”

Many of us cannot understand how women come to be the victims of misogyny unless it actually happens to us. Although we might think that we are equal, we have all witnessed misogyny everywhere and been the victim of it. We might cope with it, but we have been the victim of it. Harassment and abusive behaviour are often linked to misogyny, which comes from deep-rooted contempt for women and the understanding that we should behave in a certain way, and the belief that if we do not do so, it is acceptable to slap us or abuse us.

I am sure we do not need a reminder, but if we did, Friday’s front page of a national tabloid newspaper reminded us all quite firmly: contempt for women, an in-built hatred, misogyny that says it is okay to slap us, bully us or harass us in the street because we are women.

[Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)]

Misogyny is obviously appalling. A lot of us have experienced it. Does she agree that a consultation is really important, because it is a really complex area? Some of my experience and some research into abusive men has shown that a lot of them have borderline anti-social personality traits. They certainly have hostility, but a lot of it comes from things like lack of problem-solving skills, childhood abuse and personality traits, which need to be factored in.

[Christine Jardine]

I agree that consultation is necessary, but I see that as making the point. Consultation is necessary and we need the data to be able to figure out how much of it is due to borderline personality problems and social background, and how much of it is misogyny. We can only do that by having the police gather the data.

Where misogyny has been identified as a hate crime by police forces, it has helped the way that they address the causes and consequences of violence against women and girls. The proposal in this amendment is not theoretical. Police forces around the country are already doing this, showing the positive impact it can have. In 2016, Nottinghamshire police were the first. Their proposals have gone some way to allowing the Nottinghamshire authorities to see exactly where there are problems and how to deal with them. For four years, women and girls there have been able to report crimes that they regard as hate crimes and misogynistic.

This amendment has, as I said, wide support from women’s groups. Let us not wait for the Law Commission before we start working on it. If misogyny is the soil in which domestic abuse flourishes, we have the opportunity with this Bill to root it out, not just to pick up the pieces. We have to support victims and survivors, and we have to encourage perpetrators away from the crime. But if we can identify the different causes of abuse, we can tackle the cause and begin to reduce and eliminate domestic abuse.

Domestic Abuse Bill (Tenth sitting)

Julie Marson Excerpts

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

[Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that, in some of these circumstances and given the really complex issues that she describes, a comprehensive training package is needed, as the most powerful place to intervene and help is the frontline? So, the training that the caseworkers in jobcentres receive, the tools they have and the relationships they build are really powerful ways to help people in those situations.

[Jess Phillips]

There is absolutely no doubt about it, and a good jobcentre worker is worth their absolute weight in gold. I have a gold star system for the ones in my local jobcentre, who are excellent in lots of circumstances. The hon. Lady is absolutely right. However, when we are talking about domestic abuse and universal credit, we have put in a huge amount, and maybe that could have been avoided if we had looked at some of the impacts of how this policy was going to be rolled out. For example, on the issue of split payments in universal credit, we are now asking jobcentre staff potentially to intervene directly when two people are sitting in front of them, saying, “So, would you like split payments?” It is rocky terrain for a jobcentre worker to have to try and deal with that.

In fact, if we look at the take-up of split payments, we see that it remains persistently low, compared with the number of victims of domestic abuse who are claiming universal credit. That situation means that there is potentially a need for the complete redesign of jobcentres, so that there are permanent private spaces for every single person who might need one, and so that people can be talked to separately. There are all sorts of things that can be done to make the situation better, and training at the frontline is absolutely key in that.

However, that roll-out of universal credit was not done in my own area; I had to go and ask what was being done. I have sat in the Department for Work and Pensions with Ministers and asked them what they are going to do about these issues. The issue of split payments was very much an afterthought, and I suppose that all I am asking for in new clause 24 is that it is not an afterthought but is built into the system from the very beginning. However, the hon. Lady is right—frontline staff are worth their weight in gold.

