Domestic Abuse Bill

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow the spokesperson for the SNP, the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley). I welcome the Bill and the cross-party support for it.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor, who looks like he may be about to go and get himself a cup of tea—I cannot blame him for that—orated at length, although his speech was comprehensive, detailed and very passionate. I recall our joint work in Committee on the Serious Crime Bill; together, we introduced the coercive control measure that so many people have referred to. I remember being asked at the time, “Why are we doing something so difficult? How are we going to train the police? How are we going to do this?” If the answer is, “It’s too hard,” we will never do anything. I am very proud that we introduced that measure, and I was very pleased to work with my right hon. and learned Friend on that. I wish him well with this Bill.

I also pay tribute to some of the people who helped us get to the Bill being brought forward. They include my right hon. Friends the Members for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) and for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), and my hon. Friends the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) and for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), who both served in the same Under-Secretary role in the Home Office in which I had the privilege to serve.

However, I pay tribute above all to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). I stand here making my first Back-Bench speech for seven years, having been on the Treasury Bench in that time, to find that I am following my right hon. Friend. I feel quite a lot of pressure to live up to the speech she just delivered, which showed her commitment, her attention to detail and her absolute determination to deliver on this incredibly important issue. Without her, we would not be in this place today.

My right hon. Friend spoke about the challenges with tackling domestic violence. I recall, when I was in the Home Office, looking at what we could do to change things and at how we could change society on this matter. A number of contributors have mentioned attitudes. I am pleased that the old line, “Oh, it’s just a domestic; ignore it” is gone, but it was there for far too long. The other thing on which we have seen a difference is training for police officers. It is not everywhere—my right hon. Friend mentioned that there are police officers who have not had training—but when I was in the Home Office I saw police officers being trained to believe the victim and to take belief in the victim as the first port of call. They are trained to walk in not with cynicism but believing what the victim says. If somebody has gone to the police to report domestic violence, they are not making it up; it has taken enormous strength of character for them to get to the point of reporting it, and they need to hear the police officer say, “I believe you.”

I was struck by that as a new MP, when a constituent come to a surgery appointment and told me how every police officer she had dealt with had refused to believe her. They had said, “Oh, it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other,” and that she must have contributed in some way.

[Mark Tami]

Does the right hon. Lady agree that the other thing police do so often is to look at each incident as an individual incident, rather than looking for a pattern of behaviour?

[Karen Bradley]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is so important that we look not just at a pattern of behaviour but across the whole family. The troubled families programme was very good at looking at the family as a whole, seeing where domestic violence was happening and identifying its effect on children—on each member of the family.

Public awareness of the crime is another challenge we have always faced. We have talked about 2 million cases a year, but of course the number of reported cases is so much lower. Reporting is on the up, and that is very good news. We need these crimes to be reported; unless they are reported, nobody can tackle them. It is incredibly important that we improve public awareness and get an understanding of what a healthy relationship looks like versus an unhealthy relationship.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

The right hon. Lady mentions something that a lot of people will be interested in: often, because the authorities do not necessarily believe them, the victim is sent back into the situation they are trying to get out of and subjected to further abuse. The other point I would make is that we should also be tackling psychological abuse.

[Karen Bradley]

The hon. Gentleman is right on all counts, and he takes me to my next point. One of the challenges is having the tools to tackle this crime. The problem with having only criminal measures is that the burden of proof is so high. Civil measures, which we introduced for various things, including honour crimes and domestic violence, and which of course are introduced by the Bill in the form of the new domestic abuse protection order, are very important because the burden of proof is so much lower. In the exact circumstance that the hon. Gentleman talks about, use of a civil measure means that the police can intervene earlier and prevent the crime.

[Hannah Bardell]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Karen Bradley]

I will not, if the hon. Lady will forgive me, only because I have run out of interventions. Now that I am on the Back Benches, I have to get used to not being able to take all interventions.

The other challenge is the multi-agency approach, which, again, has been talked about. We cannot arrest our way out of this problem. We have to deal with it through prevention and education. There is a role for so many agencies and organisations in ensuring that domestic violence is tackled. I recall, when I was Minister, visiting the domestic violence team at the A&E in Royal Stoke University Hospital. A nurse there, Mandy Burton, received a national nursing award for her work in bringing to the A&E department a focus on domestic violence, and on identifying it. That was revolutionary at the time —this was 2015. We need all agencies to work together to make sure that they identify domestic violence.

