Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Harries of Pentregarth Excerpts

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

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB) [V]]

Over the last 20 years, there has been a vast increase in awareness of the seriousness and extent of domestic abuse. The Bill is a welcome response to it. It is serious, as we have heard: 2.4 million adults experienced abuse in 2019—twice as many women as men. The 24% increase in recorded crimes of domestic abuse in the same period, to nearly 750,000, as well as showing an increase in the number of incidents, may indicate a growing awareness of them and, therefore, a willingness of people to report them. That is good as an indicator of heightened awareness. If we are sometimes inclined to lament the ragged moral fabric of our society, we can be grateful that, on this issue at least, we are slightly more morally sensitive and aware than some previous generations.

This is a fundamentally good Bill and, rightly, has all-party support. The question is whether other forms of abuse are not covered by it so far. We have heard of a good number, but I want to mention briefly just two, as a number of your Lordships also have.

One is continuing economic abuse, even when a couple has separated. As one survivor put it: “He cannot physically get at me. He cannot emotionally hurt me, yet still, economically, he can cripple me”. Economic abuse is a major factor in most abuse cases and is experienced by 95% of abused women. Some 60% are left in debt. Economic abuse is almost always linked with other forms of abuse, including physical safety.

Significant as these figures are, the key one, as far as a possible amendment to the Bill is concerned, is that one in four women continue to experience economic abuse even when they have left the abuser. This is a shocking figure and there needs to be a clear legal remedy. Economic abuse does not require physical proximity; it continues and/or escalates after a couple separates. It can also begin after the separation, when the opportunity to continue other forms of controlling and coercive behaviour has been removed and when the only way left is through access to the former partner’s resources.

The ways in which economic abuse can continue, escalate or even begin as a form of coercive control include spending money from a victim’s personal bank account or from a joint account, running up bills in a victim’s name, prolonging the sale of a joint property, damaging or stealing personal property, interfering with the victim’s employment and their ability to keep their job, refusing to pay child maintenance and continually taking the victim to court, resulting in financial costs. There are all sorts of ways in which economic coercion continues, even after an abused wife or husband has left their partner.

Another form of abuse that I believe we need to look at very carefully is that which the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, has spoken about so powerfully before: a separate offence of non-fatal strangulation. After stabbing, strangulation is the second most common cause of death for women as a result of domestic violence. It is a tactic used by perpetrators to terrify victims and send the clear message that, if they wanted, they could easily end the victim’s life. It leaves many women with permanent health problems, and the effect of non-fatal strangulation is thought to be the second most common cause of stroke in women under the age of 40. A Bangor University study found that more than 50% of women subject to domestic violence have suffered strangulation. New Zealand has introduced a stand-alone non-lethal strangulation offence, as have four states in Australia and 27 in America—three-quarters of the total. We have a chance in this Bill to do the same.

This is a very good Bill, but it can be made even better by attention to these and other forms of domestic abuse not covered at the moment and already mentioned by your Lordships.