The way that universal credit has been designed means that women are forced to choose between staying with a perpetrator or being unable, in lots of cases, to feed themselves and their children. That cannot be right and cannot be allowed to continue. Although the reasons why a woman might return to a perpetrator can be complex, it should not surprise anyone in this room that their not having enough money to provide for themselves and their children is the most common factor. In a survey for Refuge, one refuge worker said,

“the changeover to Universal Credit has caused a significant delay in accessing benefits when women arrive at the refuge. The five- week waiting time means women have to survive with their children with no income, and only a few food bank vouchers. This means that many struggle with whether they’ve made the right decision to leave, if they can’t even feed their children on their own.”

Of course, the Government response is that advance payments are available for those who experience hardship during the minimum five-week wait. That is true, but the crucial thing about advances is that they are loans, which must be paid back immediately from the very first payment, at the rate of up to 30% of the person’s payment. In offering such loans, we are offering women the choice of having no money now or not having enough money for many, many months afterwards.

We must remember that this is often the period when women are traumatised, and supporting their traumatised children, while trying to rebuild their lives in a new place without their support network. They might well be going through the criminal justice process, or the family courts, or both. The system requires them to do that either without a penny, or with some money but in the knowledge that they will spend at least the first year of their life away from their perpetrator struggling to make ends meet, as they have to pay that loan back.

Specialist services supporting survivors tell me that many women they support do not take advantage of the advance payment, even though they desperately need it. Those women are frightened about the consequences of taking on debt at the very beginning of their life away from the perpetrator. Those who have experienced years of economic abuse might have thousands of pounds in debts that they were coerced into taking, with their perpetrator fraudulently putting their names against a variety of debts. That is very common. They know that they will likely spend the next decade paying that debt off and they do not want to start their new lives by volunteering for even more debt.

Those fears are often well founded. Research from Citizens Advice shows that people who take out an advance loan from the Department for Work and Pensions are more likely to get into further debt as they struggle to pay the loans back. The answer to this is to get rid of the five-week wait—some well-trodden evidence regarding everybody, but there we go. In the case of domestic abuse victims, the answer is to pay benefit advances to survivors of domestic abuse as grants, rather than loans.

It is hard to overstate how much of a positive difference that would make to women and children up and down the country. It is the difference between a woman in a refuge hoping the food bank has not run out of baked beans and a woman in a refuge being able to treat her child to a yoghurt or some sweets after dinner on their first day in a new school. It is the difference between a woman feeling hopeful that she made the right decision and can look forward to a life without abuse or a woman feeling that she has no choice but to go back, because she simply cannot afford to live away.

When I explain to Ministers the impact of the five-week wait and repayment of advances for survivors, they often tell me that they cannot treat different groups differently under universal credit or that it is impossible because people would lie and pretend to be victims—usually they say both. In fact, last week the Ministers wrote to me saying that paying advances as grants to survivors includes significant fraud risk.

On treating people differently, there are many exceptions in our social security system. The Minister herself already referred to the shared accommodation exemption for victims of domestic abuse, which is a recent change. It is a strength that there are differences for different people. It makes our system work better and better protect people.

There are already exemptions for survivors of domestic abuse in the benefits system. For example, the domestic violence easement means that survivors do not have to comply with job-seeking conditions of benefits for a few months while they focus on their safety. The destitution domestic violence concession, which we will no doubt discuss at length tomorrow, is a crucial example from immigration rules, which provides a lifeline to survivors on spousal visas. Exempting survivors of domestic abuse from repaying benefit advances would be another important difference for survivors of domestic abuse that ensures the system works as a safety net for them and not as a barrier.

On the point of making it up, as someone who has worked in specialist domestic abuse services, I can tell you that it is a thousand times more likely that a woman will minimise the abuse that she has suffered, or think it is not abuse because they have started to believe what the perpetrator is telling them—that it is their fault and they are making it up. I understand, however, the Government’s desire to ensure that public money is not received fraudulently and therefore accept that some level of evidence is needed.

The best model for providing evidence is the legal aid gateway, which sets out the evidence requirements for survivors of domestic abuse to access legal aid. The same framework can be used here. This is an affordable policy that would make an extraordinary difference. I urge the Committee to support new clauses 38 to 40, which would ensure that benefit advances are treated as grants and do not need to be repaid.

