Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Bishop of Gloucester Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 10th March 2021 Lords Chamber

Perhaps the Minister can just assure us that the Bill will not lead to a new type of procurement of less-specialised service provision or the downgrading of essential services for women, whether accommodation-based or community-based, and that communities will not lose the unparalleled expertise, garnered over decades, of women’s refuges and women’s services in the enthusiasm to hand over funding and procurement to councils. Do not forget some of the risks involved in that.

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester [V]]

My Lords, my friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby, who regrets that she cannot be here today, was pleased to support the noble Lord, Lord Polak, when his amendment on specialist and community-based services was discussed in Committee. We really warmly welcome the government amendments, which represent significant improvements on the Bill. All that being said, I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, introduced Amendment 85 so that we might just press a little further. I do not want to repeat what other noble Lords have said, so I will make just a few brief comments.

We have heard repeatedly in debates in this House of the value of specialist and community-based services which allow survivors to remain in their homes and retain their community, their faith links and their workplaces and to keep children in their schools. Finding a long-term solution, as others have said, to supporting these services is essential. With colleagues on the Bishops’ Bench, I look forward to engaging with the victims’ law consultation and to reviewing the promised Clause 8 report from the domestic abuse commissioner to Parliament on the provision of, and need for, community-based support services.

I look forward to the excellent intentions being translated into provision of what is much needed.

[Baroness Benjamin (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I will refer to Amendments 20, 22, 24 and 29.

I understand that the Minister has committed to consulting on community-based domestic abuse services as part of the victim’s law consultation this summer; that is extremely welcome. I thank the Government for this, and thank the noble Lord, Lord Polak, for his commitment to this issue. I also thank the Minister, who rightly responded to concerns raised by Barnardo’s—I declare an interest as the vice-president of that charity—and many other charities and organisations representing adult and child victims. As we know, children are often the hidden victims of domestic abuse. Can the Minister confirm that a statutory duty to deliver community-based services is a possible outcome to ensure that the majority of victims are supported in future?

--- Later in debate ---

These are important amendments, and we support them enthusiastically.

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester [V]]

My Lords, I spoke in support of Amendments 50 and 66 in Committee and have added my name to them again. I remind noble Lords of my interests as listed in the register. As ever, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, for setting out the amendments so clearly and with such expertise. It is also a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and I echo all that she has said.

I speak not as a lawyer but as the Anglican Bishop for prisons and a long-time advocate for women in the criminal justice system. There is still a great need for reform. In recent years, it has been recognised that we need to rethink how women in the criminal justice system are treated and their paths straightened. With the Female Offender Strategy, the Government seem to have conceded to a more nuanced approach but we are still waiting for it to be fully implemented.

Here is an opportunity for the Government to recognise that far too many women in prison or under supervision in the community are survivors of domestic abuse and that that unimaginable experience has driven them to offend. If we are convinced of the need to protect all survivors of domestic abuse then we have a moral obligation to dig deeper and extend that protection to all those, mainly women, who have offended while being coerced or controlled by an abusive partner, as we have heard. The experiences of those who retaliate against abusive partners in self-defence or after years of horrific abuse must be taken into account. Protection must be afforded to those who are compelled to offend as part of, or as a direct result of, their experience of abuse.

There are many outstanding organisations that support vulnerable women in the criminal justice system, not least women’s centres such as the one run by Nelson Trust in Gloucester or Anawim in Birmingham. They, along with others, have numerous stories to tell of how domestic abuse has driven someone to use force against their abuser. I am a big advocate of community-based support, which, as we have heard, offers a holistic, trauma-informed response to these women. I am glad about the development of much-needed, police-led diversion work, and that judges and magistrates have been given the resources and information to sentence women appropriately.

However, this legislation is also required here. As I said in Committee, we are not talking in the abstract. The decisions we make have a real and lasting impact on people’s lives. The most vulnerable, with limited life choices, deserve our attention and voice. However, if the compassionate argument is not strong enough and finance is your only focus, it makes no sense to spend nearly £50,000 a year to lock someone in prison when about £5,000 a year would enable a women’s centre, with professional expertise, to support, holistically in the community, someone who has been diverted from the criminal justice process, in recognition that their alleged offending was the direct result of their experience of abuse—and where their prosecution would not be in the public interest. This legislation will enable that to happen.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I agree with every word that we have heard so far, and I have signed all three of these amendments—I think that they are superb and have been carefully and expertly drafted. It is deeply unfortunate that the Government have not adopted them as part of their unusually co-operative approach in this Bill.

The need is very clear: the deeply sad Sally Challen case was only one proof point of the lack of legal protection available for survivors of domestic abuse. Women get a terrible deal in the criminal justice system. Most are there for non-violent offences, and many are there for really minor things like not paying their TV licence. However, sometimes, violence does happen, and, where that is related to domestic abuse, there needs to be a sufficient legal defence to recognise the reduced culpability.

It is obvious that judges and, sometimes, lawyers do not understand coercive control and other abuses. The excellent report from the Centre for Women’s Justice, which the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, referred to, is called Women Who Kill—I will give a copy of the executive summary to the Minister afterwards to make sure that he reads it. It lays out the response of the criminal justice system to women who kill abusive partners and the way the law itself, and the way it is applied, prevent women from accessing justice.

Women who have been abused by the man they kill are unlikely to be acquitted on the basis of self-defence. Of the 92 cases included in the research for the report, 40—that is 43%—were convicted of murder. Some 42—that is 46%—were convicted of manslaughter, and just six, which is only 7%, were acquitted. The use of weapons is an aggravating factor in determining the sentence, and the report found that, in 73 cases—that is 79%—the women used a weapon to kill their partner. This is fairly unsurprising, given women’s relative size and physical strength and their knowledge of their partner’s capacity to be violent.

However, as other noble Lords have pointed out, this contrasts with the legal leeway given to householders if they kill or injure a burglar. Therefore, we need legislative reform to extend provisions of householder defence to women who use force against their abuser. It is discriminatory to have a defence available to householders defending themselves but not to women in abusive relationships defending themselves against someone who they know can be dangerous and violent towards them.

In the week that Sarah Everard was abducted and, we suppose, killed—because remains have been found in a woodland in Kent—I argue that, at the next opportunity for any Bill that is appropriate, I might put in an amendment to create a curfew for men on the streets after 6 pm. I feel this would make women a lot safer, and discrimination of all kinds would be lessened.

However, once convicted, women’s chances of successful appeal are extremely slim. Society’s understanding of domestic abuse has come such a long way, even in the last few years, yet a jury is forced to apply outdated ideas of self-defence, such as responding to a threat of imminent harm, which have no relation to the realities of domestic abuse.

The Government have said that they are persuaded on the issue but will

“monitor the use of the existing defences and keep under review the need for any statutory changes.”

I simply do not believe that that is true. It is not appropriate for the sort of crimes that we are talking about. As such, can the Minister please tell me which Minister is charged with this review, how many civil servants are involved and when will they report?