Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 1st February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, Amendments 58, 59, 60, 74, 76, 77 and 79 are tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have signed up to speak in support of them, in particular the noble Baronesses, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick and Lady Newlove.

These workplace amendments were discussed in the other place and it is right that we make it absolutely clear in the Bill that domestic abuse protection orders and the notices that precede them can cover a victim’s workplace as well as their home. Presently, the Bill says only that a perpetrator can be prevented from coming within a certain distance of where a victim lives. I acknowledge that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford, has tabled Amendment 75, which uses the term “specified premises”, but I would prefer the word “workplace” in the Bill, as that is stronger. The amendments I am proposing would ensure that those making domestic abuse protection notices and orders had the discretion to consider the workplace as well as the home.

The Government have said that they would expect a domestic abuse protection order to include restrictions on a perpetrator’s access to where the victim works if the court considered it necessary. However, expectation is not strong enough; the workplace should be referred to explicitly. Work is an important part of people’s lives; other than their home, it is the one place where they are present during fixed hours, normally in a fixed place. That makes a person vulnerable and victims need the added protection that my group of amendments would bring.

There is also the issue of the perpetrator seeking to drive a victim out of work to wreck their economic circumstances, as well as the other horrors they are seeking to inflict on a victim. Women have been murdered at work and the Government have a responsibility to ensure that victims are protected in all aspects of their lives. In 2005, Clare Bernal was killed by her ex-boyfriend—who worked on the same premises as she did—while she was at work. In 2010, Jane Clough was murdered by her ex-boyfriend as she walked into work. In 2014, Hollie Gazzard was murdered by her partner at her place of work. In 2016, four women were murdered in their workplaces by men. All these women would have benefited from stronger workplace protections.

The TUC undertook a survey and found that 47.3% of respondents said that their abusive partner turned up at their workplace and 43.6% said that they stalked them outside their workplace. Without the scope to extend domestic abuse protection orders to the workplace, victims will continue to be harassed, threatened and assaulted at work by abusive partners. Their job prospects and safety will continue to be threatened, and, tragically, as we have heard, in some cases they will be murdered.

Government Amendment 78 states that domestic abuse protection orders should avoid interfering with the perpetrator’s work, rather than, more specifically, their usual times of work. This should mean that in cases where a perpetrator and victim share a place of work, the perpetrator’s work patterns can be adapted to ensure the victim remains in work safely. It will be helpful if the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, can confirm that that is the intention when he responds at the end of this debate, and that that will be made clear in any guidance issued by the Government.

This is a really important issue; victims need certainty and clarity to provide them with the protection they need. I hope that at the end of this debate we can get a positive statement that we need to look at this further and come back to it on Report.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I was very glad to add my name to my noble friend’s amendments on the workplace. I am grateful to Unison, of which I am a member, for its briefing on this.

Like my noble friend, I am convinced of the need to ensure that victims of domestic abuse are protected at work and that their employers do everything that they can to support them. Domestic abuse is a trade union and workplace issue, as much as any other form of abuse that affects workers’ conditions and income. Home and work issues cannot always be neatly separated. Abusive and violent behaviour does not take place only in the home, but frequently crosses over into the workplace, where victims can experience stalking, threats, harassment and worse. Equally, work can be a lifeline to independent survival for victims of domestic abuse, as they ought to be able to leave their home and maintain a level of income independent from the perpetrator.

All victims should feel safe in the knowledge that they can take action to put their lives back on track with their employment secure, and to be protected while they are at work. This is an important area on which the Government must focus more. I would like to see the remit of domestic abuse protection orders explicitly extended to cover the workplace. They are, after all, intended to secure the immediate protection of a victim from a suspected perpetrator and set out the prohibitions and requirements necessary to do so. Under the current wording of the Bill, an order may prohibit a perpetrator from coming within a certain distance of the premises lived in by the victim. However, as we heard from my noble friend, there is no mention of the victim’s workplace. Originally, the Government said that they would expect a DAPO to include restrictions on a perpetrator’s access to where the victim worked only if the court considered it necessary, which is not explicit.