I will now briefly turn to new clause 41, which would exempt survivors of domestic abuse from the benefit cap. The benefit cap limits the total level of benefits that a household can receive. It was introduced in 2013 and has impacted 250,000 households since the limit was lowered in 2016. While the cap was one of a number of policies intended to reduce our deficit, the Government’s own evaluation shows that only 5% of households moved into work because of the benefit cap; 95% did not.

Instead, the cap largely impacts lone parents and those with an illness or disability. Seven out of 10 capped households are single parent families, of which 69% had at least one child under the age of five and 24% had a child under two, according to figures from May 2019. Around 90% of single parents are female, so it is unsurprising that single female parents make up 85% of all households whose benefits have been capped, but the cap is having a particularly devastating impact on survivors of domestic abuse and increasing the barriers that women face in leaving an abuser. There is no free childcare before the age of two, meaning that lone parents with young children often do not work enough hours to avoid the impact of the cap. The issue is particularly acute where a women has fled domestic abuse and is far from her support network, so is unable to rely on friends or family for childcare and is perhaps unable to work due to the abuse she has experienced.

Although survivors are exempt from the cap while living in refuges—another exemption that has been put through—they are not exempt as soon as they leave. That is severely restricting survivors’ ability to find a safe new home and move on from refuge, as their benefits might not cover the cost of housing, either in social housing or in the private rented sector. It is leading, essentially, to bed-blocking, where women who are ready to leave a refuge are stuck in the service, blocking spaces that other survivors fleeing abuse desperately need.

The impact of the cap on survivors was made starkly clear in the case of R v. the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, which considered the legality of the benefit cap. Two of the claimants in the case were survivors. One was living in statutory overcrowded housing and was unable to move herself and her family anywhere suitable and safe due to the cap. Another was stuck in a refuge because the cap meant that she could not afford any move-on housing, and she was therefore blocking a much-needed space for another survivor. They told Women’s Aid that they felt financially penalised for escaping domestic abuse.

I know that the Department for Work and Pensions states that discretionary housing payments, which are paid by local authorities, are available for survivors in such circumstances. However, DHP allocations remain inconsistent, short term and dependent on different councils’ policies and practices—it is yet another postcode lottery. They are not monitored by the Government centrally, so it is impossible to know whether they are providing an effective solution.

The Department for Work and Pensions has repeatedly claimed that the benefit cap is saving money. As I have highlighted, however, the cap creates significant hardships, and the Department therefore gives back a significant proportion of the money it takes from claimants by providing funding for discretionary housing payments to local councils in order to help them support capped claimants. The circular process of transferring public money from one budget to another fails to consider the impact that has on families, particularly survivors, who rely on less stable support and are certainly under somebody’s “discretion”.

The Department does not include in its figures the cost of DHPs included in administration costs, nor does it consider the increased cost to local authorities through temporary accommodation or the wider cost that the hardship created by the cap might have on other public services. Women’s Aid is concerned that the DHP allocation remains inconsistent, short term and dependent on different councils. The DWP confirmed that it has not carried out a full cost-benefit analysis of the cap. In 2018-19, however, the DWP allocated £60 million of DHP funding for local authorities in Great Britain to support capped households.

For those reasons, I urge colleagues to support new clause 41 in order to exempt survivors of domestic abuse from the benefit cap. To summarise, the Bill must do more for survivors of abuse, including those suffering economic abuse, than merely define what is happening to them. The new clauses would ensure that the Bill has a legacy of not only recognising that money is used to control and abuse, but making significant changes to reduce the number of women who are forced to stay with their abusers because they cannot afford to leave.