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

I hesitate to take up my right hon. Friend’s time, but would she accept that the medical profession has a key role to play? One of the places where physical violence will first be picked up is accident and emergency; one of the first places where non-physical, psychological, violence will first be picked up is in general practice. Is there not a case for improving education, so that there is a high index of suspicion of domestic violence in both general practice and hospitals?

[Karen Bradley]

My right hon. Friend speaks with personal experience and great authority on this matter. He is absolutely right. So many agencies will have interaction with victims of domestic abuse. They need to understand the signs and indications, and need the ability and strength to intervene, because that may be an early point at which we can get in, before domestic abuse that may appear to some to be low-level—there is no such thing as low-level abuse—turns into something horrendous. We know the number of homicides a year; we need to make sure that we intervene as soon as possible, in order to prevent the very worst tragedies.

That brings me on to the Bill. It is right to describe it as landmark legislation. Putting into statute a definition of domestic abuse is incredibly important. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead talked about needing to have one definition that was recognised across all agencies and across the law. That is how we will help to identify this abuse, and get services and support in the right places at the right time. I referred to the civil powers; having more of them is very important. The civil powers mean that the victim can stay in her home with her children, while the perpetrator is removed. If abuse does not meet the criminal test, it may still meet the civil test, and of course breach of that civil law becomes a crime, which gives the police the power to act.

I am very pleased about the introduction of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner. When I was in the Home Office, we introduced the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, who often said things that were uncomfortable for Government, but was absolutely right to say them. It is right that we should have one person working for all victims of domestic abuse.

I am pleased to see the extension of the offence of coercive control to Northern Ireland; from my previous role, I know how important that is. That reminds me of the sentence that I have probably said far more often than any other in this Chamber in the past few years: it is time for the parties in Stormont to come back together and form a Government, and do the right thing by the people who elected them. In the absence of such a Government, it is right that we take steps in the Bill to make sure that coercive control is properly recognised and dealt with in Northern Ireland.

The Bill will make a difference only if we see outcomes from it. The outcomes in my county of Staffordshire over the past few years—since I was first involved in this field—have been really quite incredible. Our police and crime commissioner, Matthew Ellis, has really made the issue his focus during his stewardship of the police. He introduced a multi-agency approach, and the New Era service, which gives victims holistic support. Last year, it supported 25,000 people in Staffordshire. That is a great credit to him, and I pay tribute to him for the work he has done.

Victims need the power to speak openly, and the police need the tools to bring persecutions, so that perpetrators are punished. When I was a Minister in the Home Office, I recall clearly making a speech for a colleague, as we all do. I talked about my work in the Home Office. One of the people there, who had been enjoying a lovely dinner, stopped eating, and at the end of the speech she asked me for a private word. It was very emotional. She said, “Twenty-five years ago, I was a victim of coercive control, though I didn’t know it at the time. I’m out of that relationship now, but everything you described was my life.” She said, “I remember the police saying to me, ‘We know he’s abusing you and treating you in a way he shouldn’t, but there’s nothing we can do. The best we can hope for is that when he comes home drunk tonight, he kicks the door down; then we can arrest him for criminal damage.’”

We need victims to know that the police have weapons, tools and ways to help them, because they put their trust in the police—we all do, quite rightly. We need to make sure that the police have the weapons that they need, so that they can deliver. That is how we will help victims to bring things out into the open, and put an end to domestic abuse.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I am delighted to follow my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), but I am also rather daunted—daunted because I am not a woman, because I am not Welsh and because whatever I say I am fated, along with everybody else, to be in the shadow of the outstanding contribution from the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield). If ever anyone needed evidence that domestic abuse takes on many guises, puts on many faces and can insidiously target anyone in any place, it was her emotional, harrowing and brave contribution.

I agree with everything that has been said, and I very much welcome the Bill. I want to comment on a few things that are not in it, however, rather than on what is. As we have heard, this is not just about changing legislation; it is about changing culture and the way we look at domestic abuse. We must demonise it wherever it rears its ugly head.

