Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 5th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I greatly welcome the Bill and hope that in her response the Minister can indicate that the Government are open to considering further amendments to make this an even better Bill, and an Act in due course.

I want to speak about perpetrators and rehabilitation. I declare an interest as a patron, along with the now retired Baroness Gould of Potternewton, of the Everyman Project, a charity whose mission is to prevent interpersonal violence, particularly domestic violence and abuse. Its core activity is working with perpetrators and addressing the root causes of their unacceptable actions, which are basically spurred by anger, although, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has described, other factors also come into play. Quite often, substance abuse, particularly alcohol, is closely associated with domestic violence. This charity also provides advice, support and counselling to the victims of domestic abuse and violence, but it mainly works directly with men who become aware that they need support to change. It also works with public sector agencies such as the police, who make referrals, and other public bodies that wish to develop joint services.

Counselling programmes have been developed to help to break the cycle of abuse and violence, with the aim of perpetrators avoiding repetitive behaviour and accepting responsibility for their actions. Outturns are measured and the levels of success are quite good, given the nature of the problem being tackled. The difficulty is that this kind of support is very thin on the ground throughout the UK, and even where it exists there is the perennial problem of funding. When the debate started, my noble friend Lord Rosser and the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, raised the absence of any training, education or rehabilitation for perpetrators, and since then we have had several notable contributions from other Peers arguing, along similar lines, for a strategy to deal with the perpetrators and the importance of breaking the cycle of violence that so often goes down the line through families and is repeated and repeated and repeated.

I hope that the Bill is extended to try to break that cycle as well as provide all the necessary support and assistance which mainly women will need and will gain from the Bill. A start must be made in a different approach to perpetrators from what we have had before. We must be more systematic and less haphazard than we have been in the past in providing that kind of support, limited though it has been.

Do the Government support these kinds of initiatives? I am sure that they do. Do they recognise that we need more of them? Is the Minister willing to say that this will be further explored with a view possibly to creating a strategy along the lines that others have argued for? It may seem in the totality of the debate a fairly small issue at this stage, but it is not. It is a major one that now needs addressing. I hope that the Minister can give a positive reply.