Domestic Abuse Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Julie Marson Excerpts

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

[Jess Phillips]

Absolutely, I have absolutely no doubt that today in this building there is somebody serving us coffee or doing something of service who has no recourse to public funds and is affected by the problem I am talking about. My hon. Friend is exactly right. They are our careworkers and NHS workers. They are the students who keep our universities in money. They are the people who serve us every day. They are our family members. They are people who deserve help when they are harmed. They are taxpayers. They are people who give in both effort and resource. They deserve exactly the same as everyone else. If I walked into a police station today, nobody would ask me for my immigration status. Nobody would care. It would not be the thing that they thought they had to care about. They would ask me if I was all right and would treat me as a victim. If I was from Bolivia, they would ask me about my immigration status.

As the hon. Member for Edinburgh West said, we are at the precipice. It is not okay that some people matter and some people do not. It is one thing to try to undo things from the past—to topple statues and try to deal with complex cases from the past—but we are making this law today, and we are not making it for everyone. That is fundamentally wrong.

There are women like Myra—the final case study—who attempted to leave her abusive husband a number of times, having reported her rape to the police. They took no further action and did not refer her to local domestic abuse services. After three years, she made the decision to find safety and leave. She had no recourse to public funds, and contacted 10 refuges, which were unable to offer assistance due to the NRPF condition. During that time, she was forced to remain at home with her husband and faced further abuse, which took its toll on her mental health. She said:

“many times, I thought of giving up, many times.”

Those case studies all come from the Women’s Aid “Nowhere to Turn” report.

I can already anticipate that the Government’s response to what I said will be to point out the ongoing Home Office internal review into NRPF. I am sure the Minister will mention how the Government have recently announced £1.5 million for a pilot fund to cover the cost of support migrant women with NRPF in refuge in order to better assess the level of need for that group of victims to inform the spending review decisions on a longer-term basis. Both those proposals fail to appreciate the urgency and seriousness of the risk of abuse and destitution that abused migrant women on non-spousal visas face.

[Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)]

Yesterday, the hon. Lady referred to the destitution domestic violence concession as a lifeline to those on temporary visas. Does she agree that a very high proportion of migrant women are helped to access that kind of support thanks to the tampon tax funding?

[Jess Phillips]

I absolutely do think that, but obviously not all of them, by any stretch of the imagination. We were told that we were taking back control, but the only thing I feel we actually took back control of was the extra quid I have to pay when I have my period. We will not have to pay the tampon tax anymore. Some of the most vulnerable people in our society are relying on the good will of various pilot projects here, there and everywhere, and we are not expressing in our laws that we see those victims. I recognise that that fund has helped lots of people, but we have an opportunity to change this permanently.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

It certainly is. In these circumstances, people turning up to my office, having forked out £5,000 for a form that they could definitely have filled in by themselves, even if English is not their first language, is a phenomenon. I am afraid to say, I even have some come to my office and ask me to refer people directly to them, as if, like a quid pro quo, they will give free legal advice if we send people. It is a wild west situation.

That brings me to new clause 29, which seeks to provide migrant survivors with legal aid. Often, the cases are complex and it cannot be left to specialist BAME organisations to provide that legal advice. As I mentioned, there is already a deficit in specialist BAME services. Failure to protect all migrant women from abuse has wide-ranging financial and societal consequences —consequences that exceed the cost of extending eligibility of the DV rule and the DDVC.

The economic cost of supporting migrant women with NRPF is often borne out. We might not be paying for it at the Home Office, but it is often borne out by local children’s services, local councils, health and education services, the police and the criminal justice system, as well as by non-statutory agencies. Many women rely on section 17 support under the Children’s Act 1989, which would not be the case if they were eligible for the DV rule and the DDVC. We end up somehow paying for it with either lives lost or some other scheme somewhere along the line.

In its briefing paper on migrant women, Southall Black Sisters highlighted that London boroughs in 2017-18 supported 2,881 households with no recourse to public funds, at a cost of £53.7 million. That was primarily linked to the discharge of their duties under the Children’s Act 1989. The average duration of local authority support is under two and half years, with 30% of families being made dependent for 1,000 days or longer, often because of Home Office delays in resolving immigration claims. One of the primary groups referred to local authorities with NRPF is single mothers who are subject to domestic abuse. The majority of households no longer require local authority support when they are granted leave to remain, because they go on to find work. Surely that is what we all want to see happening.