I want to concentrate on the impact on children. As we heard from the former Prime Minister, that is often overlooked. When I was Children’s Minister, I was shocked to find that over three quarters of safeguarding cases had domestic violence at their heart. Incredibly, one third of domestic violence cases start during the pregnancy of the woman victim. When women are abused in the home, the impact can traumatise the children. When they are forced to flee, the disruption to the lives of those children, particularly if they are of school age, is immense. Refuges tell us that around half of their residents are children, while 770,000 children live with an adult who has experienced domestic abuse in the previous year, according to the Children’s Commissioner. It is the most prevalent risk affecting children in need.

I was very proud, along with the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), to be part of the “On the Sidelines” report by the London domestic abuse charity Hestia, in collaboration with Pro Bono Economics and the “UK Says No More” campaign. It highlighted that one in four women and one in six men experience domestic abuse in their lifetime, but that the millions of children exposed to it in their homes are too often considered merely witnesses to the abuse, rather than victims themselves. When children are exposed, they can suffer in the short, medium and longer term, and it is also intergenerational, as we have heard in so many cases. Over half of people suffering domestic abuse as an adult experienced it as a child: “Well, it happened to my mum when I was growing up, so inevitably it’s going to happen to me, isn’t it?” That is an extraordinary culture that we absolutely must dispel.

Children need to feature more prominently in the Bill. Domestic abuse is the single most common factor that leads to children requiring support from local authority children’s services—and we know the pressure they are under. I have spent a lot of time on the doorstep with social workers. I spent a week being a social worker in Stockport. I met a fantastic and very experienced domestic violence specialist social worker who was the linchpin of that safeguarding team, a great authority who joined together various agencies. It is, however, a postcode lottery whether that experience is available in local authorities.

We need to embed in local authority delivery domestic abuse specialists able to draw together all the agencies involved to ensure an effective and comprehensive local offer. I welcome the national Domestic Abuse Commissioner, who started two weeks ago, but there is also a case for local domestic abuse commissioners—high-profile figures who can ensure that local authorities are living up to their duties to provide a local service. I believe that can be done only by including in the Bill a statutory duty on funding. By working with this cohort of expert frontline providers, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner could have a stronger role in strengthening planning at local and national levels to ensure that all are protected from abuse. That would help to embed the impact of domestic abuse on children in local safeguarding teams as well.

As an aside, I believe that health visitors have an important role to play, too, as an early warning system of trusted professionals going into houses to meet new parents. I reiterate, therefore, that it is a false economy to have reduced the number of health visitors by 30% since the excellent work the coalition Government did in building up their numbers by more than 4,000 by 2015.

[Karen Bradley]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend. He was an excellent Children’s Minister and speaks with great authority on these matters. I was struck in the briefing document by the cost of domestic abuse and the fact that just a 0.1% decrease in the prevalence of domestic abuse would pay for the measures in the Bill. As he says, it is a false economy to stint on this.

[Tim Loughton]

As with so much to do with child safeguarding, getting it wrong is the most expensive thing.

We need to do much more work on prevention. We should task the Domestic Abuse Commissioner with looking at not just how we respond and making sure that perpetrators are locked up, but how we can prevent it in the first place, and better education in schools about what constitutes an appropriate relationship is an important part of that.

I want to make a few other quick points. Proper funding of refuge places, which has been promised by the Government, is essential. There was still a shortage of refuge places last year. It is not just a question of money, though; technical factors are also impeding the availability of urgently required beds. Women without children who are fleeing violence and who seek safety in refuges are not automatically considered to be in priority need of housing. I have been told by refuges that in some cases women are staying in hostels for several years, which is again a false economy, when they could be in independent housing, living safely with their children. We also need to give children who are living in refuges priority access to schools, as we have done for children in care and adopted children.

We have to look holistically at the issue. It is not just about better funding for refuges; it is also about making sure that we have better services across the board, including specialist domestic abuse service providers, child support workers, outreach workers and especially better joined-up working for women fleeing local authority areas when they have to go to a refuge. We need a network of refuges across the country.

This is a fantastic Bill. It can be improved. It is long overdue. Let us not ruin it by making it too complicated.