Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Mann Excerpts

Report stage & Lords Hansard
Monday 8th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mendelsohn (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I speak in support of this group of amendments, which I have signed. I associate myself with the excellent speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, and my colleagues. I also thank the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and the officials of the domestic abuse commissioner for their engagements on these amendments.

There is indeed progress. As my noble friends have said, there are some clear indications for some modest but significant improvements as outlined. Crucially, I hope we will hear some reassurance, building on what was said in Committee, that statutory guidance, as provided for in Clause 73, will take into account the measures proposed in the amendments.

It is also important to note that there is a host of additional elements throughout this Bill which support the plight of victims and will provide new opportunities for assistance and help, including DAPOs, the role of the domestic abuse commissioner and many others. There is no doubt that more will be done over time. At its very heart, this is a form of gender discrimination that we really cannot accept.

The Government have made a number of arguments as to why they could not go further or place these matters on the face of the Bill. Indeed, there is a reasonable point that the Government have not had enough time to tease through all the different implications for all faiths on this matter. There is a less persuasive point about drafting preferences.

There are two arguments, however, that are surely utterly wrong and incompatible with the underlying intentions behind this Bill: namely, that this is only domestic abuse in certain circumstances and that English law alone cannot solve this matter. A plainly gender-specific arrangement which places women where they have less rights and power in courts, which are exclusively run by the decisions of men, is wrong. This is not a situation we should accept, nor is it an arrangement we should settle for, even under any calculation of what religious freedoms should be accorded to faith communities in our country.

In Holland, the courts have been making rulings which have included fines and even imprisonment of husbands unwilling to deliver gets, with all the support of the rabbinate and the religious courts. In fact, under Dutch jurisprudence since 2002, which was strengthened in specific legislation just a couple of years ago—and which has been accessed by Jewish women across Europe, including, previously, some from the UK who, unfortunately, can no longer access it now—the secular courts are able to unchain Jewish women in these circumstances. The distinguished Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the head of the conference of European orthodox rabbis, supports this measure, as does rabbi Aryeh Ralbag, the former chief rabbi of Amsterdam, who now works in the orthodox courts in New York to bring reform and change. They support the Dutch judiciary’s proactive approach and recognise that, over 2,000 years, the role of the religious courts and the nature of Jewish communities in modern times is different. In response to the opposition of those who resist any notion that secular values or laws should ever interfere in how the Jewish law operates in liberal democracies. Rabbi Ralbag has powerfully said:

“Am I concerned that this is creating a precedent for interference? In some places, yes, I am. But I and every rabbi need to measure this against the pain and suffering that is being visited on Jewish women right now. And right now, this is what we can do to help”.


Regrettably, we are a long way from that here in the UK, but this is something that I think should inspire us that more can and must be done through this Bill—and indeed after it. I have been truly shocked and humbled over the issues presented by these amendments. I have been contacted by tens of women in this situation since I first spoke out. I have heard the most traumatic stories, including with people I knew, and in some cases people I have socialised with. How true it is that you never know what is going on, even with people you think you know well. The private torments, appalling behaviour, abuse and control—it has been utterly shocking. How important it is that there are excellent organisations such as the Jewish Women’s Aid and GETTout UK. I have been shocked at how some members of the legal profession have been providing the use of the get as a bargaining chip to ensure that women cannot receive what the law is clear and firm they are fully entitled to.

These issues go much deeper than the granting of the get and involve many cases that do not even touch the sides of the religious courts, where they are prepared to intervene. So while I am grateful to the Government for the progress that I hope the Minister will confirm during his speech, we cannot be satisfied with where we are. There is a huge duty on leaders in the Jewish community to face up to this dark side. While thus far it does not do what the Dutch have done, I hope the Bill will make them think and come round to proposing more legislative interventions themselves. I hope Jewish women will find comfort in the support that the Bill will give them in their struggles ahead, and for that we must be grateful.

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to listen to and follow my noble friend Lord Mendelsohn and the other sponsors of these amendments.

I wish to make two brief points. The first is that whenever there is an unequivocal imbalance in power relations, that affects behaviour. The behaviour relayed to me in the context of these amendments particularly concerns women who remain in abusive relationships precisely because, in any definition of “negotiation”, the odds of getting out are stacked against them. One cannot go fairly into a separation negotiation if the other side has additional cards that are greater than the ones you possess. That imbalance affects ongoing behaviour; it will be affecting people’s behaviour now, as my noble friend Lord Mendelsohn rightly pointed out, in cases where perhaps no one will know anything at all other than the woman directly affected. There is a responsibility on the Government to listen acutely to the expertise being brought.

That brings me to my second point—and it is an apposite time to be making it in the context of Lord Speaker elections and people thinking about the size of the House—about the diversity of this place. There is no purpose in having an unelected Second Chamber if it does not represent the diversity of the communities out there. With these amendments and the Government’s arguments against them, we see a juxtaposition of the best and the not so good. Here we see a community effectively represented, by Members from across the range of the political spectrum knowledgably putting forward their expertise to the Government and to the House. But if we are to have a purpose here and carry out the precise role that an unelected Chamber needs to, we need to be far more inclusive of all communities across the country. The amendments, as clearly as any that I have ever seen, absolutely demonstrate the strengths of this House but also, in a sense—and I anticipate that this will be the Government’s response—part of its ongoing weaknesses, in that we are not inclusive enough of all communities.