What assessment have the Government made of how much it would cost to extend the domestic violence rule to all migrant victims? I guess it would cost less than the millions run up by the statutory and non-statutory services to support migrant women. It would be cheaper, and it would certainly be kinder. Although it would perhaps not be so ideologically pure, it would be the right thing to do. Furthermore, by hindering access to life-saving support, there are wider implications for the Government’s international human rights commitments and obligations to combat violence against women and girls.

In their October 2019 report on the ratification of the Istanbul convention, the Government amended the status of their progress on article 4.3, which is the non-discriminatory section, and on article 59, which includes measures to protect victims whose residency status is dependent on a partner, from “compliant” to “under review”—going backwards. As a consequence of their inadequate response to migrant victims of domestic abuse, the Government must now use the opportunity provided by the Bill to ensure meaningful protection for all women.

I am nearly done—worry not—because I want the Minister to have plenty of time to respond. In the evidence session, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle talked about the national referral mechanism after it was raised by another Member. In fact, a victim of domestic violence was asked during the evidence session whether she had been referred to the national referral mechanism. As somebody who used to be one of the people administering the national referral mechanism and who ran one of the trafficking services for many years—in fact, I helped to set it up with the Salvation Army as one of the sub-contractors—I want to express, for the benefit of the Committee, some concerns about the cross-over with the national referral mechanism in such cases.

The national referral mechanism has never been used to deal with cases of domestic abuse; that was never its intention. I read the guidance during the weekend after the evidence session. The only mention of domestic abuse in the thousands of pages of guidance suggests that when people identify a victim, they should use some of their experiences with victims of domestic abuse, because victims might react similarly and might not want to talk. That is literally the only mention.

There is some mention of forced marriage and sham marriage in the guidance. However, I have been speaking to the providers this week and have been asking them about how many cases they have seen where those are factors. It is vanishingly rare. Lots of the providers offer both domestic violence services and trafficking services. There is Ashiana Sheffield and Black Country Women’s Aid, where I used to work. They provide both domestic violence services and trafficking services, which are completely distinct. There has never been any suggestion that migrant victims with no recourse to public funds would be able to get through the NRM. As someone who has taken referrals through the NRM, I can tell Members that if a person tried to take these cases through that mechanism—probably with some immigration lawyer helping them to do so—it would count against them. It would look as if they were gaming the system, because these cases inevitably would not get through the NRM. Almost no migrant women on non-spousal visas would be able to access the NRM: it is not for them. They have not been exploited, there are not means, and there are not the three main things that are needed to make a trafficking referral.

However, well over five days ago, I tabled some named day questions to the Home Office. I have not had a response, but I have chased them again this morning; maybe the Minister can answer some of those questions. I asked whether the Secretary of State for the Home Department would

“publish all correspondence between her Department and the contract provider for the Modern Slavery Victim Care Contract on the inclusion within that contract of support services for victims of domestic abuse with no recourse to public funds.”

I also asked the Secretary of State

“how many applications to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) made reference to forced marriage in the last full reporting year; of those how many people were (a) accepted into the NRM and (b) had their application declined.”

Southall Black Sisters, working with a number of other agencies, has circulated a pretty comprehensive guide to why these particular victims would not qualify. That is not to say that the NRM is not a good system; these victims just would not qualify for it, and it is quite laborious to try to put them through it, so I am not sure why we are currently wagering on the NRM.

[Julie Marson]

Given the schemes we have talked about—the hon. Lady has mentioned the need for data, and there has been mention of the £1.5 million fund—does she acknowledge the need for data and more analysis of where the gaps are, to determine where we can fill them and what we can do best?

[Jess Phillips]

Of course I do, and quite a lot of data has been gathered. It is funny, though, that we are asking for data on some things but not others. Women’s Aid holds at least as much data about no recourse to public funds as Southall Black Sisters, if not more, because they run the No Woman Turned Away programme. However, I noticed that at the evidence session, Lucy Hadley was not asked to provide data.

