Domestic Abusers: Reoffending

Lord Laming Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I hope the noble Lord will know that offences have been excluded from the SDS40 early release scheme. Those include sex offences, irrespective of sentence length; serious violent offenders with a sentence of four years of more; and specific offences linked to domestic violence, irrespective of sentence length, including stalking, coercive controlling behaviour and non-fatal strangulation. So the noble Lord’s basic premise is, I am afraid to say to the House, wrong. Domestic violence perpetrators are not being included in the programme he referred to.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister will know that, in a high proportion of households in which there is domestic violence, there are also very vulnerable young children. Could the Minister assure the House that the services that are tackling domestic violence will always give a high priority to the protection of children who are caught up in these very unhappy and destructive experiences?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Children should be central, because they will have witnessed domestic violence and potentially had their outlook on life, towards both their mother and father, impacted by that domestic violence, and will remain scarred by that. So it is extremely important that, as well as intervening on perpetrators, be they male or indeed female, we also have to ensure that we look at the family as a whole and what is best for individuals, particularly the children who have been impacted. I cannot give the noble Lord specific comfort today but, again, if he looks at the violence against women and girls strategy, published in due course, he will I hope see a range of mechanisms there to ensure we take a whole-family approach to this issue.