My noble friend has referred already to a TUC survey from 2015 which found that one in 10 of those who experienced domestic violence reported that the violence continued in the workplace. We surely must do more to ensure that victims will not be harassed at work by abusive partners threatening their job prospects—the importance of which I have referred to—and their safety.

At Second Reading, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, referred to the announcement last June that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy was undertaking a review of support in the workplace for victims of domestic abuse. Very recently, the key findings from that review were published, alongside the areas of work that the Government will take forward as a result. The report identifies that an effective employer response is founded on being able to spot the signs of domestic abuse and know how to signpost to specialist services. It also sets out the steps which the Government will take to work with employers to raise awareness of domestic abuse as a workplace issue. This is obviously very important. The outcome of the review also focuses on what best practice looks like and the positive role that employers can play. It also discusses the role that employment rights can play in giving employers and employees the certainty that they need.

The Government have promised to consider through a consultation the steps which can be taken for victims of domestic abuse, as well as to consult on taking forward their manifesto commitment to

“encourage flexible working and consult on making it the default unless employers have good reasons not to.”

This is clearly progress. I welcome it, and the amendment from the Government in this group that enables a court making a domestic abuse protection order to prohibit the person against whom it is made from coming within a specified distance of other premises, in addition to those where the person to be protected by the order lives. This is in parallel to the other amendment from the Government, which makes it clear that the requirements imposed on a person by a domestic abuse protection order, so far as practicable, must not interfere with the person’s work or their attendance at an educational establishment.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alderdice) (LD)]

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I do not want to go over ground that has already been expressed by so many noble Lords in this important debate, but I emphasise a concern that noble Lords have. In welcoming the Bill and applauding the Government’s attempts to drive this forward in as consensual a way as possible, it could all fail if the funding is not available to enable local authorities in particular, but other services too, to provide the support that has been identified, in all the work leading up to the Bill and in noble Lords’ debates.

That is what makes the amendment of my noble friend so important: it tries to define the provision that local authorities are responsible for much more closely. I hope that the Government recognise that giving greater assurance to noble Lords that local authorities have the ability to deliver the kinds of services we want will be crucial to their response. This is not just about funding—we know that—but we cannot ignore funding. The evidence that has been put forward by noble Lords about issues with refuge bed spaces is convincing.

As I understand it, 64% of total refuge referrals in England were declined last year. We know from the outstanding work of Women’s Aid in its annual survey of support providers that, for most organisations that provide these essential services, the local authority commission did not cover all or most of the cost of running the service. We should think about this: over the last year, as they have had to cope with real issues in raising funds, increased demands on their services and the uncertainty of local government finance, those lifesaving services have been under huge strain. We took the experience of Refuge as an example. Since 2011, it has experienced cuts to 80% of its services. Funding for refuges has been cut by an average of 50% and, as Refuge says, it is far from alone in that experience. The Covid-19 emergency has put further strain on the specialist sector: obviously many providers have had to transform the way in which they deliver services while meeting additional demand.

We all sign up to the idea of a national network of refuges to grow and meet demand but, without much greater clarity over the commissioning and strategic responsibilities of local government and the funding made available by central government, we must be very concerned about whether the Bill, when enacted, will be implemented properly.

I have one other point to make. I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, had to say about the importance of data collection. As he said, it seems that the police no longer collect data regarding the sex of victims. I think that is a mistake. It also emphasises the importance of new subsection (1B)(a) in Amendment 89 in relation to the information that a local authority is required to obtain. Obtaining the prevalence of trends in domestic abuse and other forms of violence against women and girls is vital to ensure that the full scale of the problem is known and the proper strategies can be adopted.

Overall, we want to hear tonight the Government recognise that in order to make sure that the Bill— a Bill that we really support—will actually work in practice, they are going to have to tackle the issue of local government responsibilities, direction and funding.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB) [V]]

My Lords, this is a very good Bill, as I said earlier, and it is excellent to include the references to local authorities. However, good Bills require to be improved, and consequently I support Amendments 93, 95, 100, 102 and 106.

