Support for Black Victims of Domestic Abuse

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Maclean]

I will not detain you for that long, Sir Christopher, and I will allow the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead time to sum up.

The hon. Lady knows that we have a new full-time national police lead for violence against women and girls, Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth. One of her key roles—I meet her regularly to discuss this and to ask her to ensure that she includes it—is to build trust and confidence in the police. Members have referenced various individual forces, but this wider piece of work is happening across all police forces in the country. That includes her working directly with charities that support black and minoritised women and girls, to make sure that the police are not overlooking their specific needs.

To finish, I will talk about domestic homicide, which is an utterly abhorrent tragedy. When it happens to women like Valerie, it is vital that we remember her legacy and that we learn lessons when such terrible crimes happen. We will continue to build our evidence base on domestic homicides through the domestic homicides project, which is now in its second year. That is built on the recognition that there is more to do in the case of domestic homicides to understand, to build that learning within the force and to ensure that the police improve their response to tackling domestic abuse, so that they can prevent more such crimes from taking place.

We are creating an online repository to hold all domestic homicide reviews in order to allow for more analysis of the patterns, trends and triggers for domestic homicide, and the data, as the hon. Member for Halifax mentioned, to allow us to prevent further tragic deaths.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Will the Department also look at suicide rates and whether there is a connection to them? We know that in some cases violence in relationships ends up with women taking their own lives. I do not think that that is documented, but will it form part of the strategy, because it is as tragic an event as a homicide?

[Rachel Maclean]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise that point. It is something that we are looking at very closely, because we recognise that the pattern of domestic abuse leading up to suicide is sometimes overlooked. The work that is taking place in the domestic homicide review project is looking specifically at the tragic cases of suicide as part of the wider work, and I will be happy to update the House in the normal way.

I thank all the Members that have taken part in the debate, including the hon. Members for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) and for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), and the hon. Members for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) and for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald). We have heard striking personal accounts from Members across the House, and I thank everyone who has shared their experiences. We all want to do better by those Members, their constituents and the victims and survivors represented so well by the Sistah Space charity.

I am grateful for the opportunity to address the Government’s position. Domestic abuse is a terrible crime and we are committed to doing everything we can to stop it happening, to pursue perpetrators when it does, and to give victims the best possible support.