There is plenty of data out there, but it is also important to say that we cannot prove a negative and cannot rely on these organisations to do so, no matter how much funding we give them. I see these cases all the time, all over the country, and I would not necessarily refer the victims to schemes that are largely based in London. We are asking these organisations to tell us what does not exist. All Members present recognise that there are masses of data about domestic abuse that we will never know anything about, because people do not come forward.

We give people money to run a scheme and then say, “It has to be entirely based on evidence”, but the Government bought a contract for ferries from a company that did not have any boats—that is just one example I could give—so I find it hard to understand why more evidence is required from some people than from others. Of course evidence is needed, but pretty much every expert is saying that the extension of the DDVC is a very simple extension that would not cost loads of money. We are beginning with the thousands of women who are on those particular visas, then reducing that to the women who are more likely to come forward, and reducing it again to those who have been victims of domestic abuse—we are going down and down. It is just the right thing to do.

I have not been presented with loads of data about lie detectors, or about other things that are in this Bill; I just take it on trust. We have never before had a charge of economic abuse, but nobody is saying that because no one has been charged with that offence, we should not introduce it. I just think that it casts aspersions on the organisations that might be doing that work, as if to say that the evidence is not there when it clearly is. I know that that is not what the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford was trying to do. The Government have to find a reason why they are not doing this, because the reality of why they are not is not particularly palatable. Evidence is obviously the one they lean on.

Domestic Abuse Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Julie Marson Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 12th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 17th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Victoria Atkins]

I think the hon. Gentleman is referring to the new powers in relation to terrorism offences, if I have understood correctly. That is a discrete part of the criminal justice system. Pre-charge bail has the potential to apply to pretty much every criminal offence, with the exception of the murder; it would clearly be very unusual for anyone facing a murder charge to be released on bail. Again, we have to look at the system in a holistic way, which is what we are planning. However, I will raise the point about risk with the NPCC so that in the intervening months, while the Bill is still going through Parliament—let us not forget that that does not finish when we finish here tonight; the Bill has some scrutiny ahead of it—we get the message through to the police chiefs, in addition to what we have already said, that this matter is of particular concern to the Committee.

[Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)]

At the risk of sounding like a one-trick pony, I want to talk about some of my experience in court, touching on some things that we have just been speaking about, or that will be referred to later when the hon. Member for Hove speaks again about court.

My experience is that magistrates consistently deal with difficult cases. It is difficult to balance the rights of a victim and the rights of a defendant. I have not talked much about defendants, but it is true that we see a lot of defendants who have terrible stories to tell. In my maiden speech, I said that being a magistrate had changed my perspective on the world, because I had never seen the kinds of lives that were coming up in front of me, and not just of the victims but of the defendants.

I told the story of a boy who walked in on my first day, when I was still being mentored. He was 18 and it was his first appearance in an adult court. He looked about 10—he was tiny—and he was grey. I said to my mentor, “God, he can’t be in this court, surely,” and they said, “No, I know him from the family courts.” He was malnourished because his parents were drug addicts and he was never fed properly. He was grey because he was malnourished and he had been injected with heroin to keep him quiet as a child. But he had burgled an elderly couple’s house. There are lots of victims in a courtroom and it almost does not matter where they are sitting. It is a constant battle as a magistrate to weigh up the rights of the defendant and the rights of the victim.

That touches on bail, which is an unpopular thing to talk about in court, because in some ways everyone is a threat and everyone can go on to do nasty things to nice people, but magistrates have to weigh up the right of habeas corpus—the right of a defendant to have liberty until he has been convicted of a crime. That is really difficult to weigh up, because it involves thinking about the risks to the victim, the defendant’s right to liberty and the presumption of innocence.

That is why the holistic approach that the Minister is talking about is important, because it will touch on not just domestic abuse cases, but the precedents and the impact that has on the court system and the rights of defendants in the court system. The hon. Member for Hove mentioned the pendulum, which it is important to get right. I think the more holistic approach is genuinely the right way to go on that.