I remind the Government how important it is to include victims of forced marriage and modern slavery in specialist services strategy guidance for local authorities, for the proposed boards and for other organisations. The particular group that needs special support is young people who are being coerced into a forced marriage. Some of these girls are under 18. They are in a particularly difficult group and may need suitable refuges if local authorities do not take them over sufficiently quickly.

In this group of amendments we have of course been concentrating on women and girls, but we ought to remember that 20% of those who suffer domestic abuse are men. Forced marriage does not only affect girls; it affects young men, some of whom may be gay or transgender, and we should not forget that men have need for refuges and for specialist services.

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[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP) (V)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in support of this group of amendments, in particular Amendment 176 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Polak, and other noble Lords. It seeks to ensure the provision of community services for as many victims of domestic abuse as possible. Noble Lords have spoken eloquently about access to community services for children and other groups, but I want to speak briefly about the issue of access to community services for older people.

I believe that this amendment will help to ensure that services for the elderly, who have not been looked after as well as they should have been, will not face any further disadvantages in the commissioning process. I am grateful for the briefing I have received from Hourglass, a charity devoted to safer ageing and the prevention of the abuse of the elderly. The charity makes clear what we all know, which is that there has been a very low level of uptake of services by older people who are suffering domestic abuse. Sadly, we know that such abuse does not apply just to younger people and those in adult life; it is all too prevalent in older life as well, so people need access to services that are appropriate to their needs, regardless of their age.

The Bill currently sets out a duty to be placed on local authorities to provide accommodation-based services but not, as we have been discussing, community-based services. As has also been said, this can lead to a situation where the former services will be prioritised to the detriment of community-based services. This amendment will ensure a balance between them.

The fact is that older people are much more likely to access community-based services rather than refuge services. Women’s Aid has said that, from 2010 to 2017, only 2.7% of service users were over the age of 65, with 2% using community-based services and 0.7% refuge-based ones. The lower number of older people, especially men, who are accessing services mean that they need to be protected. That means ensuring proper access to community-based services. I also support the amendment seeking to extend the statutory duty beyond local authorities to police and crime commissioners and clinical commissioning groups.

I want to highlight the low level of service uptake by older people, so we must not do anything that might reduce those services or put barriers in the way of increasing access. The reasons for the low level of uptake more generally should be closely examined and more should be done to ensure that everyone can come forward and get the help and resources that are appropriate to their circumstances. The provision of properly funded community-based services is vital if all victims of domestic abuse are to be properly looked after. I believe that the amendment will go some way towards addressing that.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) (V)]

My Lords, I am glad to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, and to endorse what he has said about the risks of abuse in relation to older people. We have two later groups of amendments where we will be able to debate these issues, so it is important to ensure that we do not miss out or fail to take seriously enough the very real risk of older people who can be the victims of many forms of abuse. However, little attention has been paid to them in past years.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alderdice) (LD)]

I have received requests to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I have listened very carefully to the Minister’s response, particularly on Amendment 176, for which I thank her. None the less, does she not accept that favouring accommodation-based services, as set out in Part 4, is bound to impact on local authorities’ spending decisions and make them move funding towards accommodation-based services at the expense of community-based services? How will the Government ensure that a proportion of the additional £125 million goes to community services? Will it not be possible for us to give Ministers regulation-making powers to bring in a duty on community services after the mapping exercise has been completed? That would at least give us some way to ensure that the Government have statutory provision in the light of the mapping exercise.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, the Part 4 duty in the Bill does not preclude the provision of community-based services. I understand what the noble Lord is saying: because local authorities have the duty to provide accommodation-based services, that means they will not provide community-based services. However, I do not think it does. There is a recognition that we need to explore this further, hence we have committed the domestic abuse commissioner to doing this mapping exercise. That work clearly needs to be explored, but it is very hard to make a bid to the Treasury without knowing exactly where the gaps lie. That is not to say there are no gaps—I am sure there are— but we are just not clear on what the actual ask of the Treasury will be.

As to whether we can ensure that some of the money given to local authorities goes to community-based services, local authorities clearly know the needs of their area, and I hope that they would allocate the money accordingly.