I congratulate those who have brought forward their expertise from their community for the rest of us. With such cross-party wisdom, it would be foolish of us to ignore that expertise.

[Lord Polak (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Mann, who, as a non-Jew, has done, and continues to do, so much in the fight against anti-Semitism.

The well-informed debate in Committee was a good one and today’s debate has been just as important and impressive. I am delighted to confirm the assertions by the noble Lord, Lord Winston, about his mother, the late Ruth Winston-Fox; she was a force to be reckoned with but also a wonderfully warm, creative and successful campaigner. She clearly produced quite an impressive son, too.

The Bill, which is welcomed across the House and beyond, is about helping as many people who need it as possible. That is why I support my noble friend Lady Altmann’s amendments; as always, she made the case strongly and eloquently. I too am grateful to the Government, specifically on the Front Bench, my noble friends Lady Williams and Lord Wolfson. There can be no doubt in my mind that withholding a get is abusive behaviour. I also pay tribute to the inspiring work of Jewish Women’s Aid.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Mann Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 17th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I do not intend to replicate the points made by three excellent and very focused contributions; my comments will be not be instead of but additional and complementary to those, but I will stick to my complementary points because that will assist with brevity and perhaps even with clarity.

In backing the amendment, I want to bring to the House two examples from my experience. The first is the major investigation into heroin abuse that I carried out in 2002 in the mining villages of north Nottinghamshire, where I spoke to more than 300 local heroin users. I found one extraordinary correlation that I did not expect. While they had very different stories, backgrounds and situations, every single one of them bar none had suffered some form of major trauma in childhood. That trauma had not been noted by the system—by which I mean primarily schools and, in some instances, social services, but I am concentrating particularly on what schools missed—or, where it was noted, it was not addressed.

I cited in that inquiry specific examples of young children, primary school children, who got to school late because they did not know when they were meant to get up, because no parent was available to get them out of bed. So they would arrive at school at various times and in various forms of wear to try to participate. My experience was that they were not as successful in school as they could have been. But there was no additionality in the local authority, in its processes and in its funding to identify those problems.

Some children had experienced significant violence in their household, sometimes done to them, and, of course, where there was domestic violence against the mother, there was often violence also against the children. That was a critical part of the trauma in many cases. Such trauma can manifest in very different ways at an early age. One of the most common ways that I found was truancy; in other words, the simple act of not attending school, particularly when it was secondary school. What I noted with some disdain—and I continued to do so for many years, though I would argue against it—was how certain children were categorised as disruptive and their behaviour regarded as dysfunctional, which, on the face of it, it sometimes certainly was, and they did not attend school and school was often happy not to have them.

The fundamental problem that then arises is the effect on all the core communication skills, not least literacy. In a disproportionate number of cases, that directly correlates with domestic abuse, as spelled out in this Bill, in the household. That is example number one.

Example number two is that of a friend of mine, Terry Lodge. He was badly abused as a child. There was always violence, and as a consequence Terry did not go to school. He did not go to primary school as often as would have been helpful, and he did not go to secondary school at all. He was forced to work, and put into major industrial manual work at the age of 11 by his family.

Terry’s is one of the cases I took to the national child abuse inquiry. I represented him there, and I still assist him. He has had a full apology from the local authority, but no compensation yet, four years after his apology. That is absurd and disgraceful—and, more importantly, in my view, damaging. All the way through, Terry Lodge has had one primary request: he never learned to read or write. Nobody is prepared to address that fully. His compensation, if it ever emerges, will be for being handicapped in the labour market, because he could not get to the levels he would have reached if he had been able to read and write.

That directly relates to this amendment, and what it would create. That requirement, in terms of what local authorities do and how they see the world that they are dealing with, is a fundamental weakness in our systems that still exists today. I therefore commend this amendment to the Government. It is vital, and I hope they will accept it.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I declare an interest as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Speech and Language Difficulties, as patron of the British Stammering Association, and as a stammerer myself. I warmly endorse all that previous speakers have said, and I thank the Minister for his helpful meeting a few days ago.

I shall briefly address the issue of local authority support, as addressed by paragraph (c) of this important amendment. It is good that the Government have confirmed that local authority strategies will be published, in line with the public sector accessibility regulations, but we need more. Local authorities must also ensure that those will be available in properly inclusive formats, which people without mobiles or access to the internet can see, and in languages other than English.

That is because speech and language therapists, as is mentioned in the useful briefing from the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, report that various domestic abuse assessments, often verbally communicated, have not always been understood by people with communication needs, because of the level of understanding, retention and processing required, and often also because of their state of mind, exacerbated by stress brought on by abuse. It is difficult for people who are accustomed to communicating with ease to understand the real impediments to understanding experienced by some of those with communication needs.

The consequence, of course, is that assessments will not reflect the problem, appropriate support will not be forthcoming, and any rehabilitation or prevention programme will fail. What a waste of time and resources. Sadly, it is not uncommon for people with learning disabilities, including children, to be abused, and they are at greater risk of an inadequate professional response if we cannot ensure an effective way to communicate with them.

We need more developed and targeted guidance on how to do this—for instance, following my noble friend Lady Andrews, we could insert references, at paragraphs 81 and 105 in chapter 2 of the draft statutory guidance framework, to accessible information and inclusive communication, and we could state explicitly, in Chapter 4, paragraph 125, that any reference to risk assessment must list speech, language and communication needs as a specific vulnerability which requires an appropriate format. Plain English would be a good start.